Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. This may be a surprise, but you
Speaker 1: don't have to live broke now to be rich later.
Speaker 2: I love that look at you, you always dropping gems
Speaker 2: in these little soundbites.
Speaker 3: I love that you know.
Speaker 2: And for me, I'm just always looking for ways to
Speaker 2: save money now.
Speaker 3: And I don't know who I am. Dead ass, dead ass.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm Devout and we're the Ellis's.
Speaker 1: You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Speaker 2: Voice and reading each other publicly as.
Speaker 3: A form of therapy.
Speaker 1: Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 3: Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, we are.
Speaker 4: We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Speaker 4: Li's most taboo topics.
Speaker 3: Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
Speaker 1: is a term that we say every day. So when
Speaker 1: we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and think about the truth.
Speaker 1: Were about to take Billow talk to our whole new level.
Speaker 3: Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1: So storytime, all right. Every time we talk about money,
Speaker 1: I talk about Kadean, I get excited. Yes, But see,
Speaker 1: look I was about to say, but today I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about I'm not talking.
Speaker 3: About about get excited when we talk about money, you.
Speaker 1: Do you she love talking about money and spending it too.
Speaker 3: No, so much better though, guys.
Speaker 1: But yeah, today I actually want to talk about how
Speaker 1: I am changing the mentality of our boys when it
Speaker 1: comes to money. Right, growing up in my household, everyone
Speaker 1: I ever heard talk about money. They always talked about
Speaker 1: just save money, save money, having in your account. My
Speaker 1: dad keeps money in his house that he counts every day. Right.
Speaker 1: Then he has his accounts that he looks at every day,
Speaker 1: like McDuck, Yes, like screen scoop scoop McDuck scoop, mcdunck
Speaker 1: or Troy mcscoop, whatever you want to call him. Right,
Speaker 1: So I grew up the same way. I grew up
Speaker 1: the exact same way. I like looking at my money
Speaker 1: on my accounts. I keep my cash here to make
Speaker 1: sure that, you know, if armor getting happens, that my
Speaker 1: family would be okay. Right. But when it came time
Speaker 1: to Jackson and Cairo and Kaz and Dakota, I didn't
Speaker 1: want them to have that unhealthy obsession with money. Right,
Speaker 1: The unhealthy obsession with money comes from us thinking that
Speaker 1: you're never gonna get it. It's impossible to hold on
Speaker 1: to and when you get it, you have to see it. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I've changed that by getting Jackson a checking account.
Speaker 1: I got him the first time, first checking account that
Speaker 1: we have our partnerships that we work with with our bank,
Speaker 1: and he has his own bank account, so he's able
Speaker 1: to buy whatever he wants. Jackson no longer has to
Speaker 1: ask me and his mom for anything. He works. His
Speaker 1: working it does not come from doing chores, So make
Speaker 1: up your bed, do dishes, I don't pay you for that.
Speaker 1: What I pay him for is working on skills that
Speaker 1: could help him make money in the future. So coding
Speaker 1: he gets paid for that, Basketball he gets paid for
Speaker 1: that football he gets paid for that. If his grades
Speaker 1: are all above ninety, he gets a bonus because academically,
Speaker 1: if you can be on top of those things, you
Speaker 1: can make money from it. So I don't pay him
Speaker 1: for cleaning because those are just grown adult things you
Speaker 1: have to do. But what I've noticed with Jackson since
Speaker 1: I started to pay him based on what he does,
Speaker 1: He's starting to see money differently. Absolutely, he doesn't see
Speaker 1: money as a scarce thing that he has to hold
Speaker 1: on to, which has allowed him to be more forthgiving
Speaker 1: with his money. He buys his brother's things, he buys
Speaker 1: his friend's things. He buy me and you things sometimes
Speaker 1: and a lot of times I'm like, bro, like that's
Speaker 1: your money, why don't you want it? But you know what,
Speaker 1: he says, I could always work for more. But what
Speaker 1: that's done for me has made me realize that he
Speaker 1: values money differently than we valued money. For sure, we
Speaker 1: valued money and it's like it's impossible to get so
Speaker 1: when you get it onto it. For him, it's like
Speaker 1: I just have to work harder for it. So if
Speaker 1: I spend money here, I have to work harder here
Speaker 1: to get it back. I've also noticed that he budgets right.
Speaker 1: His account is at a certain point. If I was
Speaker 1: that age and I had that type of money at
Speaker 1: that point, I probably would have spent it, because you know,
Speaker 1: you get it, you think you have to hold onto it.
Speaker 1: But then the Jordan's come out than this. Jackson has
Speaker 1: programmed himself that he doesn't want his account to get
Speaker 1: below a certain level, and every year its rate is risen,
Speaker 1: so it's.
Speaker 3: Like his own personal like goals for his money.
Speaker 1: Yes, yep.
Speaker 2: And I've even seen a pair of I think it
Speaker 2: was sneakers or some kind of like sneakers that kids are,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: I saw like an old lady for Christ, like an
Speaker 3: old lady.
Speaker 1: At the bottom. We had them back in the day
Speaker 1: to La gears. I think Jackson was buying some La
Speaker 1: gears Jackson's.
Speaker 2: Stride, but no, And I remember I saw him like
Speaker 2: kind of working through his head like damn, that costs
Speaker 2: that much. He checked his account. He was just like,
Speaker 2: I don't need them that bad. And he definitely didn't
Speaker 2: get him. But then the other day at Amazon, package
Speaker 2: shows up in his name and it's flossers for his teeth,
Speaker 2: for his braces and a special toothpaste that he found
Speaker 2: out about on YouTube.
Speaker 3: And he was like, I wanted to try this new toothpaste.
Speaker 2: So I was like, well, Jacks, if you want a
Speaker 2: toothpaste and floss, you could have told me how they
Speaker 2: got it at Target.
Speaker 3: And he was like, Noah, man, I want to try
Speaker 3: for myself. I have money, I can get it. So
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, then buy a deodorant too.
Speaker 1: You should know when he turns thirteen. When he turns thirteen,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make it a point that he is
Speaker 1: responsible to replenish and buy the things that he deems important.
Speaker 1: The Flossters, deodorant, he got his contacts. These are things
Speaker 1: that he wanted, Like he wanted contexts. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to wear glasses. You replenished that, just to teach him
Speaker 1: how to balance it, not hold it from him, and
Speaker 1: then say here, your dad gave it to you, so
Speaker 1: now be grateful. You want to continue to wear contexts.
Speaker 1: A solution costs X amount dollars ordering the events. You
Speaker 1: want a specialty rate because it got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a sense. So you want to word cologne, you
Speaker 1: buy it. You know what I'm saying. But I think
Speaker 1: in teaching him that it's teaching him how to balance,
Speaker 1: how to budget, but also how to enjoy his life
Speaker 1: in real time sure and not wait until later on.
Speaker 3: So good job, dad, That was a good tactic.
Speaker 1: Now all right, In honor of our guest and also
Speaker 1: Kay's favorite discussion, I see what color she got on right?
Speaker 2: I Needallas, Dallas, Dallas is what I need?
Speaker 1: A song that was?
Speaker 3: That was my song?
Speaker 1: I remember why that was your song?
Speaker 3: I worked at MAD.
Speaker 2: When I worked at Mac Cosmetics, y'all, there was the
Speaker 2: playlists that played like every month or the week, and
Speaker 2: it would be the same songs in rotation, and I'd
Speaker 2: be in those stories for nine ten hours a day.
Speaker 3: And that was one in particular.
Speaker 2: Whenever a song used to come on, everybody knew that
Speaker 2: was my song because we had a goal of money
Speaker 2: that we had to make each day.
Speaker 3: So once that.
Speaker 2: Song came on, I was like, all right, y'all, I'm
Speaker 2: hyping out. I gonna make this money. So yeah, that
Speaker 2: was my little two cents for karaoke today.
Speaker 1: Did they ever play this song.
Speaker 3: Money, maney miney?
Speaker 1: Did they ever play that? In Man?
Speaker 5: They did Mad Money to make Mad Money for Frank
Speaker 5: and Frank listen ship.
Speaker 3: All right, ya, well, we.
Speaker 2: Gotta make some money here for this podcast because if not,
Speaker 2: there would be no what. So let's go pay some bills,
Speaker 2: get into these ads, y'all, and we'll be back with
Speaker 2: the special guests. All right, y'all, So you know, we
Speaker 2: don't be doing the whole guest thing very often because
Speaker 2: did Alla and I are just you know, we're not
Speaker 2: about that life.
Speaker 3: We know, y'all like to hear from us.
Speaker 2: However, there's a particular guest that every season we have
Speaker 2: to have her on. Yes, and I think she's the
Speaker 2: only guest that we have every season for that reason,
Speaker 2: just about because we absolutely adore her.
Speaker 3: We love her spirit.
Speaker 2: She is a fountain, a wealth of a knowledge, literally
Speaker 2: a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 3: And I love.
Speaker 2: To have her because she really puts things in perspective.
Speaker 2: Me because for me, because finances never gets old, right,
Speaker 2: money talk never gets old. So our favorite financial expert,
Speaker 2: Tiffany Alice the Budget Nissa as we know her, is
Speaker 2: back to share her knowledge with us some more and
Speaker 2: has a brand new book that's out today, Made Whole,
Speaker 2: The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals is the
Speaker 2: ultimate hands on workbook for anyone looking to get their
Speaker 2: finances in order.
Speaker 3: And that should be you, and you and yes you,
Speaker 3: who's listening now?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: So today Tiffany is here to tell us all about
Speaker 2: what's in it and why you have to have this
Speaker 2: book in your life.
Speaker 1: Tiffany, what up?
Speaker 6: Hey, I missed y'all.
Speaker 1: Now we missed you too, Yo. You've been kind of touring,
Speaker 1: you know, getting all the money, sharing all the knowledge
Speaker 1: with the world. How you've been.
Speaker 3: She's been quietly.
Speaker 5: I have been to like four or five different countries
Speaker 5: in the last few months. I mean, I just took
Speaker 5: my my bonus daughter. We came back from Europe for
Speaker 5: her sixteenth birthday. I took her to the London, Paris
Speaker 5: and today Mafi Coast.
Speaker 1: Oh, and that's what's up.
Speaker 6: Before that, I was in Egypt before that Kenya.
Speaker 5: So I just you know, I haven't really posted to
Speaker 5: social I've just been like luxuriating in my quiet luxury.
Speaker 2: I love that for you. Sometimes you just got to
Speaker 2: be present in that moment. I completely understand it, and
Speaker 2: I appreciate that, and I love that for you, Stace,
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Thank so talk to us about this book just so
Speaker 1: you know. Ever since we've had our first conversation Season one,
Speaker 1: Kadeen has been on top of her budget. She opens
Speaker 1: up her account, she sees what's in there every day
Speaker 1: every other day. She's very tedious when it comes to suspending,
Speaker 1: like she's on top of it. And I want to
Speaker 1: thank you personally. I've been telling her for years and
Speaker 1: now she comes to me like, no, baby, you know
Speaker 1: Tiffany said that said Tiffany said what Tiffany told you
Speaker 1: that you should be doing.
Speaker 2: What I've been telling you my financial fairy godmother Oprah,
Speaker 2: you know, like he'd be like, you know.
Speaker 3: Oprah said, so now you want to do it?
Speaker 2: Or doctor Phil said so now, I'd be like, well, listen, Tiffany.
Speaker 3: Said that what we should do with the money through
Speaker 3: that's lou.
Speaker 5: You need to hear from a different person. And honestly,
Speaker 5: that's why I wrote. So y'all know, I wrote Get
Speaker 5: Good with Money a couple of years ago.
Speaker 6: It was New York Times bestseller, almost three hundred.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was. Man, don't don't skip over that New
Speaker 1: York Times.
Speaker 6: Everybody around here's a time.
Speaker 3: We wrote a book, wrote something.
Speaker 5: But I decided that I wanted to write a companion
Speaker 5: book to Get Good with Money, because gigod money is
Speaker 5: quite like a textbook, you know, And I was like,
Speaker 5: you know, what if I could write a work book
Speaker 5: for people who really want to get to work right away?
Speaker 6: And so that's why I made Made Okay behind me and.
Speaker 3: So I love that how'd you come up with the title?
Speaker 5: Because the components of this book is going to help
Speaker 5: you reach what I call financial wholeness, you know. So
Speaker 5: financial holeness is like these ten steps that if you
Speaker 5: achieve these ten steps, you don't have to make a
Speaker 5: million dollars, you don't have to be rich, but you
Speaker 5: will be okay with your money. Because it really bothered
Speaker 5: me that I felt like the financial space was leading
Speaker 5: into everyone's teaching everyone how to make a million dollars.
Speaker 5: Which that's great, but let's be real, everyone's not going
Speaker 5: to reach that.
Speaker 6: What if you're a pre school teacher.
Speaker 5: What if you're a mechanic or a nurse and you
Speaker 5: don't get that huge lump sum of money.
Speaker 6: So does that mean you don't write a chance to
Speaker 6: have a good life, You can't buy a car in
Speaker 6: the house. And I say, no, I don't believe that
Speaker 6: to be true.
Speaker 5: And so I wrote Mad Whole to help just regular,
Speaker 5: everyday people make the most out of their money. And
Speaker 5: by reaching these ten financial steps that I outline here
Speaker 5: so they can be okay as well, they can reach
Speaker 5: financial holeness.
Speaker 1: So let me ask a question. Right, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to go through all ten steps because we don't
Speaker 1: have time, right, but what would you say, of the
Speaker 1: ten steps, are the most important three that could just
Speaker 1: help people? Like just the most the top three? If
Speaker 1: you do three these three you could be on the.
Speaker 2: Path or can segue you because we also ultimately want
Speaker 2: you guys to go out and get the book because
Speaker 2: I know I'm going to get the book.
Speaker 1: Two for sure, because we get good with money. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we definitely support and not only support.
Speaker 6: We learned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what I love about you what you said
Speaker 2: about this book, Tiffany, is that regardless of what financial
Speaker 2: level you're on, regardless of what your financial health looks
Speaker 2: like in this moment, you will find it useful.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I would say first things first, foundationally, you
Speaker 5: have to have a budget. They don't call it the
Speaker 5: budget the stuff for nothing, so you know, it's the
Speaker 5: foundation for all the things that you're doing.
Speaker 6: You know, you can't say if you don't have a budget,
Speaker 6: you can't get out of that.
Speaker 5: You don't have a budget, your credit's probably going to
Speaker 5: be the greatest if you don't have some sort of budget,
Speaker 5: which is just a money plan telling your money what
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 6: So that's one.
Speaker 5: The second one I'll say is learning to earn, because
Speaker 5: you're not going to budget your way to financial security.
Speaker 5: You have to learn how to make money when needed,
Speaker 5: you know, like not just from your regular job.
Speaker 6: But in made whole, I teach you how to make money.
Speaker 5: How to make more money at your regular job, and
Speaker 5: if you need excess money, I teach you how to
Speaker 5: make money outside of your regular job. So that's I
Speaker 5: would be number two for me. It's like meaning like
Speaker 5: a hustle, like a siey, that's what you want, a
Speaker 5: side hustle, a business, you know, like we have to
Speaker 5: make additional income, Like when I used to teach preschool.
Speaker 5: I love teaching, but there were times I needed more money.
Speaker 5: So I learned that I could tutor. I learned that
Speaker 5: I could I could babysit. So learning how to make
Speaker 5: more money is critical in your financial holeness journey.
Speaker 6: And then last, but not least, I.
Speaker 5: Would say, it will be hmm, I'm vacillating between your
Speaker 5: net worth and maybe it will be financial professionals because
Speaker 5: I think, especially for black and brown communities, we hesitate
Speaker 5: to ask for help when it comes to our money.
Speaker 5: So I have a whole section of the book about
Speaker 5: how to identify the financial professionals you need on your
Speaker 5: money team, you know, like who can help you.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, that's interesting. It's interesting you mentioned that too,
Speaker 2: because I think about when you say that in the
Speaker 2: black and brown communities, we are apprehensive sometimes to ask
Speaker 2: for help when it comes to the money. And I
Speaker 2: even think of our parents' generation, because we're at the
Speaker 2: space in our life where we're almost becoming like parents
Speaker 2: to our parents. And you know, knowing that my mom
Speaker 2: and dad, for example, are retired or on a fixed income,
Speaker 2: and they like to see their money in their account
Speaker 2: and they don't want to take any chances. They don't
Speaker 2: want to take any risks. And Deval and I were
Speaker 2: trying to explain to them, like they just hold a
Speaker 2: property recently that they had in New York. You have
Speaker 2: this lum sum of money. It's like, how can you
Speaker 2: now use this money to work for you, which may
Speaker 2: require a little bit of gambling, you know, or taking
Speaker 2: ariad But that generation specifically does not like to take
Speaker 2: that race. So how do you encourage that, you know,
Speaker 2: for anyone, how are you going to take a risk
Speaker 2: to potentially get this money to grow?
Speaker 5: So that's actually perfect. So one of my friends, his
Speaker 5: grandmother lives around the corner for me, shout out to you,
Speaker 5: miss Diane. And so she recently same sold the property
Speaker 5: that she actually got from her grandmother for a dollar
Speaker 5: so many years ago. Miss Banne is like in her
Speaker 5: late late seventies, and so she sold the first significant
Speaker 5: amount of money. I'm not going to say Miss Diane's
Speaker 5: gonna be like, but she got a cute coin, a
Speaker 5: cute coin, and Miss Diane is more scared than ever
Speaker 5: chid what it took to get Miss Diane. So he
Speaker 5: came to me, he was like, she will not listen
Speaker 5: to me. She has all this money sitting in a
Speaker 5: checking account just looking at it to your because anybody're looking,
Speaker 5: she would have seen and see her, you.
Speaker 3: Know, every day, like on just to see Yes.
Speaker 6: So I told him, I said, well, one, you her grandbaby.
Speaker 5: She's not gonna listen to you because she's like, I know,
Speaker 5: the baby ain't even though he's grown forty. She's like
Speaker 5: like the behind now, right, The first things first, you
Speaker 5: have to bring it outside help. And so what I
Speaker 5: told him is, then let's get a certified financial planner,
Speaker 5: which is a type of the gold standard of a
Speaker 5: financial advisor, which I help.
Speaker 1: Oh before you continue, before you continue, please tell the
Speaker 1: difference because people have been asking ever since season one,
Speaker 1: what's the difference between a certified financial planner and a CPA.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, so a CPA is a certified Public accountant,
Speaker 5: So that's your accountant.
Speaker 6: Yes, So there are financial advisors.
Speaker 5: Anyone could basically call themselves an advisor for the most part,
Speaker 5: but a CFP, a certified financial planner, is a gold standard.
Speaker 5: They have to take a certain level of testing, they
Speaker 5: have to have been in business for a certain amount
Speaker 5: of time, they have to keep up their knowledge base,
Speaker 5: and they have to be what they call a fiduciary,
Speaker 5: meaning a fiduciary has to legally put your interest first before.
Speaker 1: Anything else first.
Speaker 5: So if you're looking for a type of financial advisor,
Speaker 5: there are many types. You want to look for a CFP,
Speaker 5: a certified financial planner because that is the top because
Speaker 5: everybody can't make it. It's like the difference between like, oh,
Speaker 5: I play you know, reck Ball on the weekends and
Speaker 5: you and the NBA.
Speaker 6: So right right, you don't don't be fooled.
Speaker 1: Don't be fooled.
Speaker 5: So you want to see f P, a certified financial planner,
Speaker 5: and I I teach you the book like how do
Speaker 5: you identify, how do you interview?
Speaker 6: How do you pick the right one?
Speaker 5: And so what I did with miss miss Diane is
Speaker 5: and her grandson. As I said, miss Diane, like, you
Speaker 5: are gonna want someone because she wanted it to be me.
Speaker 6: But I'm not a CFP.
Speaker 5: I'm a financial educator, meaning that I just teach financial knowledge.
Speaker 5: I don't tell you what to do with your money,
Speaker 5: specifically what to do with your money. So I told
Speaker 5: her what we can do is I showed her that
Speaker 5: this is how you interview. I'm going to line up
Speaker 5: my top three financial planners that I like personally mine am,
Speaker 5: this woman named Amy, and this other woman named Helen.
Speaker 5: And I said, and for the first one, I will
Speaker 5: co interview I know Amy, but I will co interview
Speaker 5: her with you so you can see, so you can
Speaker 5: see what questions to ask and like what And so
Speaker 5: I did that and she was really just like okay.
Speaker 6: And so they did the.
Speaker 5: Next two on their own, and they ended up choosing Amy.
Speaker 5: And so now Amy is the referee between what her
Speaker 5: grandson wants because he's young, he's forty, so he's.
Speaker 6: Like, yo, let's put it in the market.
Speaker 5: Let's the best, you know, And then what she wants,
Speaker 5: which is I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 5: lose now one cent I want to ride this thing
Speaker 5: out until I'm no longer here.
Speaker 6: And so Amy helps to add that.
Speaker 5: Extra sense of comfort for me, saying I just saw
Speaker 5: her the other day, like last week, and I said,
Speaker 5: let me walk over and check on her. I said,
Speaker 5: how's it going with Amy? She's like, I like her.
Speaker 5: Amy's a little older. Sorry, Amy, you know, I'm just
Speaker 5: saying you are a little older.
Speaker 6: It was a little old. Actually, she's a little older.
Speaker 5: So she liked the fact that someone they're not close
Speaker 5: in age, but old enough where she felt like and
Speaker 5: that this is someone who can understand like why she
Speaker 5: might be a little or hesitant. So slowly they had
Speaker 5: been like chipping her toward, like, well, let's put some
Speaker 5: of this money into a high yield savings account. Let's
Speaker 5: open up, like put some of this money, like, let's
Speaker 5: look at what it might look like to purchase another
Speaker 5: property that could be a property to live in and
Speaker 5: potentially a property for investment. So with Amy's expertise, she's
Speaker 5: building trust and slowly inching Miss Diane to a place.
Speaker 5: I have to always remind her grandson, Dee, I'm like, yo,
Speaker 5: she's Miss Dianne. She's seventy seven years old. Like she
Speaker 5: don't walk, that she don't want that. She's not gonna
Speaker 5: move fast, you know with her money, you know. But
Speaker 5: that movement that's 'ah making is aligned. Before she wasn't
Speaker 5: moving at all. So that's what I say that if
Speaker 5: you have older parents, like my dad, you know, is
Speaker 5: in his eighties and my mom is in her seventies,
Speaker 5: he got himself a hunt gred you know, young.
Speaker 6: Girl, but they too.
Speaker 5: I mean my dad, you know, was an accountant, and
Speaker 5: but still it was hard for him for me to
Speaker 5: move the needle when it came to making certain financial choices.
Speaker 5: Like his will was like he made his will when
Speaker 5: I was like ten years old, and I'm my daddy,
Speaker 5: you need to update it and he would say later
Speaker 5: and I'm like, I mean, not gonna be shady, bro,
Speaker 5: but you.
Speaker 7: Eighty here, you actually past the expiration there because the
Speaker 7: AVA person lives to seventy eight and God willing, are
Speaker 7: you gonna be there?
Speaker 6: But we're here now.
Speaker 5: And so but it took me to bring in my
Speaker 5: I had this is another component of the book, right
Speaker 5: the financial professionals. I brought in my attorney to have
Speaker 5: the conversation to say, like, what are you afraid of
Speaker 5: He didn't really want to go through all the work,
Speaker 5: so she did a template of a will where they
Speaker 5: could just make little changes versus having the bill from
Speaker 5: from scratch. So that's what I say, like having the
Speaker 5: initial conversation with your person, your your parent, your grandparent,
Speaker 5: bringing in a financial expert to help buffer, and then
Speaker 5: slowly working towards like what's this is the desired outcome,
Speaker 5: and you can have your side conversation with the expert
Speaker 5: like here's a desired outcome, this is what I'd like
Speaker 5: to see, and the expert works with you and you're
Speaker 5: a grandparent or parent to get there. But having that
Speaker 5: conversation is critical the sooner because it's gonna take a while.
Speaker 5: The sooner you start those conversations, the better.
Speaker 1: This is what I've realized, Tiffany. And that's I'm glad
Speaker 1: we're having this conversation because we've been talking to your
Speaker 1: parents who are now retired. My mom is looking to retire,
Speaker 1: my dad just retired this year. And the hardest thing
Speaker 1: explaining to anybody, not just people in their generation, but
Speaker 1: to anybody is that money is a tool. That's all
Speaker 1: it is. People like to collect money and like you said,
Speaker 1: steer at it.
Speaker 3: It's a security, buddy.
Speaker 1: But if you're staring at it in a checking account,
Speaker 1: ultimately over the years is gonna diminish one mainly because
Speaker 1: of interest, Like once interest grows up their money even
Speaker 1: if you don't spend it. But you also have to live,
Speaker 1: so you pay your mortgage, every month, you pay your card. No,
Speaker 1: it's gonna keep going away. If you don't utilize that
Speaker 1: money as a tool, you'll never You'll never have financial security.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the best ways to turn your
Speaker 1: money into a tool.
Speaker 5: So to start, if you're really, really, really nervous at
Speaker 5: the very least, open up a high yield savings account.
Speaker 1: Come on, I'm the back plate, you.
Speaker 6: Know, because the people get scared and I'm like.
Speaker 5: The good thing about a high yel savings account is
Speaker 5: if you're like, I'm totally risk adverse. Is that up
Speaker 5: to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per bank, you
Speaker 5: know you can you are protected if it's an FDIC
Speaker 5: insured if this is a federally backed bank, meaning that
Speaker 5: up to two fifty if the bank goes under, the
Speaker 5: government will give you back your two.
Speaker 1: Still get money.
Speaker 6: So it's like you can't lose.
Speaker 5: Right and so right now, like as of the taping
Speaker 5: of this podcast, right now, I'm seeing like four and
Speaker 5: a half percent like return.
Speaker 6: And so inflation.
Speaker 5: Inflation is when money is devalued or things cost more
Speaker 5: over time, meaning your money is worth less year after year.
Speaker 5: And right now, the inflation in the United States is
Speaker 5: that money is going down in value at about three
Speaker 5: point something percent. So you know, if you put your
Speaker 5: money in a high yield you're making four and a
Speaker 5: half percent, but your money is losing three and something percent.
Speaker 5: So at least at least dollar for dollars, you stay
Speaker 5: in about even, you know. So if you don't do
Speaker 5: anything else, you have a lumpsum money, take it out
Speaker 5: of checking and put it into a high yield savings account,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: But that's important that you said though. It has to
Speaker 1: be high yields for you to even be close to
Speaker 1: breaking because if you keep it in a saving and
Speaker 1: keep it in a checking account just based on inflation,
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose money.
Speaker 6: Of the year because so think about high yields.
Speaker 5: This typically the big banks that you see outside on
Speaker 5: the corner, you know, like those big old banks that
Speaker 5: we all know, they don't offer most of them don't
Speaker 5: offer high yeald savings, so the interest they're paying you
Speaker 5: is point zero zero or zero zero zero. I mean,
Speaker 5: I mean not only that. So they take your money.
Speaker 5: You put that little hundred dollars you got in there,
Speaker 5: They take your hundred and they pimp it out and
Speaker 5: loaning and make money off of it, and then say
Speaker 5: they get fat off that money, and then say here's
Speaker 5: a penny for your troubles.
Speaker 3: But at least with a high definitely all like eighty
Speaker 3: four cent. I was like eighty four a cent.
Speaker 5: You don't want to take your saved. I never keep
Speaker 5: my savings at one of those brick and mortar banks.
Speaker 5: Is that I keep my check neighbor there for convenience
Speaker 5: because if you go, especially y'all like y'all, you travel,
Speaker 5: so I like to keep my checking there so no
Speaker 5: matter where I am in the country, I can get
Speaker 5: to my money and my savings. Typically, most high yield
Speaker 5: savings accounts you'll find with online only banks because they
Speaker 5: don't have the same overhand, you know, they don't have
Speaker 5: like the location they have to worry about, So.
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. That's why it actually makes
Speaker 1: sense because it's not brick and mortar. They don't have
Speaker 1: any expenses more sense, so.
Speaker 6: They're able to pass.
Speaker 5: You know, at least you get four five pennies versus
Speaker 5: the one penny. So that's so that's one if you're
Speaker 5: gonna do anything too. If you're still nervous, I want
Speaker 5: you to look at your job and if you have
Speaker 5: you know, you're not self employed or whatever, and see
Speaker 5: are you is your money being put into some sort
Speaker 5: of four to one k, you know, whatever retirement account
Speaker 5: is available. Like you might say, oh, I don't do
Speaker 5: all retirement account because I don't know where to put
Speaker 5: my money. You don't have to. I can almost guarantee
Speaker 5: most four one ks or four or three b's or whatever.
Speaker 5: The retirement account has has something called a target date
Speaker 5: fund a TD target date fund, and that is when
Speaker 5: you say, this is the year I think I want
Speaker 5: to retire closest to sixty time or whatever. You're gonna
Speaker 5: find TDF and the year that's closest like TDF two
Speaker 5: thousand and sixty five, TDF two thousand and seventy, whatever
Speaker 5: that year is, and you can say I want my
Speaker 5: money put into that fund, and the fond will choose
Speaker 5: the investments for you based upon risk. So the further
Speaker 5: you are from retirement, the more you'll be invested in stocks.
Speaker 5: The closer you are, the more you'll be invested in
Speaker 5: bonds and things that are a little bit safe in bonds.
Speaker 5: So you ain't got to worry about it. You just
Speaker 5: put your money in your target day fund and every
Speaker 5: year that you get closer to retirement is the investments
Speaker 5: get more and more conservative until you're ready and then
Speaker 5: you can pull your money out. So that's the second thing.
Speaker 5: Make sure you're putting money in your retirement account.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you a question, because this is
Speaker 1: what I've been talking to her mom and my mom about.
Speaker 1: Right when you do have a four to one K,
Speaker 1: now you get that lump some four on one K,
Speaker 1: can you explain why it's not smart to just take
Speaker 1: that lump some four one K putting in a checking
Speaker 1: account and say this be my money till I die.
Speaker 1: Can you please explain? Because I try to explain to
Speaker 1: them that money is a tool. You need to use
Speaker 1: it to make more money, like you said, buy another property,
Speaker 1: start a business. But a lot of people say I
Speaker 1: got my four on one K. This is what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to use until I die. So if I have
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty K and my four on one K,
Speaker 1: hopefully I only live a certain amount so I can
Speaker 1: pay my mortgage. Like I'm trying to explain to them,
Speaker 1: that's the wrong way to view it. Can you explain
Speaker 1: to them why that's so bad? Ideal?
Speaker 5: The ideal ideal? Ideal is that money that you put
Speaker 5: up is a seed. So I want to think about
Speaker 5: like the difference between like an apple seed and an apple. Right,
Speaker 5: So that seed that you initially planted ten years ago
Speaker 5: in the backyard, like that is the initial investment to
Speaker 5: your retirement account. You're puting seeds. You' putting seas. The
Speaker 5: seeds grow some trees. Over time, your retirement is growing.
Speaker 5: The trees grow branches. Your retirement is growing. The branches
Speaker 5: eventually yield apples, and ideally, in retirement, you're going to
Speaker 5: want to eat the apples because what essentially the ball
Speaker 5: that you're saying that your parents are doing. They're going
Speaker 5: back and digging up the seeds and eating the seeds
Speaker 5: they originally put in, and so you will.
Speaker 6: Kill the tree.
Speaker 5: So ideally you want to be starting exactly what ideally
Speaker 5: what you want to do is that you, of course,
Speaker 5: who is mowing the lawn?
Speaker 1: Can you hear that? I'll met you.
Speaker 6: That's my landscape. I'm like Lewis.
Speaker 2: I don't hear it Wednesdays too. It happens over here.
Speaker 2: We start later for that reason.
Speaker 6: And so so ideally what you want to do is
Speaker 6: lead them seas alone.
Speaker 5: And you want to eat the apples only, and meaning
Speaker 5: that you want to live off the investment what it's yielding.
Speaker 6: So I live by so many people they call the
Speaker 6: four percent rule.
Speaker 5: This is what I live by, meaning that you put
Speaker 5: up enough money and you never take more than four
Speaker 5: percent out because on average, if you have your money
Speaker 5: invested into the market, it's going to yield. It's gonna
Speaker 5: yield no more than it's gonna yield like ten percent
Speaker 5: on average. So the last hundred years the market has
Speaker 5: yielded on average annually ten percent, meaning some years thirty,
Speaker 5: some years negative twenty, but it all evens out to
Speaker 5: about ten percent. So if you only live off four
Speaker 5: it keeps you real safe to one never touched the
Speaker 5: original seed, and to allowed to keep growing because you
Speaker 5: got about six percent to play with, just in case
Speaker 5: it gets a little crazy, you see. And so for me, I,
Speaker 5: when I'm no longer here those season I plan it
Speaker 5: will continue to grow apples for whoever comes after me,
Speaker 5: and I can still live. Well, just eat my four percent,
Speaker 5: eat my four percent, and that's actually safer than digging
Speaker 5: up the tree. It's like the goose that laid the
Speaker 5: golden egg. Just keep getting the eggs.
Speaker 6: Someone doesn't cut the goose open, and.
Speaker 3: You know now that goose will no longer you know.
Speaker 5: And that story, the farmer was like, well, why should
Speaker 5: I wait for this goose to lay a golden egg
Speaker 5: every week? I could just cut it open and scoop
Speaker 5: out all the gold now. And he found that there
Speaker 5: was nothing in the goose but just a regular goose.
Speaker 5: So now you cut the thing that was generating you money.
Speaker 5: Damn if you spend the source, SI analogy and tall
Speaker 5: you generating you money. So that's what you share with
Speaker 5: your parents, which is like, this is the source. This
Speaker 5: source can generate your money indefinitely, even when you're not
Speaker 5: even here. But if we start, if we eat these
Speaker 5: seeds now, no more apples will grow. So let's leave
Speaker 5: the seats alone and only eat from the apples.
Speaker 1: I like that I like that. That actually is a good,
Speaker 1: really good way to do it, because they all want
Speaker 1: to take it out. They want to take it out
Speaker 1: before one k and hold it and I got it now.
Speaker 1: But you're right though, because that's killing the guest. Killing
Speaker 1: Why kill the goose if the goose is going to continue.
Speaker 5: To give you to get your eggs every morning, get
Speaker 5: your four percent, Like I just get my four percent.
Speaker 5: I'll get my four percent you know, every single year
Speaker 5: that way. Know that, Like it doesn't matter how long
Speaker 5: I live, because I.
Speaker 6: Know I'll never outlive that mnchy.
Speaker 1: You've got to live within the four And the good
Speaker 1: thing is if you if you make more money, you
Speaker 1: just keep putting more money back into the goose. So
Speaker 1: now you make it more money, you keep ordering keep
Speaker 1: that plan so it can.
Speaker 5: Because if you lived at the full tea and then
Speaker 5: basically you bring yourself back to like let's just say
Speaker 5: you have one hundred thousand dollars in your retirement account
Speaker 5: and every year the one hundred thousand dollars grows through
Speaker 5: one hundred thousand, one hundred ten thousand dollars, because that's
Speaker 5: ten percent. So certainly you could say, well, I'm just
Speaker 5: gonna take the ten percent, So I'm back at one
Speaker 5: hundred thousand.
Speaker 6: Ever, you'll take the ten percent.
Speaker 5: You could do that and just keep that hundred thousand,
Speaker 5: But what I'm saying is it grows to add one
Speaker 5: hundred thousand, grows to one hundred and ten thousand. I'm saying,
Speaker 5: only spend four thousand, so that one hundred thousand is
Speaker 5: one hundred and six. Now, now it grows interest on
Speaker 5: one hundred and six, and so it's like and then
Speaker 5: next year it's not ten thousand, maybe it's one hundred
Speaker 5: and twelve, and so you still take your four percent.
Speaker 6: Now, all of a sudden, you see, like that extra interest,
Speaker 6: you're leaving.
Speaker 5: Every year more money money, money, And then also too,
Speaker 5: like it gives your chance to leave a legacy. That's
Speaker 5: one of the chapters in the book, the last chapter
Speaker 5: about leaving a legacy, like how do we leave a
Speaker 5: legacy for those that come after us?
Speaker 6: Like when I'm not here, you know, like my my
Speaker 6: nieces and nephew.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm leaving them plenty, But it doesn't mean
Speaker 5: I live less of a life, you know, off camera,
Speaker 5: you know, or I just shared with y'all. I just
Speaker 5: bought a condo cash half a million dollars I paid
Speaker 5: for it, and I'm renovating it another one hundred thousand
Speaker 5: I paid for it. So it's not that like I'm
Speaker 5: leaving all this money left over for my nieces and
Speaker 5: nephew and my sisters if I'm not here anymore, and
Speaker 5: then I don't live well now.
Speaker 6: No, I'm I'm living well now, like I'm getting all
Speaker 6: the things.
Speaker 5: Yes, but I'm still living within my means, you know,
Speaker 5: in a way that I can enjoy life while still
Speaker 5: leaving a legacy.
Speaker 6: That is possible.
Speaker 5: That is why why I wrote maid whole, not to
Speaker 5: teach you how to be wealthy, But how do you maximize.
Speaker 6: The money that you have access to already?
Speaker 1: Nothing?
Speaker 2: Okay, going back to the first thing that you mentioned,
Speaker 2: which was the budget. Now that was something that in
Speaker 2: the very first season devout always a joke about me.
Speaker 2: I'd say budgets are made to be broken, because that
Speaker 2: was my mindset. So how do you speak to someone
Speaker 2: who may be again like your nurse, your doctor, your lawyer,
Speaker 2: your you know, tea school teacher, anyone and who is
Speaker 2: maybe has the the unhealthy relationship discipline. You don't want
Speaker 2: to say but budget just sounds like, oh, it sounds
Speaker 2: like a restraint. It sounds like boundaries. How do you
Speaker 2: encourage someone to develop a healthy relationship with budget? Because
Speaker 2: I know how it has worked for me and how
Speaker 2: I've seen the benefits of it over the course of
Speaker 2: the past couple of years. But how can you speak
Speaker 2: to someone who said, you know, this is the first
Speaker 2: place you're going to start when you get this book
Speaker 2: made whole budgeting is the first thing.
Speaker 3: How do they create a healthy relationship?
Speaker 5: But well, you can change the name. I like to
Speaker 5: call my budget. I say yes plan, Like the budget
Speaker 5: is there for me to say yes to me. It's
Speaker 5: there to say yes to me in a way that
Speaker 5: will keep me safe and maintain my current life style.
Speaker 5: So I like to think about budget, like why are
Speaker 5: you a black mama? Your budget is your black mama.
Speaker 6: Right, Like I'm sure your kid's Like, Mom, could I
Speaker 6: have dessert?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 6: After you have dinner? Can I play outside?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 6: After you do your choice? Can I, you know, jump
Speaker 6: in the pool? Yes? If after you put on sunscreen.
Speaker 6: The budget is you could?
Speaker 5: It is there to say yes because you care about
Speaker 5: your boys, you know, But is there to say yes
Speaker 5: in a way that keeps them safe.
Speaker 6: And so that is a budget.
Speaker 5: The parameters are not there to hold you back, is
Speaker 5: but to provide the safest environment forward for you to
Speaker 5: have a yes.
Speaker 6: So that's how I like to think of a budget.
Speaker 3: And you don't have to like thinking of the yes yes,
Speaker 3: and you know also the moments when you can't yes.
Speaker 5: But I mean and if it doesn't say yes now right,
Speaker 5: then it's like, well, what can I do to get
Speaker 5: to a yes? That's what your budget is there for.
Speaker 5: It's there so you can see your money down on paper.
Speaker 5: So you're like, oh, you know what, Actually I don't
Speaker 5: really eating out is all right, but I much rather
Speaker 5: go on vacation. I can get a yes and vacation
Speaker 5: if I reduce this thing that I don't even care about.
Speaker 1: You know, see this, this is why, this is why
Speaker 1: I really appreciate what you do, because it's always a mentality.
Speaker 1: Right when when people hear budget, the first thing people
Speaker 1: think is, oh, this budget is going to tell me no,
Speaker 1: as opposed to, this budget is going to allow me
Speaker 1: to be able to say yes when I really want
Speaker 1: to do something. And I think that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1: Budgets aren't a list of nose. Used to look at
Speaker 1: it like a list of loads astrations.
Speaker 2: Like don't hold my sagittarian and that's hostage because that's
Speaker 2: when I become the sagittatist everything.
Speaker 1: But if you got to listen to her now, her
Speaker 1: sister is and her brother in law getting married, right,
Speaker 1: So we had things we were planning to do, and
Speaker 1: this is the first thing Kadeen said to them. Can
Speaker 1: you guys, are you guys going to be able to
Speaker 1: do that? Because you're planning a wedding. I'm like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, wait a minute, you did you just check
Speaker 1: them or doing something because they have something to do
Speaker 1: in the Martyr for change, And if you think about it,
Speaker 1: that's the way you should think about life. Everything is
Speaker 1: in a no, it's not it's not a dream denied,
Speaker 1: it's a dream deferst. I can do it now and
Speaker 1: then I will have to do a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: shit I don't want to do later, or I can decide,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll alter my plans now to do
Speaker 1: whatever I want do later. On budget is an automation.
Speaker 5: You don't have to because I think people also think
Speaker 5: they have to be with a notebook, writing down every penny,
Speaker 5: like everybody got the top of that, right. So instead,
Speaker 5: what I like you to do is I tell people
Speaker 5: do the split it before you get it right, which is,
Speaker 5: you figure out how much money you need. And there's
Speaker 5: two four accounts, two checking, two savings, one account for bills,
Speaker 5: one account for spending these checking accounts, one account for
Speaker 5: long term savings or emergency savings, and one account for
Speaker 5: goal savings. These are these are your higheld savings accounts.
Speaker 5: So you go to your HR department and say, I
Speaker 5: need you to put my money these four accounts for me,
Speaker 5: so you don't even have to budget. So yeah, So
Speaker 5: money goes into your bill's account, money goes into your
Speaker 5: spending account, money goes into your both your two savings accounts,
Speaker 5: and you have your you only have your debit card
Speaker 5: attached to that one checking account for spending, so that
Speaker 5: way you can spend as much as you want for groceries,
Speaker 5: for hair nails, lashes, whatever, but it's only gonna attached
Speaker 5: to that account because you know, bills is paid automated.
Speaker 6: Saving. The others say was to say, this is one
Speaker 6: of the ways that you get.
Speaker 5: Over the hump of having to be so responsible is that, like,
Speaker 5: I never worry if I'm overspending.
Speaker 6: How can I?
Speaker 5: I can only spend what's attached to to my debit card,
Speaker 5: and so I split it before I get it. And
Speaker 5: if you do that, that will help you maintain a
Speaker 5: budget and not feel so bad about it.
Speaker 1: Tiff. Let me tell you that is literally literally what
Speaker 1: we do. Kadeen and I pay ourselves. But we pay
Speaker 1: ourselves like our cash fund, our slush fund, after everything
Speaker 1: else is taken care of. We have trust building, wealth building, mortgages,
Speaker 1: children for one k's and then at the end, after
Speaker 1: all of that stuff is paid, Kadeen and I have
Speaker 1: our money. Could Deen get some money in her account?
Speaker 1: And she's just like, I could do whatever I want
Speaker 1: to do with this because everything else And then now
Speaker 1: she's planning her whole life based on this, and what
Speaker 1: she's realized is like, dang, I ain't even need that
Speaker 1: much to plan what I wanted to do. So at
Speaker 1: the end of every month, I'm like, how much money
Speaker 1: you got on your account?
Speaker 2: She's like that, like look, and even he was surprised
Speaker 2: one day. He was he was like, you know, how
Speaker 2: about you got in your account?
Speaker 3: Are you good? And I'm like, yeah, I have X
Speaker 3: amount of dollars and he was like, you haven't been
Speaker 3: doing any spending.
Speaker 5: There's a freedom in that because you thought to yourself,
Speaker 5: I do that, I'm in financial jail. But now you realize, wait,
Speaker 5: the organization actually grants me freedom, not jail, because now
Speaker 5: you know I can spend in a way that doesn't
Speaker 5: harm anything else that I'm doing. I could do whatever
Speaker 5: I want with this money, you know. So that just
Speaker 5: feels really good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: That That actually is like the best feeling when I
Speaker 1: look at my slush account and I could be like them,
Speaker 1: I could just spend all this today and I don't
Speaker 1: got to worry about nothing. It feels good. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like it feels freedom. But I just heard something.
Speaker 1: I think it was Serena, No, it was Venus Williams.
Speaker 1: Venus Williams said, structure for her and discipline is freedom.
Speaker 1: She said, structure and discipline is freedom because since she's
Speaker 1: learned to be so structured and disciplined from when she
Speaker 1: was young, when she's ready to do what she wants
Speaker 1: to do, she's always able to do it. She's like,
Speaker 1: I've been so structured and I've created such a strong foundation.
Speaker 1: She and I think Serena in that same interview was
Speaker 1: just like, there's like, what's your big splurs She's like, well,
Speaker 1: my my big splurgs. I like to buy houses.
Speaker 6: Excuse me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, god, dang, like some people be like a bracelet.
Speaker 1: She said, No, she likes to buy a problem. But
Speaker 1: imagine you've been so structured that one day you're just like,
Speaker 1: you know, if they go to house is worth a
Speaker 1: million dollars, yep, I'll buy it.
Speaker 3: So it's just that's freedom.
Speaker 2: It's changing the viewpoint or the negative connotations around words
Speaker 2: like structured, yes, and looking at it as freedom.
Speaker 5: But even now that I'm retivating the condo that I bought,
Speaker 5: I already know because I'm like every year I have
Speaker 5: a certain amount of money that I like to give
Speaker 5: to my financial advisor to put up for my seats
Speaker 5: that I want to put up. You know, that's about
Speaker 5: half a million dollars or so I'm like, Okay, this
Speaker 5: is my goal. You know, we got to hit it,
Speaker 5: and so I like to hit it as early as possible.
Speaker 5: I used to be like, if I hit it, you know,
Speaker 5: by I don't know, like August, let me keep going
Speaker 5: and it took Angelie my financial and be like, girl,
Speaker 5: you good like that, like I know your goal of
Speaker 5: what it is, and that half a million that you
Speaker 5: put up, you're going to reach that goal.
Speaker 6: You're giving me extra. It just means less life for you, now,
Speaker 6: you know. So now she was like, go ahead. So
Speaker 6: now I've already had my goal with her.
Speaker 5: And so now when I am looking at like I
Speaker 5: was looking at Marble for the for the master Bath,
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I.
Speaker 6: Don't want it on give me that horrible hit my Marble.
Speaker 5: I was like, but I none of that because I
Speaker 5: feel free that I can, I know how much Like
Speaker 5: it's my slush account. I'm like, Tiffany has a freedom
Speaker 5: to get fancier things in your place that maybe if
Speaker 5: I had not seen my plan.
Speaker 6: And knowing like you already feels all the other buckets
Speaker 6: you good my mind.
Speaker 5: You don't you don't have to actually hold back like
Speaker 5: this extra money, like if you want to spend the
Speaker 5: extra you maybe I have a budget for them renovation,
Speaker 5: but if I want to spend an extra thirty thousand dollars,
Speaker 5: it doesn't take away for my retirement account, doesn't take
Speaker 5: away from my own goals, doesn't take away from bills,
Speaker 5: It doesn't take away from anything. This is money that
Speaker 5: is in excess and so I can use it to
Speaker 5: enhance my current life. And that's what I want for
Speaker 5: people that we are not here to merely work, pay
Speaker 5: bills and countpennies.
Speaker 6: You know, that's like whole Listen, how do you want
Speaker 6: your life to go?
Speaker 5: You are here to use money, to your point about
Speaker 5: as a tool for a better life, and that's what
Speaker 5: I want.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that because that's actually sums up my
Speaker 3: final question.
Speaker 1: The biggest I was like, dang, that was the perfect
Speaker 1: take pay for take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I was going to ask, what was your
Speaker 2: biggest take or what do you hope people will have
Speaker 2: as the biggest takeaway from maid whole?
Speaker 3: And that I think that was it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, being made whole doesn't mean that you sacrifice your
Speaker 1: whole life so the people after you can live. No,
Speaker 1: being made whole means that you learn to sacrifice in
Speaker 1: the right time so you can live the best life
Speaker 1: you living right now. That's what people don't understand about
Speaker 1: financial literacy because that's ultimately what it is. It ain't
Speaker 1: about just making all the money putting it in the
Speaker 1: side for your kids or your nephew's. No, it's putting
Speaker 1: the money to where I can use it for my life,
Speaker 1: right exactly.
Speaker 2: Because even to go back to speak on the property
Speaker 2: my parents just so, my father's mindset was well, I'm
Speaker 2: going to have this property for my three children, so
Speaker 2: when I passed away, they can then inherit this house.
Speaker 2: And Deval and I were talking to him and we
Speaker 2: were like, Dad, but if you were to sell it
Speaker 2: now in a market that was a seller's market, and
Speaker 2: we can now then use that money to then make
Speaker 2: our own investments, like sell it, then divide it, and
Speaker 2: then we can now have the leverage to do those investments.
Speaker 1: We told them. He said that you have one property
Speaker 1: that's paid off, That one property can now be six properties.
Speaker 1: Once you sell that property, each of your children can
Speaker 1: then buy two properties with that same money and then
Speaker 1: do the same thing for their kids.
Speaker 3: And that's when he was like, that's the legacy.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh, I said yeah, because your kids
Speaker 1: are still working, so they don't need the money from
Speaker 1: your property right now. All they can can use it
Speaker 1: for as an investment for something else. That's what you
Speaker 1: call planning. That seed and watering it. Dad, let them
Speaker 1: water their own seeds now so that they can continue
Speaker 1: to go.
Speaker 6: And he's like, I love that, thinking that season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just in time, just in season. Tiffany, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us again. And it's always, always,
Speaker 2: always a pleasure to have you here. The fact that
Speaker 2: you have another book, which you're already gonna say, is
Speaker 2: gonna be a New York Times that's already Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: You can already. You can already put that on And
Speaker 1: when when exactly does it drop?
Speaker 5: Though it should already be out by now, November twenty first,
Speaker 5: because I know this is airing around that time, and
Speaker 5: so it's available at Mad Whole workbook dot com. That's
Speaker 5: made Whole working.
Speaker 2: Then you're going, baby, I think that's the perfect time
Speaker 2: with holiday seasons coming in. It's giving the perfect stocking
Speaker 2: stuff for the perfect gift. Go get that book, especially
Speaker 2: when people like to go into the hole for the holidays.
Speaker 1: So go get that book, and I'm gonna be made whole.
Speaker 6: Don't go into the hole.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. I'm going to be honest. Your
Speaker 1: first book is something that you and I have adopted. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of when people as were telling me how
Speaker 1: did the Elysis get out of the apartment to move here.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie to you. So many of the
Speaker 1: themes and the ideas and the way I just viewed
Speaker 1: money changed from twenty and eighteen, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it had a lot to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: we spoke. Our first conversation was twenty eighteen. Then when
Speaker 1: the book came out, I was like, this is stuff
Speaker 1: that we talked about.
Speaker 3: We expected our financial advice, Like okay, so said.
Speaker 1: Then, but then he started following you and it was
Speaker 1: just like, yo, she got some dope. He's like, she
Speaker 1: got some dope, some dope by this. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: it wasn't for just oh, you're in entertainment, you're an athlete. No,
Speaker 1: it was for everybody. So I can guarantee you if
Speaker 1: you have the first book and now you get the
Speaker 1: second book, you will not be disappointed and start planning
Speaker 1: to live the life you want right now, not forty
Speaker 1: years later.
Speaker 2: That's it freedom, maybe structured discipline that mainehold.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Seff. Let everyone know where they
Speaker 3: can find you too. I am the bu case. They're
Speaker 3: new to the show.
Speaker 5: All the things Instagram. I know, know on's on Facebook
Speaker 5: like that anymore, but I'm there too, YouTube.
Speaker 6: Dot com. But yeah, so I'm there everywhere.
Speaker 2: Awesome, all right, we love you so so much. Thanks
Speaker 2: for being with us again for sure, and all the
Speaker 2: best with this book, baby.
Speaker 1: Out all right, Man, it's always fun with with Tiffany
Speaker 1: Man and budget.
Speaker 2: She's great, She's always insightful. She literally really has like
Speaker 2: helped us so so so much when it comes to
Speaker 2: just building over the years. I mean, it's amazing when
Speaker 2: we really look back at how far we've come, man,
Speaker 2: from the apartment days and trying to find ways out
Speaker 2: of there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was all it was all a consistent
Speaker 1: process of small progress over the years that when you
Speaker 1: look back at it now, it was just like it
Speaker 1: was thirteen years we spent in that apartment, but every
Speaker 1: year when you looked at it, you wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: the progress was that much. But now looking back on
Speaker 1: the thirteen year progress come along.
Speaker 2: With that is a shout out to you, because I
Speaker 2: could not see the bigger picture. And again just growing
Speaker 2: up in my household and seeing my parents' relationships with money,
Speaker 2: like they would just encourage working because that my parents
Speaker 2: weren't works, hard workers, but also saving and that was it.
Speaker 2: It's just having the money there so you could see it.
Speaker 2: But you had a little bit more business acumen and
Speaker 2: you were willing to take more risks. And here we are,
Speaker 2: so amazing, amazing time. All right, let's jump into this
Speaker 2: listening letter. We're going to do one today because this
Speaker 2: one seems kind of long, so we can unpack a
Speaker 2: couple of things here. I'll go ahead and read. Go ahead, baby,
Speaker 2: it's cool, all right, Hey, cuttin a daval. I hope
Speaker 2: this email finds you as well as in your families
Speaker 2: as well. I am a huge fan of both of y'all,
Speaker 2: all the way from London Town.
Speaker 6: In the UK.
Speaker 3: That is dope. I got to get there. We got
Speaker 3: to get there, a baby.
Speaker 2: We haven't been to London yet, but thank you for
Speaker 2: being a fan of ours all the way across the sea.
Speaker 2: My husband and I have been married for six years together. Well,
Speaker 2: we've been married for six years together for sixteen. I'm
Speaker 2: thirty two, my husband is thirty three. I'm an aries
Speaker 2: and he's a Sagittarius. We're flipped, all right, flipped, and
Speaker 2: our relationship has been a very similar dynamic to that
Speaker 2: of y'all's. We have three children, one boy and two girls,
Speaker 2: ages eleven, seven and three.
Speaker 1: Every four years.
Speaker 2: I love that it's kind of similar to us well,
Speaker 2: with the exception of the back to backs for sure. Anyway, y'all,
Speaker 2: let me get to the point. Over the years, my
Speaker 2: husband and I have suffered financially, and to be frankly honest,
Speaker 2: it was mostly due to my immaturity at the time.
Speaker 2: Like Kadeen, like me, Like Kadeen, I wanted the wedding
Speaker 2: over everything. I understandsis. In my defense, we had been
Speaker 2: engaged for ten years and your girl was tied with
Speaker 2: a lot of a's. We had close to zero family support.
Speaker 2: It honestly feels like finances never ever seem to get better,
Speaker 2: even though my husband is very frugal with money and
Speaker 2: saves everything for a rainy day. I, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: appreciate that life is very short and I don't want
Speaker 2: to just be existing and not have lived. I've worked three,
Speaker 2: sometimes four jobs at a time in order to help,
Speaker 2: but my husband always says it's more of a detriment
Speaker 2: than a help because something is always falling by the wayside.
Speaker 2: My husband works extremely in capital letters hard to provide
Speaker 2: for our family and says that he does not feel
Speaker 2: respected because I had had I because had I listened
Speaker 2: and followed his path, we would not be struggling right now.
Speaker 3: Currently.
Speaker 2: My husband is totally unmotivated and defeated. I know my
Speaker 2: choices in the past haven't helped, but I really don't
Speaker 2: know what to do to get out of death and
Speaker 2: help my man feel more motivated again. It really depresses
Speaker 2: me to see him down and out, because outside of
Speaker 2: him being my husband, I care about him and his
Speaker 2: dreams as a human being, and he deserves happiness. What
Speaker 2: can I do, y'all? I'm out of hope and out
Speaker 2: of answer. Is signed a desperate wife trying to get
Speaker 2: that old thing back. That was really really sweet.
Speaker 1: First thing I want to do is acknowledge her taking accountability. Yes,
Speaker 1: like just taking accountability and saying, you know what, I
Speaker 1: was immature, Yes, I'm the reason why we're here. We
Speaker 1: don't hear that often from a lot of people, men
Speaker 1: and women. Most people don't like taking it. They blame Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to point this out right.
Speaker 2: And she gave her husband his flowers and said that
Speaker 2: you know, he's tried, He's tried a lot.
Speaker 1: I want to take this time to point this out.
Speaker 1: We had a young lady at one of the live
Speaker 1: shows point out that her boyfriend needs to share to
Speaker 1: get off the pot in three years and whole bunch
Speaker 1: of all this stuff. I asked her, remember what type
Speaker 1: of rings she wanted? She says, she wanted three carrot rings.
Speaker 1: She wanted all this other stuff, right. I want to
Speaker 1: point out that this is why men struggle sometime with
Speaker 1: the right time to getting married. You love a woman,
Speaker 1: you want to give that woman everything in life she
Speaker 1: desires because you love her, and that woman deserves everything
Speaker 1: in life she desires. But there are times when as
Speaker 1: a man, you just aren't in a good financial place
Speaker 1: to provide that. And I know that ten year engagement
Speaker 1: might have been long and tired, but now you married
Speaker 1: and you got everything you wanted, and now this marriage
Speaker 1: is long and tired. Yeah, And sometimes we as people
Speaker 1: need to realize And this is going to go in
Speaker 1: line with what Tiffany was talking about. Sacrificing now so
Speaker 1: we can live the way we want to live later
Speaker 1: on is paramount, but also not sacrificing your happiness in
Speaker 1: the present day. And this message is to a lot
Speaker 1: of young men or older men who are looking to
Speaker 1: get married. Oh for sure, this marriage is This message
Speaker 1: is for you. I'm going to speak from a man's personspective, right,
Speaker 1: it isn't fair for you to tell you're a woman
Speaker 1: that you want to marry or significant other, you gotta
Speaker 1: wait till it's my time. Financially, we as a community
Speaker 1: have to collectively find a way to do both give
Speaker 1: the person you love what they desire because you want
Speaker 1: to provide that, but also plan a life for the future.
Speaker 1: And there are ways, and that's what we talked about
Speaker 1: with Tiffany today. Now, what we all have to realize
Speaker 1: is that no one is entitled to time to your time,
Speaker 1: So you can't say I want it done on my time.
Speaker 1: It's gonna take some time. But we also can't tell
Speaker 1: young ladies, well, you're gonna have to wait on my time.
Speaker 1: We have to work together. And I feel like if
Speaker 1: they would have been more communicative about what they wanted
Speaker 1: from each other, they could have found a way to
Speaker 1: both get the wedding and get the life they want
Speaker 1: and not sacrifice. Because now here's the sad part, that
Speaker 1: resentment that he's not motive he's not motivated, and he
Speaker 1: keeps saying to her, you know, if you were to
Speaker 1: just listen to me, and that's not fair to her.
Speaker 1: That's not fair to her, and it's also not fair
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 2: Because she's thirty two and then begin together sixteenth, so
Speaker 2: they've been together since sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a long time.
Speaker 2: That's a long time to be together, to work through
Speaker 2: those years, Like Devella and I know exactly what it
Speaker 2: is facts eighteen and nineteen years old, trying to figure
Speaker 2: things out and thinking that you had things figured out, yes,
Speaker 2: and also being in that age group where you want
Speaker 2: the wedding and you feel like at that point you're invincible.
Speaker 2: Money's always going to be there. We can always make
Speaker 2: more money. We're young, we're able body, we can do it,
Speaker 2: but not really realizing how much of a setback that
Speaker 2: can be or it can be.
Speaker 1: And we have to as a community of people, start
Speaker 1: realizing when we're making demands on people what that demand
Speaker 1: can do to that person, whether it's a young man
Speaker 1: asking a young woman to wait until I'm ready, or
Speaker 1: if it's a young woman telling a young man, you
Speaker 1: got to do this on my time and I'm leaving.
Speaker 1: We have to stop that conversation. The conversation now has
Speaker 1: to be how can we collectively build to get what
Speaker 1: we want one now and get what we want later.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to leave out our LGBTQ people
Speaker 1: by saying man a woman, it's partner partner, because because
Speaker 1: even in those partners, because we have a large contingent
Speaker 1: of lgbt Q I A plus people who follow us, right,
Speaker 1: and there's always one that's like And it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if it's two men or if it's two women, there's
Speaker 1: always one that's more fiscally responsible.
Speaker 3: I think any relationship for sure, yes, And we just.
Speaker 1: Have to do a better job of collectively having these
Speaker 1: discussions during the courting process, not after because now they
Speaker 1: married and got kids and they tired of each other.
Speaker 3: But if they tired of working and stuff too, But
Speaker 3: trust me, I had those moments. We were tired of
Speaker 3: each other.
Speaker 2: We told y'all our first five years of marriage a
Speaker 2: hot mess because we had a baby, we had the wedding.
Speaker 2: I thought we were going to have the wedding in
Speaker 2: all the houses, but instead we had the properties that
Speaker 2: work in other states that we were trying to keep afloat.
Speaker 2: I was working long hours in retail. De Val was
Speaker 2: working NonStop at the gym. There were just I think
Speaker 2: every couple, especially being together for that long period of
Speaker 2: time and as teenagers growing together, you just make dumb
Speaker 2: ass mistakes and dumb ass decisions and they're all lessons,
Speaker 2: they're all learning, and it's just how you come out
Speaker 2: on top after that. But I love says that you
Speaker 2: are acknowledging, you know, your issue in this. I love
Speaker 2: that you are so devoted and committed to your husband
Speaker 2: and his happiness, like you said, as a human being.
Speaker 2: Like reading the end of that almost made me kind
Speaker 2: of emotional because that's how I felt in those moments
Speaker 2: with Devo, where I saw he was busting his ass
Speaker 2: day in and day out, and then he's just like,
Speaker 2: you're still not doing the right things to get us
Speaker 2: in a financially, you know, comfortable space, and at some
Speaker 2: point something had to give and it really just required
Speaker 2: us to break things down again.
Speaker 3: I think one of our early YouTube videos we did
Speaker 3: was a budget.
Speaker 1: Episode and they got over two hundred thousand years at
Speaker 1: the time we only had about six thousand.
Speaker 2: It was like subscribers, Yeah, but so many people saw
Speaker 2: it because at some point it has to click, and
Speaker 2: it's just like, Okay, let's go back to the basis.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to what we're both willing to do,
Speaker 2: how much money is coming in. Looking at it from
Speaker 2: this perspective where Tiffany talked about the book you know
Speaker 2: made whole, the first thing was the budget. Not looking
Speaker 2: at it as ways to restrict each other further, but
Speaker 2: ways to be able to make little sacrifices so you
Speaker 2: can do what you want to do. So continue to
Speaker 2: have the conversation with your husband. I hope that you've
Speaker 2: also expressed this to him, your investment in him and
Speaker 2: his happiness and you guys's financial future.
Speaker 1: Well, she asked, how can she get that old thing back?
Speaker 1: The first thing I would do is do what you
Speaker 1: did express and say to him and I diagnowledged that
Speaker 1: there was some mistakes I made. Ask him how he
Speaker 1: thinks it can be changed for them moving forward, and
Speaker 1: then work collectively, both of you, because it's not just
Speaker 1: work on one side.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: You can't do all the work yourself now and take
Speaker 1: all the blame. No, Because here's the truth, right, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this, and it may ruffle some feathers,
Speaker 1: he's still a blame too, even though it was your decisions,
Speaker 1: because he could have at any point said I can't
Speaker 1: do yes, and that's why. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: part of the reason why Kadeen and I were able
Speaker 1: to make a turn, because I stopped blaming her for
Speaker 1: our financial decisions and started saying, Okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: I did. Concede to do it because I wanted to
Speaker 1: see her happy and smiling. And my ego was part
Speaker 1: of the reason too why I wanted to get for
Speaker 1: these things. So yes, once I stopped blaming her and
Speaker 1: stopped self loathing, she and I got on a plan together.
Speaker 3: Right, We've both done things different. Yes, yes, for sure.
Speaker 1: Continue to speak to him, ask him how he feels,
Speaker 1: ask him what he needs. When he tells you, listen,
Speaker 1: but also express to him that you're willing to be
Speaker 1: a participant to make you guys move forward, and y'all
Speaker 1: just work together and know what's not going to happen
Speaker 1: next week. You know what I'm saying, Give yourselves a
Speaker 1: five year plan and say let's move ourselves out of
Speaker 1: this in five.
Speaker 2: Years, absolutely, and go ahead and get made whole because
Speaker 2: I know Devala and I took a lot of really
Speaker 2: good tips from tip actually on and that might be
Speaker 2: a good way to just kind of start and bond
Speaker 2: over it and you know, talk about the positive things
Speaker 2: that you guys can do with your your money and
Speaker 2: your financial situations enough.
Speaker 1: To get good with money. Was that's a good find,
Speaker 1: like a good foundation to start with, get good with
Speaker 1: money and then get made whole. Her principles really do
Speaker 1: Kadeen and I have grown our family and our finances
Speaker 1: following some of the same principles.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely all right, y'all, If you want to be
Speaker 2: featured as a listener letter, be sure to email us
Speaker 2: at dead ass Advice at gmail dot com. And I
Speaker 2: know I tease y'all about y'all long dissertations now, but
Speaker 2: we love it because they gives the contexture because we
Speaker 2: usually still have questions even after that.
Speaker 3: But keep writing in. We love to hear from you guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's D E A D A S S A
Speaker 1: D V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, moment of truth time.
Speaker 2: I think my takeaway from this whole thing and talking
Speaker 2: to Tiffany and you and just thinking about my entire
Speaker 2: mindset when it comes to just finances and budgeting and
Speaker 2: all that is that the discipline involved in it. What
Speaker 2: seems like a boundary is not in the necessarily that
Speaker 2: it's just me putting myself in a position to do
Speaker 2: the things that I really want to do, and it
Speaker 2: forces me to live in a space where I'm really
Speaker 2: assessing the things that I really need versus the things
Speaker 2: that I want to do or need to do, and
Speaker 2: what's required for me to get that.
Speaker 3: So discipline, like we said, structure, those are.
Speaker 2: All words that typically have a negative connotation and you
Speaker 2: feel restrained and limited, but really it's a way for
Speaker 2: you to gain freedom over your life and your time
Speaker 2: because ultimately that's the goal for me at least, is
Speaker 2: to have autonomy over my time, to be able to
Speaker 2: do the things I want to do because I have
Speaker 2: the financial freedom to do that.
Speaker 1: Facts, I believe that Tiffany opened up something to me
Speaker 1: today met my mind thinking about it. Okay, right, you
Speaker 1: know how we went on a diet, but while we
Speaker 1: were on the quote unquote diet, we had cheat meals,
Speaker 1: so it really wasn't a crash diet. It was more
Speaker 1: like a lifestyle change, moderation so that we can enjoy
Speaker 1: our life while losing the weight to get to the
Speaker 1: goal we want to get to in the future. Why
Speaker 1: can't we do the same thing with finances. I like that,
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a crash diet of finances. Let me say fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in a year. No, you can still have your
Speaker 1: cheap meals, you can still enjoy your time, but know
Speaker 1: that there's a plan down the line. Because if I'm
Speaker 1: being honest with you, guys, that's what Kadeen and I did.
Speaker 1: Even though we were broke and we weren't doing all
Speaker 1: the things we wanted to do, we still enjoyed our
Speaker 1: life while we were building what we've built so far,
Speaker 1: and we're still enjoying our life while we're continuing to
Speaker 1: build to where we want to go. Because the way
Speaker 1: you see us now is not the way we want
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of our lives. We want to
Speaker 1: be able to accrue more and gain access to more
Speaker 1: so we can give more to our kids. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we're going to sacrifice all of our happiness now.
Speaker 3: That is a whole fact. I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that analogy that's perfect puts in a really
Speaker 2: good perspective too, because man listen sometimes on them diet days. Baby,
Speaker 2: I was ready to crash, but you know, having the
Speaker 2: little cheat meals here and there definitely helps to kind
Speaker 2: of lessen the blow. All right, y'all, be sure to
Speaker 2: sign up for Patreon and subscribe so you can get
Speaker 2: more exclusive dead Ass podcast content, more Ellis family content
Speaker 2: as well, and you can find us on social media
Speaker 2: at dead Ass the Podcasts.
Speaker 3: You can find me on my personal page Codeine I
Speaker 3: Am and I Am Devout.
Speaker 1: And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review, subscribe,
Speaker 1: and get your copy of We Over Me, The Counterintuitive
Speaker 1: Approach to getting everything you want out of your relationships shit.
Speaker 2: Perfect time with the holidays coming up, y'all is giving
Speaker 2: stocking stuffers, go ahead and get your book now.
Speaker 3: All right, y'all, run it up, dead Ass.
Speaker 4: Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network and
Speaker 4: it's produced by Donor, Opinia and Triple Follow the podcast
Speaker 4: on social media at dead Ass the Podcast and never
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