Speaker 1: Money can't funk your marriage up. Well, it's a good
Speaker 1: thing for me. I don't really give a shit about
Speaker 1: money like that. So I've been here since we was broke.
Speaker 1: That it's a dead ass moment. Okay, dead ass. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Cadine and Devoured and we're the Ellises. You may
Speaker 1: know us from posting funny videos with our boys and
Speaker 1: reading each other publicly as a form of therapy. Wait,
Speaker 1: I'll make you need therapy most days. Wow. And one
Speaker 1: more important thing to mention, we're married. We are. We
Speaker 1: created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's
Speaker 1: most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 1: To the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
Speaker 1: is the term that we say every day. So when
Speaker 1: we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth,
Speaker 1: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We're about
Speaker 1: to take phillows off to a whole new level. Dead
Speaker 1: ass starts right now. I'm gonna take you guys back
Speaker 1: to college before before it was even about like really
Speaker 1: really like money about to say, because I know I was,
Speaker 1: we was both broke, but um Codeine used to get
Speaker 1: a stipend for her and I used to get meal
Speaker 1: points because I was a scholarship athlete, and Codeine and
Speaker 1: I would sit down in the beginning of each semester,
Speaker 1: I would get sixteen hundred meal points, which equated to
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred dollars for the semester, which we carry us
Speaker 1: about four months. And I don't know how much you
Speaker 1: used to get for a stipend for already. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: forget that, and I get to pay paid like every week.
Speaker 1: It wasn't much though, but but Codeine and I used
Speaker 1: to sit down and she would go shopping for the
Speaker 1: house with the money she got for the stipend from
Speaker 1: her are a. But then she and I would go
Speaker 1: to Dutch treats and would go shopping with my meal
Speaker 1: points for the apartment to make sure we had everything.
Speaker 1: And if I used to shop it for the house
Speaker 1: because we didn't really have apartment. Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was cute. And I remember like this, particularly this six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for a lot of my other athlete friends
Speaker 1: would not last more than maybe a month and a half,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about football. They were eating. You know,
Speaker 1: you're just going and you spend hundreds of dollars on
Speaker 1: food you're buying waters, You're doing all these different things.
Speaker 1: But I remember having Codeine and she was like my
Speaker 1: life partner even in college at this point. And of
Speaker 1: course I didn't eat as much as an offensive and
Speaker 1: defensive linement, but I was in this process of trying
Speaker 1: to gain weight. So we would literally sit down and
Speaker 1: map out every purchase to make sure that we maximize
Speaker 1: this money because at the end of the semester we
Speaker 1: didn't want any more money on the car. What we
Speaker 1: used to do was when the money was still left over,
Speaker 1: we would go by perishable, non perishable goods like waters
Speaker 1: can goes for the next year to make sure that
Speaker 1: even when there was no money left, if we had
Speaker 1: if we needed anything, we had it. And when I
Speaker 1: sit back and think about this story, it kind of
Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me of how we created this
Speaker 1: bond about finances early on, because we needed every dollar
Speaker 1: to survive, and it was the pulling of money and
Speaker 1: resources together. For me, yes, yes it was. It was
Speaker 1: always about pulling money and resources. But this is this
Speaker 1: is one funny thing in particular, right. I used to
Speaker 1: remember when I used to have Willie Cologne come by
Speaker 1: and eat and Willy used to come by and he
Speaker 1: would eat. He would eat a lot because he's offensive
Speaker 1: lineman playfoot Stealers on the Super Bowl. This is in college,
Speaker 1: and Kni used to look at me and be like,
Speaker 1: all right, now, you haven't willie all of these leftovers
Speaker 1: when that meal car run out. Don't be looking at
Speaker 1: me for my already budget because you had to fee.
Speaker 1: You had to feed your staff too. Whenever we had
Speaker 1: like trainings and stuff, and it was like fifteen of us.
Speaker 1: At one point, I was coming up with meals every
Speaker 1: I was. I was doing this mom thing long before
Speaker 1: I was that nineteen and twenty years old learning how
Speaker 1: to balance a budget. In two thousand and four, were
Speaker 1: doing baby. We were managing money early. Now how that
Speaker 1: translates to marriage? How that goes all? Right? Karaoke Kadeen
Speaker 1: has a very special song to her because this song
Speaker 1: is when she used to work in matt This is
Speaker 1: a very nostalgic song for me. And the funny thing
Speaker 1: is that used to pay It used to play on
Speaker 1: the playlist that we had at MAC. There were these
Speaker 1: preset playlists and they uhould just come on and it
Speaker 1: was my theme song when I would hear it come
Speaker 1: On because you know I'm going too the store and
Speaker 1: see what my goal was for the day, how much
Speaker 1: money I had to make. And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: then my theme song will come on shortly after they
Speaker 1: gave me like a superpower. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: all the words to it, but I know for the
Speaker 1: most part, this is something like, I need dollars. Dollars.
Speaker 1: Dollars is what I need. I need dollars, dollars, Dallas
Speaker 1: is what I need. I need dollars dollars, Dallas is
Speaker 1: what I need. If I share with you my story,
Speaker 1: will you share your dollar with me? I remember Codon
Speaker 1: walking like she'd be at home getting ready, right, she
Speaker 1: didn't realize that this song was stuck in her head
Speaker 1: and fixing dinner, working on something all here, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the hell are you singing like? But it became
Speaker 1: my model for life. It became my theme. I need
Speaker 1: to get all the dollars clearly. So it translated for
Speaker 1: mac to our everyday life, and then I manifested it
Speaker 1: into our marriage absolutely. So look, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we're gonna get back into this
Speaker 1: story time and why it's so important for people to
Speaker 1: be able to discuss money with their spouses or significant
Speaker 1: others if you're not married yet. So we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break and pay some bills. So we got
Speaker 1: some dollars. Dollars that is what we need, all right.
Speaker 1: So we're back. We're back, We're back. We're back those
Speaker 1: college days. I think about this story times, right, I
Speaker 1: want to I want to transition out of that into
Speaker 1: a little bit of um. It was a Twitter battle
Speaker 1: at one point earlier in the year, or I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, I
Speaker 1: don't know. But there was a young lady who was
Speaker 1: sitting next to her boyfriend, and she was talking about
Speaker 1: how she makes her money. She gives her money to
Speaker 1: her boyfriend. Her boyfriend gives her an allowance so she
Speaker 1: can live or do whatever. People were clowning her because
Speaker 1: they were saying she was giving her boyfriend too much control.
Speaker 1: They were laughing at the amount that he gives her
Speaker 1: per month, and he was like, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do with that? Blah blah blah blah blah. But um,
Speaker 1: the bigger message that I got out of it was
Speaker 1: that the two of them were working together for something
Speaker 1: that works for them, and I wanted to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how and why that's so important in
Speaker 1: relationships because because um Kaudina and I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of money, especially in college. I remember when I
Speaker 1: was still on an allow once from my parents, and
Speaker 1: my dad used to give me a hundred dollars a
Speaker 1: month to get through the semester. Remember that hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a month. My brother a hundred dollars a month on
Speaker 1: dollars a day that you're talking about three dollars a day,
Speaker 1: three dollars and thirty cents a day. I used to
Speaker 1: My father used to give in and God bless my
Speaker 1: Popsy gave me what he could. But my father, my
Speaker 1: brother Brian would also send me a thousand dollars because
Speaker 1: he used to get his stype and he would send
Speaker 1: me a thousand dollars of his pell check because he
Speaker 1: qualified for PAL. That was how I was able to
Speaker 1: spread my money out and to do some extracurricular things
Speaker 1: because my meal points was for food. But the hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a month thousand dollars. Yeah, remember that one time
Speaker 1: I went and bought them sneakers, so I had saved
Speaker 1: I saved the hundred dollars a month and I never
Speaker 1: spent it because I was balancing all my money and
Speaker 1: I had about four hundred dollars left at the end
Speaker 1: of the semester and those Jordans came out, those brand
Speaker 1: new they were three hundred dollar pair Jordan's, and Codeine
Speaker 1: was like, let's go, let's get something that you want.
Speaker 1: So I went to the store, I bought these Jordan's,
Speaker 1: got home instantly, got buyers more and I said, yo,
Speaker 1: She's like, we happen. That's I'm taking these more. And
Speaker 1: I took them Jordan's back because I just couldn't see
Speaker 1: the value and having three dollar sneakers when I only
Speaker 1: had four hundred dollars in my account. You were very
Speaker 1: mature financially early, Like, there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: I feel like I just was not aware of because
Speaker 1: my parents for the most part, just made sure like, okay,
Speaker 1: things were taken care of. But there was never really
Speaker 1: a lot of sit down lessons on finance per se.
Speaker 1: You know, my dad would give me the general save
Speaker 1: your money, you know, but um also to me just
Speaker 1: trying to learn and grow and just do different things
Speaker 1: with my money. Of course, I've learned that certain things
Speaker 1: weren't a value. Um, certain things that it's had to
Speaker 1: have in that moment because you know, you're a girl,
Speaker 1: you're shopping, you see sues, you like, you know, you
Speaker 1: want to treat yourself. Um. But yeah, I learned from
Speaker 1: you very early on a lot when it came to
Speaker 1: money and finances and stuff. So where did that come
Speaker 1: from you? I think it was It was from my father, Like, um,
Speaker 1: it's also upbringing. My my father explained to me real
Speaker 1: early in life that it's my responsibility as a man
Speaker 1: to be able to control my finances, even even in
Speaker 1: the house. Like when you talk about allowance, right, it's
Speaker 1: a trigger word for some people, predominantly women, because women
Speaker 1: don't like to be controlled. But in my house and
Speaker 1: in my grandparents house, my grandfather was the breadwinner. He
Speaker 1: would come home, he would bring the checks home, give
Speaker 1: it to my grandmother. My grandmother would pay all of
Speaker 1: the bills, managed the household. She was the estate manager
Speaker 1: back then, managed the household, make sure the kids had clothes,
Speaker 1: make sure the food was taken care of, and then
Speaker 1: she would give my grandfather an allowance, and what he
Speaker 1: got he could do whatever he wanted to do with.
Speaker 1: And it's funny to me to hear so many people
Speaker 1: get triggered by the word allowance because it's all automatically
Speaker 1: attached to a woman. It's like you have to give
Speaker 1: a woman allowance, which is not always the case. We
Speaker 1: think of allowance. You to give children allowances generally, So
Speaker 1: of course it's a control thing because the parents may think, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, my child may not be equipped to
Speaker 1: know what to do with their money, they may squander
Speaker 1: their money. So if I give them an allowance, absolutely
Speaker 1: they can then manage it from there. So my biggest
Speaker 1: thing about listening and you're absolutely right right when you
Speaker 1: when you think about allowance, you think about a parent
Speaker 1: giving a child an allowance, and no one wants to
Speaker 1: feel like a child when you're an adult in a relationship.
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is in the relationship,
Speaker 1: one person is typically more apt to using money properly
Speaker 1: than the other. Right, sometimes you have people evenly yoke financially,
Speaker 1: but even they may not agree on different things. But
Speaker 1: if one person has a higher business or financial acumen
Speaker 1: and the other, it only makes sense to put the
Speaker 1: other one on an allowance if they want to build
Speaker 1: a life together. Perfect example, Codeine and I never called
Speaker 1: it in allowance, but we really operate under the same circumstances. Right, um,
Speaker 1: in today's life, Coadina and I four tax purposes and
Speaker 1: because when you're into making money, you want to constantly
Speaker 1: keep the money in your home. Right, So everyone in
Speaker 1: the house is under an allowance number one. Right, So
Speaker 1: all of our money comes in through our production company.
Speaker 1: Because as influencers, as actors, as producers, um, you have
Speaker 1: a loan out company and this protects your estate. So
Speaker 1: rather than getting paid directly from Tyler Perry Studios or
Speaker 1: when you do brand partnerships, they don't pay codem directly,
Speaker 1: don't pay me directly, They pay our loan out company.
Speaker 1: Our loan out company, which is an LLC, protects us
Speaker 1: from being sued if there are ever any issues. We
Speaker 1: also have our home or in the process of putting
Speaker 1: our home and the majority of our assets in the
Speaker 1: trust to protect us for safety reasons. With that being said,
Speaker 1: all of our money comes to one big pot. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how much money I make, how much
Speaker 1: money Condins makes. All the money coming to a big pot,
Speaker 1: and it's not really a clocking you brought in this,
Speaker 1: it's just it's not necessary. Well we do, that's why
Speaker 1: she's on allow um. But now all the money comes
Speaker 1: into a pot, and then from the pot it trickles
Speaker 1: down to all the things we want to take care
Speaker 1: of first. So once the money comes into the pot,
Speaker 1: of course you take money out to pay taxes. But
Speaker 1: since they pay our loan, our company and not our
Speaker 1: us personally, we're allowed to write certain things off. So
Speaker 1: first and foremost we have our four one K plans, I,
Speaker 1: I A plans, and our plans that we have for
Speaker 1: the boys, so we make sure when that lump sum
Speaker 1: of money comes in, everything goes to protect them and
Speaker 1: protect us long term. After that, Codeine and I both
Speaker 1: take salaries from that loan out company, which ultimately means
Speaker 1: we both get paid from the company that which is
Speaker 1: a business. Like employees. Some people may call out and allowance,
Speaker 1: but for us, it's a way for us to pay
Speaker 1: ourselves what we think that we need in order to
Speaker 1: survive from a month to month basis, and even from
Speaker 1: then we get our money in a salary. That money
Speaker 1: from a salary goes into one account, which is our
Speaker 1: main account, checking account. But then both of us are
Speaker 1: on an allowance because that money, after it comes at
Speaker 1: the salary, we take money out to pay taxes. Then
Speaker 1: we both have an expense account, and in that expense
Speaker 1: account is our budgetary, our money we use budgetarily every month.
Speaker 1: To say, you know what, if I wanted to blow
Speaker 1: this money on shoes, I can because all of my
Speaker 1: responsibilities are taken care of. If I wanted to save
Speaker 1: it to to donate to a charity, I can do that.
Speaker 1: If I want to save it to give my wife
Speaker 1: something special for Christmas, I can do that without her knowing.
Speaker 1: Now why do people ask why do y'all have so
Speaker 1: many accounts and why do y'all feel to have different accounts?
Speaker 1: It's clear if we had one account and I wanted
Speaker 1: to surprise to them by getting her something, and she
Speaker 1: has access to the account and she sees guccio weave
Speaker 1: a time, she knows it's not for me, So she's
Speaker 1: going to know that I bought something from her. We
Speaker 1: try to at least give ourselves autonomy over our own finances.
Speaker 1: Once we've taken care of all the responsibilities and now
Speaker 1: we have the ability as individuals and adults to make
Speaker 1: decisions on what we want to do. With the money
Speaker 1: that we consider is an expense. One thing, Yeah, one
Speaker 1: thing that I agree on early is that the main
Speaker 1: household bills, the livelihood stuff, the children, investments, savings, all
Speaker 1: of that has to be taken care of first. So
Speaker 1: that's money that goes into the one big pot. Those
Speaker 1: responsibilities are paramount. Then by the time devoting our sees
Speaker 1: whatever money we've see in our separate accounts, that's like
Speaker 1: literally the trickle down after the trickle down, because everything
Speaker 1: is taken care of, and I can feel comfortable saying,
Speaker 1: all right, this is money that I can do mice
Speaker 1: miscellaneous things with, you know. So that's why I feel
Speaker 1: comfort in knowing that I didn't know how this whole
Speaker 1: hierarchy of finances was going to work, because again I
Speaker 1: was not necessarily the one who was always savvy. I
Speaker 1: remember days, you know, early on in our relationship, where
Speaker 1: you know, I would just go and I would just devout.
Speaker 1: Gave me this credit card. He put my name on
Speaker 1: it to have me as an authorized user, because I
Speaker 1: had no credit when I first met Um. My parents
Speaker 1: didn't think of, I guess, putting me on a credit
Speaker 1: card early on, even though my parents had my dad's
Speaker 1: particularly has a really good credit didn't think to put
Speaker 1: me on his credit card early so that way I
Speaker 1: could be an authorized user and build my credit. So
Speaker 1: when we met and I'm in college and it's like
Speaker 1: the stuff I want to do, I want to get
Speaker 1: a car, I have no credit, so Devot put me
Speaker 1: on as a user, and I'm like, oh, I have
Speaker 1: a credit card now, okay, great, what's the limit of
Speaker 1: this credit cards? Great? So to me, I'm thinking, all right,
Speaker 1: I can just go ahead and use this whenever I
Speaker 1: needed to use it. And then Devout literally had to
Speaker 1: explain to me like getting you know, you like this
Speaker 1: interest on this card and you have to pay more
Speaker 1: than the minimum and you have to and I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait a second. So the trickery for me, I was like,
Speaker 1: so you tricked me. You gave me all this money,
Speaker 1: and then you tricked me because now I owe more
Speaker 1: than the money I spent. And then it really had
Speaker 1: me thinking more so about did I need this purchase
Speaker 1: in that moment. You know, that taught me that lesson,
Speaker 1: which is something that you wouldn't even think a spouse
Speaker 1: or at that time my boyfriend would be teaching me.
Speaker 1: And I could have felt away and been like, well,
Speaker 1: the valuere treating me like a child whatever, whatever. And
Speaker 1: I had moments where I felt like that, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I then had to lean on him because I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, he just clearly knows more. If I was
Speaker 1: able to make a hundred dollars a month stretch throughout
Speaker 1: the entire school year to have four hundred dollars left
Speaker 1: at the end of the school year, and I used
Speaker 1: to look at him sometimes like how did you do it?
Speaker 1: And it was really just because he was the stronger
Speaker 1: partner when it came to that. And I say that
Speaker 1: to say with the young lady who was getting all
Speaker 1: of this backlash, maybe in their dynamic in their relationship,
Speaker 1: her husband was the one that was a little bit
Speaker 1: more savvy girlfriend. But that and that, and that's that's
Speaker 1: I don't want to cut you or finish your thought,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Yeah, But if their boyfriend
Speaker 1: and girlfriend, they may have a common goal that they're
Speaker 1: working towards. Maybe they're trying to build to save for
Speaker 1: a house or for a wedding, or they know they
Speaker 1: want to be engaged. That's the long term girl goal.
Speaker 1: So they're like, all right, if we put each other
Speaker 1: on some sort of allowance, or she may know I'm
Speaker 1: not so good with money because I know if I
Speaker 1: had this extra money here, I'm gonna blow it. So
Speaker 1: she might have said, Babe, put me on this regiment
Speaker 1: right now so I know what I am allowed to spend,
Speaker 1: so that way I can have a little bit more control.
Speaker 1: We just don't know. But that's what happens when you
Speaker 1: have those short minute videos and know and this, this
Speaker 1: is what happens when you put things out into the
Speaker 1: social media universe, and if you are expecting affirmation from
Speaker 1: your peers that this is the right thing. That's why
Speaker 1: it's it's toxic. I hate using that works. Everyone use it.
Speaker 1: It's toxic. But it's also like it's dumb because if
Speaker 1: people don't know the inner workings of your relationship and
Speaker 1: you tell them what you're doing right, most people won't
Speaker 1: even have enough context to give an educated opinion on
Speaker 1: whether or not this makes any sense. And keywords like
Speaker 1: allowance or he lets me or he allows me tend
Speaker 1: to send people running in the opposite direction, especially if
Speaker 1: they're single people watching a video. You know what I'm
Speaker 1: saying that I ain't let nobody do this and and
Speaker 1: it's like we as people have to stop judging other
Speaker 1: couples for sharing information that works for them. Both of
Speaker 1: them telling this video looked extremely happy. I have to
Speaker 1: say that it didn't look like she was under distress
Speaker 1: an allowance, and seems she was like, this is what
Speaker 1: we're doing together. And years from now, if they continue
Speaker 1: to have that camaraderie and work together, when they're living
Speaker 1: in their dream home with their kids and their nice
Speaker 1: cards and they're working together, people are gonna say, uh,
Speaker 1: that's why they did it. But at the time people
Speaker 1: are not gonna understand. They're not gonna understand at all.
Speaker 1: And I have friends who when I first gave Codeine
Speaker 1: credit card this when I was playing in the NFL.
Speaker 1: She was my girlfriend the time. She was not my wife,
Speaker 1: she was not my fiance. But I saw that Condeen
Speaker 1: didn't have any credit. So my first thing was, we
Speaker 1: have to establish credit. Let's we have to get a
Speaker 1: card in your name, we have to get a credit
Speaker 1: card in your name, and we have to pay these
Speaker 1: bills on time in order to give you credit so
Speaker 1: that you can start to make purchases. Because the greatest
Speaker 1: asset you have is credit because you can use other
Speaker 1: people's moneys to other people's money to provide you with
Speaker 1: the lifestyle you need and pay it back on your
Speaker 1: terms if you're discipline. Plus, there's no liability. And this
Speaker 1: is why it's important for people understand when it comes
Speaker 1: to credit there's no liability when you use a credit card,
Speaker 1: right you pay insurance on the credit card. If you
Speaker 1: go to use a credit card and someone gets your
Speaker 1: credit card numbers and they stipe the credit card for
Speaker 1: a million dollars dollars and it's not you, You were
Speaker 1: not responsible for that a million dollars, that's the credit
Speaker 1: card company, and you pay insurance on that. If you
Speaker 1: use your debit card and they get your debit card
Speaker 1: pin and they start taking money out of your account,
Speaker 1: you're responsible for that money. While they figure it out,
Speaker 1: that money won't be there. That's why of it it's
Speaker 1: so important. But I made a choice to help my
Speaker 1: girlfriend at the time build her credit because she and
Speaker 1: I always talked about planning life together. At the time
Speaker 1: when Codeine was running up the credit card, didn't understand it,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to figure out because this wasn't
Speaker 1: only a mistake on Codeine's part. This is a mistake
Speaker 1: on my part not explaining how to use a credit card.
Speaker 1: I just assumed that her parents had to talk to
Speaker 1: her about credit cards the same way my father talked
Speaker 1: to me. So I gave her the credit card, and
Speaker 1: then when the credit card was at his max, I
Speaker 1: was like, what did you do here? You only had
Speaker 1: this card for two weeks, and she was just like,
Speaker 1: I thought, that's how you used it. You used it
Speaker 1: and then you pay it off. And I was just like, no,
Speaker 1: once you max out the credit card and you have
Speaker 1: it high, that will lower your credit score if you
Speaker 1: don't pay enough every month, and if you continuous to
Speaker 1: pay the minimum, you'll be paying more over time because
Speaker 1: you're only paying off interest and not the principle. I
Speaker 1: didn't explain that before I gave her the card because
Speaker 1: I was twenty two and she was twenty two. So
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends was at the time, why
Speaker 1: would you give a credit card? Given her too much responsibility?
Speaker 1: And everybody had all of these opinions about how we
Speaker 1: should work right, and I was just like, uh, guys,
Speaker 1: this is my girlfriend, not yours, and it will all
Speaker 1: trying to give me solutions on what I should do.
Speaker 1: Take the credit card from make up, pay all of this,
Speaker 1: do this. And I was like, you know what, let
Speaker 1: me just speak to Cadein to figure out how we
Speaker 1: can figure this out together as opposed to trying to
Speaker 1: get advice from other people who are outside the context
Speaker 1: of our relationship. No. Absolutely, And it's crazy because just
Speaker 1: to this day now I will still maybe call the
Speaker 1: PTSD if you want, But to this day I will
Speaker 1: still call the VOW before I make certain purchases and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, I would like to get X y Z.
Speaker 1: Can I do this? Is this doable? And it's not
Speaker 1: a matter of just asking permission because you know people
Speaker 1: would because you gotta ask. It's just a matter of
Speaker 1: a of being considerate because I know our history when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like credit and money, um, and
Speaker 1: I know where I've come from. Um. And I still
Speaker 1: operate in a very broke mentality some days where I
Speaker 1: tell that there's like a fair of like going back
Speaker 1: to where we were at some point. So sometimes I
Speaker 1: still operating that mentality where deviose like Cadein, everything is
Speaker 1: taken care of. We've purposely said everything up this way,
Speaker 1: where whatever is in your account and you see there
Speaker 1: that's yours to do as you please with Like if
Speaker 1: you want to write an entire check for the entire
Speaker 1: amount and give it to somebody, do it because that's
Speaker 1: on you. Um. But I just think because we're married,
Speaker 1: and because we're in a relationship, and because I value
Speaker 1: his opinion, and because I know we have plans and
Speaker 1: I know we have goals, I prefer to sometimes still
Speaker 1: consult with my husband and say, hey, do you think
Speaker 1: that this is wise for me to make this purchase now?
Speaker 1: Or should I wait till X y Z is done
Speaker 1: before I decide to make this purchase? Or can we
Speaker 1: find a way to make this a purchase that makes
Speaker 1: sense for the company so we can write this off
Speaker 1: where it can Should we mutually benefit us personally but
Speaker 1: also fessional right? You know, there's so many ways to
Speaker 1: finagle the system now that I think more and more
Speaker 1: even just don't the system. Utilize the system for what
Speaker 1: it is used for. Because so many systems are put
Speaker 1: in place to be used against us, this is one
Speaker 1: way we as a family can utilize this system to
Speaker 1: benefit us. So it ain't fenagling, it ain't fanagling, it's
Speaker 1: how the system is supposed to be used. Don't be
Speaker 1: mad at me because now we're smart enough to set
Speaker 1: up a trust and add our kids to be beneficiaries
Speaker 1: of the trust, and they don't get tax for that
Speaker 1: money as a beneficiary, as opposed to making them an
Speaker 1: employee and them getting taxed and then the business getting taxed.
Speaker 1: That that's just the system, that's not fnagling. And and
Speaker 1: that is the reason why Codeine and I talk about everything.
Speaker 1: When I tell you it's not only just Codeine. When
Speaker 1: I say I got to talk to my wife about this,
Speaker 1: or talk to my wife about that, you always get
Speaker 1: the side of like you gotta ask permission, Oh, you
Speaker 1: gotta do this. And I told us the bread winner,
Speaker 1: Yes I'm the breadwinner. Yes, yes, I am the breadwinner.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that I get to make all
Speaker 1: the financial decisions by myself on my own because I'm
Speaker 1: the breadwinner. Kaudine and I have planned everything in life
Speaker 1: together from everything. That doesn't stop just because one person
Speaker 1: is making more money than the other. And the sooner
Speaker 1: you realize that and stop listening to the world tell
Speaker 1: you how you're supposed to communicate in your marriage and
Speaker 1: your relationship, you'll be better off to stop listening to people.
Speaker 1: If this works for y'all. This Nothing works without a
Speaker 1: plan in life. Nothing works on a plan in life.
Speaker 1: And that and that brings us to a lot of
Speaker 1: the points that we we have here because people ask
Speaker 1: us all the time, right, where do we start when
Speaker 1: it comes to planning our life together? You know? When
Speaker 1: it starts with when it comes to managing your money
Speaker 1: as a financial as like what were you going to say? Well? No,
Speaker 1: where does where? Does? Where? Does? It start with a talk?
Speaker 1: A conversation, and those typically are the conversations that lead
Speaker 1: to allowance, permission, this, and then people feeling they can
Speaker 1: be uncomfortable. But when other people here couples use those words,
Speaker 1: they get uncomfortable because they're like, wait a minute, I
Speaker 1: don't want anyone else to have any control over what
Speaker 1: I do. And that's the levels to it too, because
Speaker 1: other than having the conversations just about finances and how
Speaker 1: to distribute money and what to do with it, then
Speaker 1: you have those uncomfortable conversations about well, this person makes
Speaker 1: more money than that person, so this person should have
Speaker 1: more I guess um, it should have more to say
Speaker 1: about where the money goes because they make more money.
Speaker 1: Or there's the animosity that rises. If someone's not pulling
Speaker 1: their weight and then still want to reap the benefits
Speaker 1: of those finances. You know what happens, then you're You're
Speaker 1: absolutely right when it comes to that. But I'll give
Speaker 1: you a perfect example. I got a buddy who doesn't
Speaker 1: make as much money as his wife. His wife is
Speaker 1: a breadwinner. She's an executive. I think she's an executive
Speaker 1: at a company. I forgot which company she is, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to out them because this is But
Speaker 1: he works in transit. She makes way more money. She
Speaker 1: works in the private sector. She makes She's just a
Speaker 1: money making machine. He works in transit, but he understands
Speaker 1: finances and resources, and she still comes home as his bank.
Speaker 1: How are we going to do this? They live a
Speaker 1: great life because it doesn't matter to her that she
Speaker 1: makes more money. Her husband has a better financial acumen.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to making decisions on her setting
Speaker 1: up her LLC or that, she went to her husband
Speaker 1: and he never felt uncomfortable saying, well, my wife makes
Speaker 1: more money than me, so I'm emasculated. No, it was
Speaker 1: just like, all right, my wife makes my money. To me,
Speaker 1: at least I can help her manage us into a
Speaker 1: better situation, make it grow, and that's ultimately what they did.
Speaker 1: He he used her money because she made more money
Speaker 1: to them start a real estate company. And now they
Speaker 1: own several properties, several storefronts. And when you ask them now,
Speaker 1: he doesn't say I'm the breadwinner because this was my idea.
Speaker 1: She doesn't say I'm the breadwinner. They say they say, collectively,
Speaker 1: this is what we've done together. So maybe they started
Speaker 1: with her being a breadwinner and he being a smarter financially.
Speaker 1: But now at this point they're in their late thirties.
Speaker 1: They own a real estate company together and they both
Speaker 1: call themselves equal partners in the real estate company. But
Speaker 1: it started with those conversations and leaving the ego aside,
Speaker 1: understanding who in this situation is smarter, because when it
Speaker 1: comes to planning trips, doctor's appointments, schools, when stuff with
Speaker 1: the kids, I don't I'm liking what are we doing
Speaker 1: like I'm I don't. It's there's no I'm sticking my
Speaker 1: foot down because I'm the man of the house and
Speaker 1: I make the most money. It's like, listen, you're way
Speaker 1: more responsible and way more apt to make decisions when
Speaker 1: it comes to this. So what are we doing. Even
Speaker 1: when it came down to where we live, you would
Speaker 1: think weaknesses, right, you would think that because I'm the
Speaker 1: bread winner. I would say, well, I'm choosing where we
Speaker 1: live and I'm choosing the house. Nope, codem based where
Speaker 1: we lived on the kid's educational process. So she was
Speaker 1: like where it started. Anywhere we're looking, we're the best
Speaker 1: play exactly, and we branch that from there. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to managing your money as a married couple,
Speaker 1: there's no one size fits all solution. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: what we're saying. Tip Number one for managing your money
Speaker 1: with your spouse is to talk to your spouse about money.
Speaker 1: That's what I was saying before. The first thing you talk, talk,
Speaker 1: figure out what your preferences are, where you both where
Speaker 1: you both are at financially, and decide what's best for
Speaker 1: you and where you want to be. Right. Um, but
Speaker 1: if you're struggling to figure out where to start money,
Speaker 1: experts have broken down some effective ways to think about
Speaker 1: managing your money as a couple. So get out of
Speaker 1: pen and the paper because this is going to be
Speaker 1: one of those podcasts where you can take some notes
Speaker 1: and say, you know what I walked away better because
Speaker 1: of this. And this also doesn't matter if you're married, engaged, dating,
Speaker 1: or single. Listen to some of these tips because if
Speaker 1: you plan to create a life with someone, this is
Speaker 1: stuff you want to know before you even get into
Speaker 1: that serious relationship talk. Money talks are very very important
Speaker 1: because Kadina and I say this all the time. Marriage
Speaker 1: is a business. It's a business. You gotta foul taxes together,
Speaker 1: you have to register your license and under a state
Speaker 1: like These are things that you have to do as
Speaker 1: a business. So it's important for you guys to be
Speaker 1: able to talk of Couples don't combine finances and manage
Speaker 1: money completely separately. People who manage money separately from their
Speaker 1: partners are five times more likely to leave their partner
Speaker 1: due to money issues, and a third of couples admit
Speaker 1: to arguing about money at least once a month. Question,
Speaker 1: when's the last time we've argued about money? Yeah, we haven't.
Speaker 1: It's been it's been a minute, it's been Oh, I
Speaker 1: remember it, do you? Yes? This was It was the
Speaker 1: Christmas before Cairo was born. Because this was I remember
Speaker 1: when you walk into the gym that day and we
Speaker 1: had talked about beginning a divorce because you didn't have
Speaker 1: no energy to work out and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we argue. We argue about sex, we argue about money.
Speaker 1: And we had just had an argument because Christmas time,
Speaker 1: Remember we had spent money on family members and we
Speaker 1: had tried to create a budget, and of course, as always,
Speaker 1: we both went over the budget. And by the time
Speaker 1: the American Express bill came back, it was like, how
Speaker 1: how is this possible? And it's going through and who
Speaker 1: bought what win? And why? That was the last time
Speaker 1: because we argued that January you told me you were pregnant,
Speaker 1: and at that point we were just like, all right,
Speaker 1: we need to focus on communicating better. That's the last
Speaker 1: time we argue about money. So we don't that January
Speaker 1: two six years and that's a very very deliberate plans, yes,
Speaker 1: about finances and where we wanted to because we knew
Speaker 1: at that point we had more kids coming and it
Speaker 1: was like, all right, we got to get out of
Speaker 1: this apartment in Brooklyn. How is that going to happen?
Speaker 1: So yeah, all right, so we're gona start. You talk right,
Speaker 1: find out if your partner is a saver or a spender.
Speaker 1: That's a good place to start talk about credit scores
Speaker 1: and debt. Kind of nice to meet you, Oh awesome,
Speaker 1: what's your credit score? Like? On the very fast beginning
Speaker 1: if you're If you're dating, and we don't, we don't
Speaker 1: typically do this like these are the five questions you
Speaker 1: should ask when you meet someone. But I believe that
Speaker 1: if you're dating deliberately speaking about finances. Credit card debt
Speaker 1: is extremely important. School debt is extremely important because we
Speaker 1: have family members who cannot move forward with their life
Speaker 1: because one family member is in a lot of debt
Speaker 1: and they can't get approved to purpose purchase a home
Speaker 1: because of the debt that family member, well that spouse
Speaker 1: is carrying. Once again, not trying to out anybody, but um,
Speaker 1: we sat down with this couple and they cried to
Speaker 1: us and m A large part of the reason why
Speaker 1: the debt was carried over was from intergenerational debt. When
Speaker 1: your parents put you on the phone bill, you want
Speaker 1: a car, I'll put you on a mortgage and you
Speaker 1: don't know you why I've had all these responsibilities and
Speaker 1: I can't write my name. Now you're an adult and
Speaker 1: your credit scores a five something because you have things
Speaker 1: in collection because of things that happened to generations before you.
Speaker 1: So these are conversations you have to have if you're
Speaker 1: deliberately dating people. Absolutely figure out what your partner's relationship
Speaker 1: with an attitude about money is or towards the money.
Speaker 1: Recognize your differences, set expectations together, no judgment, and just
Speaker 1: be completely honest. Codeine and I all of these things.
Speaker 1: Codine and I when we recognizing your differences. Codeine is
Speaker 1: the oldest child her parents. Her mom in particular, spoils
Speaker 1: all of them, and I grew up only child. I
Speaker 1: would say I was spoiled as well, but my father
Speaker 1: did a really good job of explaining to me how
Speaker 1: money works. So Codeine and I came from two different upbringings,
Speaker 1: so we had two different relationships with money definitely. So
Speaker 1: when we started to make money, and this is important, right,
Speaker 1: people think not having money is the problem. Mhmm. Actually
Speaker 1: having money is the problem. Because Kadine and I, when
Speaker 1: we were both broke in college never had issues with
Speaker 1: money because we didn't have any. It was when we
Speaker 1: started to make money, when I made it to the NFL,
Speaker 1: is when now the problems came. You know, they say,
Speaker 1: more money, more problems. The problems came because we actually
Speaker 1: have something to argue over. There's there's a resource that
Speaker 1: we have to figure out how to use, or there's
Speaker 1: an educational process that's happening for me that I felt
Speaker 1: stupid about because I'm just like, why was that oblivious
Speaker 1: to all this stuff? Now I look dumb in this relationship,
Speaker 1: you know what. I had my moments where I felt stupid, like, damn, K,
Speaker 1: you should have known this stuff, where you should have
Speaker 1: researched it. But I had no idea the repercussions of
Speaker 1: certain things that I was doing, just because I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I never had to worry about it before. Well, let's
Speaker 1: be honest. Remember when we spoke to Tiffany al the
Speaker 1: budget need stuff. We talked about the relationship in our
Speaker 1: cultures that uh, black women have with money as opposed
Speaker 1: to black men. Right. Um statistics show that the biggest
Speaker 1: spenders in this country are black women. Right, So whenever
Speaker 1: they have marketing campaigns, they market towards black women. And
Speaker 1: I remember Tiffany Alicia explaining to us that in her house,
Speaker 1: it was it's just her and her sisters. Her dad
Speaker 1: never talked to them about finances, and it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like it's unfair when you have daughters. You don't speak
Speaker 1: to your daughters about finances. You buy them nice things,
Speaker 1: you spoil them, you tell them they're worthy and deserving
Speaker 1: of everything they want in life, but you don't teach them.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the other way, and I thought
Speaker 1: her father did teach them about money, and that's where
Speaker 1: she got it from. No, because remember she says she struggled.
Speaker 1: Remember she said she was broke, she was struggled. But
Speaker 1: but I remember her, and you may be right, but
Speaker 1: I remember her and I talking about when she she
Speaker 1: had moments of struggle. But when we when she talked
Speaker 1: about meeting with people about resources, a large part of
Speaker 1: the time, it's women who have never been taught how
Speaker 1: to manage, because that's never been an expectation. It's always
Speaker 1: been you know, oh, when you get married, your man
Speaker 1: will be the provider and you're supposed to do X
Speaker 1: y Z as opposed to men. More men are taught
Speaker 1: about finances early on because that's the expectation. It's a
Speaker 1: social construct that it's very sexist. But I remember her
Speaker 1: and not having this conversation, and she was saying, it's
Speaker 1: very true, like if if you had daughter's devout, would
Speaker 1: you speak to your daughters about finances? And I had
Speaker 1: to stop and think for a second, and I had
Speaker 1: to say and I had to say to myself, Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't have any daughters, so I never thought about it.
Speaker 1: But I would probably spoil my daughters differently than I
Speaker 1: spoiled my son's because I and also they see how
Speaker 1: I treat you, so it's like, Okay, dad does this
Speaker 1: for mom the same way my father spoiled the hell
Speaker 1: out of my mom. My father handles the finances in
Speaker 1: the house, and my mom just says, hey, Troy, whatever
Speaker 1: it is we're doing, if we move in left, then
Speaker 1: we move in left. Like that's how my parents roll.
Speaker 1: So that's how he was very purposeful with making sure
Speaker 1: that you knew what as a man and it's important.
Speaker 1: I was saying, it's it's important for us to take
Speaker 1: the time out with our daughters. Yes, you you are
Speaker 1: going to be spoiled. You need to find a man
Speaker 1: that can protect and providing all this other stuff, but
Speaker 1: you need to understand finances because until you find that man,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to exist in this world
Speaker 1: as a fully functioning, independent woman and I think there's
Speaker 1: a movement more for that now too, for men to
Speaker 1: have their own and do their own need a man
Speaker 1: like think about that. That's that's the narrative that's spewed
Speaker 1: a lot now too. So I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 1: Being an independent person. If you feel an independent woman,
Speaker 1: if you feel that you don't need a man, then
Speaker 1: you don't need to be in a relationship. But you
Speaker 1: can't be in a relationship with a man and say
Speaker 1: I don't need a man, because then your actions are
Speaker 1: saying something that your words are not. And it's the
Speaker 1: same thing for a man. I don't need a woman
Speaker 1: to do nothing. I can just do this on my own.
Speaker 1: If that's how you feel, can't be in a relationship
Speaker 1: because in relationships about serving each other. If you feel
Speaker 1: you don't need this person and you don't want to
Speaker 1: talk a converse with them about anything you have going on,
Speaker 1: whether you're a man or a woman, you're setting yourself
Speaker 1: off a failure. There has to be an understanding that,
Speaker 1: regardless of what your needs are, you want to be
Speaker 1: in constant communication with this person so that you can
Speaker 1: do life together. And that's important, absolutely absolutely. So let
Speaker 1: me think what are your options now when it comes
Speaker 1: to finances, being married, being together? Combine everything, right, so
Speaker 1: you can combine everything and make sure that you have
Speaker 1: similar spending patterns, habits, and behaviors. Otherwise you disagree and
Speaker 1: start arguing about money. Agree to spending thresholds between you,
Speaker 1: so if you want to pay for something that's more
Speaker 1: expensive than the threshold, you both need to agree first
Speaker 1: to avoid the argument. So I feel like that's something
Speaker 1: that we kind of started to do when we were
Speaker 1: working together having the conversation. We combine everything, but it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a hybrid, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We don't have one account that all the money comes out.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've already put the thresholds in place.
Speaker 1: And this was part of my plan. This was part
Speaker 1: of what I wanted when I saw my life as
Speaker 1: a late team. I just had this vision of not
Speaker 1: ever wanting to worry about money. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: make it and I wanted to prepare my life for
Speaker 1: the future. And by the time the money gets to
Speaker 1: my account where I can spend it, I'm not worried
Speaker 1: about my future. At this point. I want all of
Speaker 1: these uh systems in place to make sure when the
Speaker 1: money gets to my expense account, I could blow it
Speaker 1: in a day if I want to. I could save
Speaker 1: it and I want to and and you and I
Speaker 1: work to make that plan bring that plane into fruition tears.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not the same as two people having
Speaker 1: one saving account, one checking account and us constantly going
Speaker 1: back and forth and saying I'm gonna buy this. Are
Speaker 1: you okay with that? Yeah? And that's that would just
Speaker 1: be a bit much too. I feel like if that's
Speaker 1: the point, if they're at that point, then it's just
Speaker 1: like come on out. But if that works for you,
Speaker 1: then it works for you because there's also a second
Speaker 1: option there it success and buying your money. But the
Speaker 1: main earner gives the other an allowance, right, make sure
Speaker 1: you both feel comfortable with the idea of an allowance
Speaker 1: should not be seen as favor, oh as a favor
Speaker 1: if one partner is looking after the kids or working
Speaker 1: as a career, that's a job too, okay, So it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if one person looking after the kids or whatever,
Speaker 1: but that's that's part of the job. Talk about all
Speaker 1: types of expenditures um that needs to be covered by
Speaker 1: the allowance and make sure the monthly or weekly amount
Speaker 1: is enough. So I think I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: where we are. But we have separate accounts, Like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not one of those things where you're standing there
Speaker 1: every Monday with them with your hand out, like I
Speaker 1: think that's where people in envision. I honestly think that's
Speaker 1: what people envision that there is just like this very
Speaker 1: like archaic way of trying to say, here, let me
Speaker 1: hand your money, hatch in your hands, let me give
Speaker 1: you these coins. You know, that's not how it's working. No,
Speaker 1: it's not this this one. That one is more about.
Speaker 1: You know, we have a separate account, but I make
Speaker 1: more money, and say, for examber one is to stay
Speaker 1: at home mom or dad, then that person has no
Speaker 1: resources to generate. So then it's like, okay, in my account,
Speaker 1: what do I have. At that point you have to
Speaker 1: have a conversation, of course, unless you give that person
Speaker 1: access to the big account, and in which case, if
Speaker 1: that person doesn't understand money, that can cause trouble because now,
Speaker 1: when you remember, we used to have this issue too.
Speaker 1: Becaudine used to look in the account and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: so that's what we got. So if I spend this
Speaker 1: little bit amount then not that big a deal when
Speaker 1: the money was already spent, right you you see all
Speaker 1: that money there that goes into the f own k,
Speaker 1: that goes to the right, that goes to that has
Speaker 1: to be a mortgage. So that now it's like I
Speaker 1: still be checking. I'm like, so you sure? Then what
Speaker 1: I see in my account here is my money that
Speaker 1: I can do whatever I want with, Okay, And still
Speaker 1: I'll be over here man frugal, Like, yeah, you've definitely
Speaker 1: you've definitely changed. You definitely definitely got mindset. Your mindset
Speaker 1: has changed. So it's allowed us to live in abundance
Speaker 1: now because we've become savers. Beca Dean was never a
Speaker 1: saver because if you think about it, in your life,
Speaker 1: you've never had anything to save for. Like what were
Speaker 1: you saving for? You know what I'm saying. So and
Speaker 1: I've always been a saver because my dad always gave us,
Speaker 1: like money in small amounts. So from the time I
Speaker 1: was fourteen, I'll never forget my father would give us
Speaker 1: I think it was two fifty a day. He had
Speaker 1: coins and he had dollars in his bottom drawer. We
Speaker 1: would get two fifty a day. And I was a
Speaker 1: freshman in high school, and I used to remember that
Speaker 1: if I would save ten dollars by the end of
Speaker 1: the week, I can go to Rag a Muffin on
Speaker 1: Flatbush Avenue and buy me a Polo shirt. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they had they had, yes, yes, so they had all
Speaker 1: the shirts on wholesale. So I was like, you get
Speaker 1: me a long sleeve Polo a Polo T shirt for
Speaker 1: ten dollars. Were sounded like dinosaurs ago I was nine.
Speaker 1: When when did I can't even get one of Amazon.
Speaker 1: There's no name for ten, not for these boys. But
Speaker 1: let a look at the little like lessons that your
Speaker 1: dad was teaching you so early on. Like I wonder
Speaker 1: if he was purposeful about that giving you the two
Speaker 1: fifty day or was he just thinking, oh, well, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be their little snack money for the day.
Speaker 1: That's not knowing that he was teaching you a lesson
Speaker 1: in like finance that early on. That's exactly what he was,
Speaker 1: he told me, you know, And this is so if
Speaker 1: you went to the corner store, you can get a bacon,
Speaker 1: egg and cheese, a juice, and possibly like a devil
Speaker 1: dog and that would be two fifty. So he was
Speaker 1: giving me enough money to get something to eat. They
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with um enterprising. But I got
Speaker 1: to a point where I was saving up money. God
Speaker 1: forgive me. I was saving up money and buying fake
Speaker 1: Coojie sweaters. I was selling the fake Coojie sweaters. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do not know about this whole business you had
Speaker 1: entrepreneur from early. See one of my homeboys in Madison,
Speaker 1: Russian dude. He used to get fake Coogie sweaters, right,
Speaker 1: and he used the tags to say Coogie blue. It
Speaker 1: wasn't real Coogie, said Coogie Blue. But at the time,
Speaker 1: this is when Biggie was making Coogie's hot, nobody in
Speaker 1: the hood really knew what a real Coodie sweater looked like.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and if you look close enough to a
Speaker 1: Coodie swealler dudes a bite. So I used to save
Speaker 1: up my money and then I was cutting here. So
Speaker 1: I used to say to myself, like, yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get two one hundred dollars. I gets to a hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: I could bomb me to fake Coogie sweaters, but then
Speaker 1: I would sell both of them four hundred dollars each
Speaker 1: because Coogie sweaters at that time was costing over two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. So if you can get a coolie sweater
Speaker 1: for a hundred, you making it getting big money. So
Speaker 1: I was saving my money. I got a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of money for Christmas this year, and I never forget.
Speaker 1: I had about five hundred dollars and I bought all
Speaker 1: these coogie sweaters. It was the sweaters and the sweatpants,
Speaker 1: and I sold all of them. I wasn't I was
Speaker 1: an enterprise. I I love that exactly. How you free
Speaker 1: look at you fourteen years old. Until people found out
Speaker 1: that day was fake, then what I was out of business,
Speaker 1: shut you down, and I was just you look at
Speaker 1: it and beat you. Yes, that too, that wasn't gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I had coming right, So then go. The next option
Speaker 1: is keeping separate accounts, like all together, so just planning
Speaker 1: everything and communicating regularly. That way you always know what's
Speaker 1: coming in and going out, deciding how you're going to
Speaker 1: split the bills, because then splitting bills becomes a whole
Speaker 1: another topic. So whether it's fifty fifty or another way,
Speaker 1: or you know, you do the gas, I do the light,
Speaker 1: you do the groceries. Um, you need to be clear
Speaker 1: about how you're going to split responsibilities, and then of
Speaker 1: course make it feel fair because then fairness becomes a
Speaker 1: thing right. And then thinking about your partner when making
Speaker 1: spending decisions, so you'll be sharing the responsibility, so making
Speaker 1: sure that you're not spending too much, otherwise your partner
Speaker 1: will need to make up any difference to pay the bills.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about splitting bills. There was a point
Speaker 1: in our marriage where Codeine and I had decided to
Speaker 1: split bills, just in part so that Codeine could learn
Speaker 1: some responsibility when they came to where how the money works.
Speaker 1: So there was there was a point where my ego
Speaker 1: was like, I don't want my wife paying for no bills.
Speaker 1: I got everything. And while I was doing that, Dean,
Speaker 1: because we never talked about it, was running up the
Speaker 1: credit cards. So now I had all of the household
Speaker 1: bills and I had the credit card bills. Then I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, not only is this not
Speaker 1: fair for me to have to try to run behind
Speaker 1: everything to plean on the bills, is not fair to
Speaker 1: Cadine because she's not learning. If she's not learning, if
Speaker 1: something were ever happened to me, my wife would not
Speaker 1: understand how estate works. So we decided to split the bills,
Speaker 1: and the bills work the same way today. I handle
Speaker 1: all of the household bills, the cars, all of the
Speaker 1: major investments for our future. Codeine handles the kids, all
Speaker 1: of the groceries. And I think it's the insured and
Speaker 1: the insurance insurance. And the reason why this worked for
Speaker 1: us was because now, before Codein started spending money, she
Speaker 1: would look at the beginning of the month and say,
Speaker 1: what are my expenses for the month? That was something
Speaker 1: she's never had to do in her life before. But
Speaker 1: all I did was just teach her discipline, and then
Speaker 1: that's how she became frugal Ellis now because now she
Speaker 1: won't spend money on anything. I'm frugal, Ellis because you're
Speaker 1: my financial father. Okay, my financial father had to explain
Speaker 1: to me how to make all the things work. And
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I had moments where I
Speaker 1: just felt embarrassed because I was like, well, damn, I
Speaker 1: didn't know I was doing this. And then I felt
Speaker 1: bad because I'm like, now I'm making it more difficult
Speaker 1: for him. And he already had so much responsibility on
Speaker 1: his shoulders, and here I am just being like this
Speaker 1: frivolous person um, so I had to know how to
Speaker 1: how we should write a book from Frivolous to Frugal,
Speaker 1: and all the things we did this, you know, to
Speaker 1: kind of create this new this new found ellis understands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: codeine from frivolous to frugal. Now you you, you'd be
Speaker 1: you'd be killing the the finance game, like you understand
Speaker 1: the way that I completely get it now it came
Speaker 1: from conversation, from talking about it and put my ego aside.
Speaker 1: So so this last one sounds the most like us.
Speaker 1: It says, combine some split the rest the side which bills,
Speaker 1: a way to pay from the joint account. Sett on
Speaker 1: the contribution to pay the joint account each month, whether
Speaker 1: it's fifty fifty or related to the size of your income.
Speaker 1: Think about your spending patterns, habits, and behaviors, and agree
Speaker 1: what's acceptable to both you, to both of you so
Speaker 1: that you can avoid disagreements and arguments over money. All
Speaker 1: of these start with a conversation. We nobody can tell
Speaker 1: you the best way to figure out your financial situation.
Speaker 1: You tuo the only way to do it. And the
Speaker 1: biggest thing with This is not even the finances, is
Speaker 1: learning how to communicate, because Kadina I realized real early
Speaker 1: not marriage that not having money wasn't the biggest issue.
Speaker 1: It was learning how to community k when to spend
Speaker 1: the money when we finally had it, which is a
Speaker 1: problem that most couples have. People can be broke together
Speaker 1: all their life and be perfectly fine, but then when
Speaker 1: they start making money, then priority of who has more
Speaker 1: right to the money who's Here's another issue when we're
Speaker 1: doing gifts, because this was an issue for me and
Speaker 1: Cantin at one point, how much are we going to
Speaker 1: spend on each person's family? And this is a problem
Speaker 1: me and candied vol into if we don't like certain
Speaker 1: members of the other's family, we're spending that much on
Speaker 1: that motherfucker. And that's all conversations, because we've also had
Speaker 1: conversations where it was just like, wait, how much you
Speaker 1: spend on your mom? I only spend this much on
Speaker 1: my mom. How come you ain't telling me you were
Speaker 1: spending this much on your mom before you let me
Speaker 1: buy this gift for my mom. If you don't have
Speaker 1: those conversations, then it seemed like it was something that
Speaker 1: was done on purpose when realistically it's not. And then
Speaker 1: we also realized that some things are just not about
Speaker 1: dollar amounts, like one family member just may not require
Speaker 1: a third amount you might gonna be spent on a
Speaker 1: gift based on what it is. So some things then
Speaker 1: just came down to like, okay, was it the thought
Speaker 1: when it came to gift giving specifically, but um, some
Speaker 1: things you want to consider, you know, not letting salary
Speaker 1: differences come between you. I said, that's a hard one.
Speaker 1: It is because I know how well. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I've seen couples where it's gonna be like I make this,
Speaker 1: you make that, and this person not bringing that, and
Speaker 1: it becomes an issue for a lot of people. Sentiment thing.
Speaker 1: What I don't understand. Your salary does not define who
Speaker 1: you are as a person, absolutely not, so the same
Speaker 1: way it doesn't define you as a person. It can't
Speaker 1: define who your partner is to you. So whether your
Speaker 1: partner makes more money to you or less money than
Speaker 1: you cannot define how you see your partner. If you
Speaker 1: don't want to be defined by your salary. You see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I completely get that, and I know
Speaker 1: I know, but in my mind teamwork makes the dream work.
Speaker 1: So if I make a dollar and you make ten
Speaker 1: dollars together, we got eleven dollars. That's all I care
Speaker 1: about because at this point I may only be making
Speaker 1: a dollar today, but tomorrow I may make ten dollars
Speaker 1: and you may make a dollar. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Are we gonna constantly create this dynamic between us because
Speaker 1: of who made more money on that day? That's a
Speaker 1: waste of time. At the end of the day, we
Speaker 1: got eleven dollars. How can we make this eleven dollars
Speaker 1: work work for us? How can we grow this eleven dollars?
Speaker 1: What can we get with this eleven dollars? I love
Speaker 1: that avoid combining debts being financially linked to someone who
Speaker 1: can affect your credit score. Remember the car, the car.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget this day either. This could have been
Speaker 1: a story time the Dean had had Jackson and all
Speaker 1: the issues with the epidural had to have emergency surgery.
Speaker 1: I go to look at my credit score after that,
Speaker 1: because now I have a son and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how i'mnna buy a house, and later to
Speaker 1: like the low sixes, and I was like, what in
Speaker 1: the hell, and I'm looking through everything and they say
Speaker 1: unpaid card payment and I'm like, I co signed on
Speaker 1: Caden's car to get us some credit in her name.
Speaker 1: She was doing automatic payments with Accura forgot to make
Speaker 1: them no use doing automatic payments, and the payment didn't
Speaker 1: come out. And I always tell you, yeah, something had
Speaker 1: happened with like the accounted over something and I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: And even if they have automatic payments, always make sure
Speaker 1: every month that that bill is paid. That is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest mistakes people make. It was on auto pay,
Speaker 1: two months go by and the payment never come out.
Speaker 1: And I used to ask a dean, you don't check
Speaker 1: to make sure the payment comes out? Even my bills
Speaker 1: in auto pay, because yes, I'm an adult. I'm one
Speaker 1: of those adults who got all my bills on auto pay.
Speaker 1: But every month on the fifteen, I'm going through every
Speaker 1: website and I'm like to make sure they don't take
Speaker 1: out no extra two maybe doing that as well. He
Speaker 1: was supposed to be taking out two D and sixteen sins,
Speaker 1: but you took out more. Give me my money back.
Speaker 1: I'm calling somebody, Comcast. Comcast, Comcast, you should take all
Speaker 1: the time, bro, I should be like more. But when
Speaker 1: we got but seven hundred dollars, she used to be like,
Speaker 1: let me listen. Yeah it was Aggie, Maggie anyho um.
Speaker 1: Set money rules with your partner, keep all purchase purchases
Speaker 1: out in the open, all right. I hope, y'all I
Speaker 1: was able to, you know, jot down some things and
Speaker 1: and make some things work within your relationship. But again,
Speaker 1: it has to work for y'all. This is what works
Speaker 1: for us, all right. I think we should take a
Speaker 1: break because we have to pay some bills. Okay, talking
Speaker 1: about money, and then we have listener letters coming up
Speaker 1: right after that. All right, we're back with listening letters.
Speaker 1: Let's dive right into it. Hey, de Val, I love
Speaker 1: you guys, and I want you to know I'm team
Speaker 1: Ellis for life. Love that, Thank you. I support the
Speaker 1: whole family, and I love me some Meet me off
Speaker 1: that unfan. She's a beautiful woman. Your family teaches millions
Speaker 1: of young women like me what family is and can be.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. And one of six children. Biologically,
Speaker 1: growing up with my birth mom was an addict, being
Speaker 1: that we grew up in and out of foster care
Speaker 1: with different family members having custody of us. We grew
Speaker 1: up fast, and we grew up in some harsh conditions.
Speaker 1: I knew we couldn't afford named brands, and we were
Speaker 1: And there were many Christmas mornings and birthdays where the
Speaker 1: angels tree or nothing at all was received. Oh man, um,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be who I am without someone, whether it's
Speaker 1: a stranger or someone familiar, helping me along my journey.
Speaker 1: As I've gotten older, I've been hearing that trauma bonds
Speaker 1: are bad and that they can hinder you. In my life,
Speaker 1: I've always felt like if a person is there for
Speaker 1: you in your time of need, then you should be
Speaker 1: loyal to them, loyal to them forever. I've been called
Speaker 1: an overcompensator and that I'm naive of friends taking advantage
Speaker 1: of me, and even family members and even partners. So
Speaker 1: can you explain how to decipher what's a trauma bond
Speaker 1: and what's loyalty? Any advice will help because I'm kind
Speaker 1: of lost. I mean, aren't we supposed to be givers
Speaker 1: to those who have to us? I I understand where
Speaker 1: she's coming from, but you know, remember we were speaking
Speaker 1: with one of our guests this weekend and He definitely
Speaker 1: has a trauma bond with one of his best friends.
Speaker 1: Been through life together and his best friend was there
Speaker 1: for him, you know, when he when he needed them.
Speaker 1: But now we were at a point where taking advant
Speaker 1: he's ultimately enabling his best friend to take advantage of him. Um,
Speaker 1: they had some business, they've done some business together. The
Speaker 1: friend overstepped, lost some money, damaged some property, and had
Speaker 1: no way to help pay you back. In his mind,
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, well, this friend got me, so I
Speaker 1: ain't worried about it. Now that friend is in the
Speaker 1: process of being sued by people because and he's like,
Speaker 1: d what do I do? And I'm like, bro, there's
Speaker 1: no what do I do. You have to learn how
Speaker 1: to look at relationships and only being relationships that you
Speaker 1: feel comfortable serving and serve you. If the relationship does
Speaker 1: not serve you and you don't feel comfortable serving them,
Speaker 1: that's a trauma bond. That's not someone just being loyal.
Speaker 1: This is just guilt, Like I have to be here
Speaker 1: for this person because you know when I and here's
Speaker 1: the thing. People love to be there for you when
Speaker 1: you're in your worst. Because I say this all the
Speaker 1: time of the world's wealth is controlled by one percent
Speaker 1: of the population, so vast majority of the people in
Speaker 1: the world are not happy with their situation, especially financially.
Speaker 1: When they see someone else in need, or they see
Speaker 1: someone else who's doing worse than them, that's a way
Speaker 1: for them to feel better by them feel better about themselves.
Speaker 1: I've watched a lot of people in my life only
Speaker 1: want to be around people when they're doing bad that
Speaker 1: they can feel like a savior. Then when that person
Speaker 1: starts to do well, they distance themselves, and then the
Speaker 1: person that they helped often feels guilty, like I don't
Speaker 1: know how to help this person, but this person was
Speaker 1: there when to help me, but that person doesn't even
Speaker 1: want help. You know that that person likes that feeling
Speaker 1: and also will utilize that against you to constantly bring
Speaker 1: you back down to make you feel bad because they
Speaker 1: are not doing what they want to do in life,
Speaker 1: you have careful of manipulative people like that in life
Speaker 1: are a lot of them, especially people who know your history.
Speaker 1: Like you said, people just pretty much know that you've
Speaker 1: come from a tough background, that you've been in these
Speaker 1: harsh conditions growing up, so they can instantly see you
Speaker 1: as a target in that circumstance. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: at this point too, now you may be able to decipher.
Speaker 1: You should be able to decipher the difference between the
Speaker 1: loyalty and people who you know deep down are just
Speaker 1: in it for ulterior reasons. And it's simple. Do I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable serving this person or do I feel guilty?
Speaker 1: That's one. If you feel guilty and you have to
Speaker 1: serve this person, that's a red flag. But does this
Speaker 1: person serve you in any way? If that answer is no,
Speaker 1: then you already know what it is. You know, when
Speaker 1: people show you who they are, believe them the first time.
Speaker 1: Stop talking yourself into believing someone else is better than
Speaker 1: don't do it. Don't do it saves you a lot
Speaker 1: of time. Yes, ma'am number two whatever, You're all a
Speaker 1: huge fan. Thank you so much. I love y'all, and
Speaker 1: what you do, I'm gonna dive right into it. I'm
Speaker 1: twenty three and moved out to Utah soon after graduating
Speaker 1: from college in Texas for an opportunity that I saw
Speaker 1: was a huge step in the right direction at the time. Wrong.
Speaker 1: I only make forty seven thousand dollars a year, no benefits,
Speaker 1: can't afford to live close to where I work, so
Speaker 1: I live in our plus away and I'm fed up.
Speaker 1: I'm very ambitious, so I currently work during doing custom
Speaker 1: homes with plans to get my real estate license and
Speaker 1: dive into investing in short term rentals. I have a plan,
Speaker 1: but I do not have financial stability right now, so
Speaker 1: I plan on moving back home to gather myself and
Speaker 1: move forward. The problem is I've gotten tons of rejection
Speaker 1: letters from well respected companies with excuse me, with competitive
Speaker 1: of pay and benefits. In addition, my mental health has
Speaker 1: suffered from the rejection letters, not getting a job that
Speaker 1: I so badly wanted after rounds of interviews and my
Speaker 1: current job being asked sounds likely from New York. Money
Speaker 1: don't make itself, and I know I got to stay
Speaker 1: motivated to chase it, but damn, how do I recover mentally?
Speaker 1: What would you do if you were me? Any advice
Speaker 1: as far as planning, because ship going too slow for
Speaker 1: me and I worked too hard. Thank you all. There's
Speaker 1: nothing like feeling like you're just in a dead end
Speaker 1: situation where you're just pounding the pavement and nothing is happening.
Speaker 1: If you have the ability to go back home, go
Speaker 1: back home. If you have the ability to go back home,
Speaker 1: go back home. And if you have the ability excuse
Speaker 1: me how I started to get my little preacher voice
Speaker 1: on there. Now, if you have the ability to go
Speaker 1: back home to a place where you can gather yourself,
Speaker 1: go back home. There is no shame in that. I
Speaker 1: think there's this this emphasis on, oh I graduated, I'm
Speaker 1: out of college. Let me get out of the house now,
Speaker 1: because it's like I got to get out and do
Speaker 1: my own thing, because yeah, there is that desire to
Speaker 1: do that. But I hope that we can be the
Speaker 1: parents where if our kids are stumbling a bit, we
Speaker 1: can say, come back home and figure things out for
Speaker 1: a bit. And it's not a matter of enabling them,
Speaker 1: but just really seeing that this is a person who's
Speaker 1: hard working. You thought this was a situation that was
Speaker 1: going to go right here. You are now driving an
Speaker 1: hour into work plus and then driving back home, so
Speaker 1: you have what a three hour commute round trip, and
Speaker 1: then now you're still working to do the custom homes
Speaker 1: and the plan. So you're clearly somebody who has the
Speaker 1: drive and has the admission, but you just stumbled upon
Speaker 1: a hard time. People are gonna have hard times. In
Speaker 1: the past twenty years, the vol and I have had
Speaker 1: fair share of hard time. But it gets better, gets better.
Speaker 1: And and here's the thing. There's no wrong decisions in life,
Speaker 1: right and there's no losses. There's only lessons. You moved
Speaker 1: out to Utah, you took a job, it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: That's a lesson. That's not a bad decision. I had
Speaker 1: this conversation with with a bunch of my college kids
Speaker 1: when they were trying to decide where they're going to
Speaker 1: go to school. These kids get offers, They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: course about I don't want to make a bad decision.
Speaker 1: Hindsight is always, which means you can always look back
Speaker 1: in your life and say this was a bad decision.
Speaker 1: That was a bad decision, But you have to live
Speaker 1: it first in order for you to recognize what the
Speaker 1: decision is, which means it's not a bad decision, it's
Speaker 1: a life lesson. There have been plenty of decisions. For example,
Speaker 1: me invested in the stock market in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: buying property in two thousand and eight when the recession
Speaker 1: was about to happen in two thousand and nine. I
Speaker 1: can look back on it now and say that was
Speaker 1: a terrible decision, but I had to live that to
Speaker 1: now be able to make the money I make now
Speaker 1: and say, ah ha, I've been through this already. People
Speaker 1: ask us all the time, how did we survive during
Speaker 1: this recent recession, during the pandemic. I've learned how to pivot.
Speaker 1: You want to know why, Coaudina and I have made
Speaker 1: a ton of decisions early on in our life, and
Speaker 1: we had to struggle for a decade to get back
Speaker 1: to where we were. But now we're in a position
Speaker 1: with all of that knowledge, all of those quote unquote
Speaker 1: add wrong decisions to make decisions to put us ahead.
Speaker 1: So listen, do not be down on yourself. Pick your
Speaker 1: head up. Listen to what my wife said, because I'll
Speaker 1: tell you right now. When we first moved back to Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: when I tell you I thought that that was a
Speaker 1: step back, that would be an understatement. Here we are
Speaker 1: in uh four bedroom home, finished basement, front yard, backyard
Speaker 1: in the cul de sac, in the suburbs in Michigan,
Speaker 1: had to move back to an apartment that was rent
Speaker 1: stabilized in Brooklyn after being in the NFL. You think
Speaker 1: your life is bad now you you make forty seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year. You know how much money I
Speaker 1: was making when I first came back from the league,
Speaker 1: And you said you were driving an hour to and
Speaker 1: from work. I was driving an hour and a half
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn to Staten Island in traffic and paying twelve
Speaker 1: fifty and tolls. So I was paying more in tolls
Speaker 1: and gas and I was making But for those two years,
Speaker 1: I gained experience to build my business, to create a lucrative,
Speaker 1: lucrative company that made codein and I over a quarter
Speaker 1: million dollars a year at one point. But if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for those two years of service to that company,
Speaker 1: Paris School and Staten Island sacrifice, I would have never learned.
Speaker 1: So everything you're going through now, Mama, is a learning process.
Speaker 1: Trust the process. If you want to go back home,
Speaker 1: go back home, regroup. I was going to quote Tiffany
Speaker 1: Elecha Renumber. She had her a condo and all this
Speaker 1: other stuff, and she was a teacher. She had to
Speaker 1: move back home and she said she was broke. Now
Speaker 1: she's making eight nine figures a year. All of those
Speaker 1: are life lessons, baby, Absolutely just makes the story that
Speaker 1: much sweeter. Absolutely, tell people got to where you're at right,
Speaker 1: and don't think that life my bad. Don't think that
Speaker 1: life is going to pass you by ten years to
Speaker 1: anybody sounds like a long time, But ten years for
Speaker 1: Codein and I was what we needed to build the
Speaker 1: empire we have now. And we're only in our late thirties.
Speaker 1: So think about that when when you think that I've
Speaker 1: been here for two years, three years as long, it's
Speaker 1: a condeina and I a decade to get back m hm.
Speaker 1: And we're doing it. That's a fact. Doing it well,
Speaker 1: do it baby, just right? All right, y'all keep writing
Speaker 1: into us. We'd love to see the emails flooding into
Speaker 1: dead ass advice. So if you want to be featured
Speaker 1: as one of our listener letters, be sure to email
Speaker 1: us right there spelled out for them, babe. That's D
Speaker 1: E A D A S S A D V I
Speaker 1: C E at gmail dot dot com. All right, moment
Speaker 1: the true times before we wrap it up and get
Speaker 1: out of here with y'all today. Money and marriage, Money
Speaker 1: and marriage. There you go first, money and marriage. There
Speaker 1: is no one size, fixed all for money marriage. Never
Speaker 1: try to tell and make your marriage to anyone else's expectations,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to expenses, do what's in the
Speaker 1: best interest for you and your spouse, continue to communicate
Speaker 1: and make as much money as possible, because we live
Speaker 1: in a capitalist country and you need money to survive.
Speaker 1: Dead ass love that um. For me, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where, like you know,
Speaker 1: I admittedly know what I don't know, right, that's the
Speaker 1: one thing I can admit what I don't know, and
Speaker 1: being truthful in admitting that I don't know certain things
Speaker 1: allowed me the opportunity to learn. So if you are
Speaker 1: that person that may not know about finance, that you
Speaker 1: just it's not your strong suit. You don't have a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship with money Historically, you're trying to find ways
Speaker 1: to decipher how to maneuver with the resources that you
Speaker 1: do have. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay
Speaker 1: to lean on the dominant spouse or the dominant person
Speaker 1: in the relationship if they tend to be a little
Speaker 1: bit more UM savvy or have a higher acumen when
Speaker 1: it comes to finance. It's okay to not feel bad.
Speaker 1: It's okay to put an ego aside and say I
Speaker 1: just don't know I've made this mistake, and then make
Speaker 1: the plan to recover. Yes, all right, y'all, well find
Speaker 1: us on social media after all that, see how I'm
Speaker 1: not spending my money and then ask the podcast and
Speaker 1: you can find me a cadeen I am. And if
Speaker 1: you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review
Speaker 1: and subscribe. Dead As dead Ass is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by Dinorapinia
Speaker 1: and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead
Speaker 1: as to podcasts and never miss a Thing