Speaker 1: Day. Hey, Hey, it feels weird taping on a different day.
Speaker 2: How are yah? Yeah, I'm not a fan.
Speaker 1: Oh by the way, Hi, I'm Tiffany.
Speaker 2: Except y'all Mandy, and.
Speaker 1: This is around ambition. Yeah, I don't feel like weird.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, it's not Tuesday. What's happening?
Speaker 3: This is my I've been doing. My Sundays have been
Speaker 3: my I get my writing done day. It's the only
Speaker 3: day of the week when I can actually do anything.
Speaker 3: But today I was all messed up. I had back
Speaker 3: to back bridal showers this weekend. Really, yeah tis the season. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they just happened to be on the on the same weekend.
Speaker 3: So one yesterday in Brooklyn and one today. It's a
Speaker 3: lot of fun. But I did overdid it on the
Speaker 3: sham pain just a little bit, just a little bit.
Speaker 1: I can't even I can't even overdo even like a sick.
Speaker 1: My body is so I don't drink at all so
Speaker 1: I can smell alcohol and be on the floor.
Speaker 3: I just love a nice bubbly on a Sunday, okay,
Speaker 3: with a little little poached egg.
Speaker 2: It was quite nice.
Speaker 1: I came for my my my niece's first birthday and
Speaker 1: my dad was like, no alcohol beverages. I'm like, Daddy,
Speaker 1: it's a one year birthday party.
Speaker 3: Listen, I've been to some lit one year old birthday party,
Speaker 3: so some some parents know how to party. There was
Speaker 3: there was there a bounty castle. What was the I
Speaker 3: feel like birthday parties are so wild.
Speaker 1: She had it at our We have a zoo, a
Speaker 1: cute little zoo called Turtle Black Zoo, and like everything
Speaker 1: was animal themed, and then afterwards we took a little
Speaker 1: tour of the zoo.
Speaker 2: Soo knewer, couldn't know that.
Speaker 1: No, well, no, it's actually West Orange, which is like
Speaker 1: maybe like two towns over.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, but it's really cute.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, this is a cute little
Speaker 1: I mean, of course she cared nothing for it because
Speaker 1: you know, she's one, but yeah, yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was fun because I was like, oh, this is nice
Speaker 1: because sometimes people go really really super big for first birthdays.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, I mean, who knows when I
Speaker 1: have a baby, if like what I'm gonna do, But
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm gonna be like come to the house.
Speaker 1: We're cutting cake and there'll be some pizza.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of pressure. It's not just like the
Speaker 3: financial like that it costs a lot of money to
Speaker 3: just throw a party. But then I've been to a
Speaker 3: first birthday party that felt more like a wet bridle
Speaker 3: shower where there were like.
Speaker 2: Centerpieces and buffet and open bar.
Speaker 3: And I've been to and then there's the ones where
Speaker 3: it's not just the party itself, but you have to
Speaker 3: they have first birthday photo.
Speaker 2: Shoots now where no they don't. Yeah, no you haven't
Speaker 2: seen these.
Speaker 3: I must have like half a dozen cards that I
Speaker 3: get in the mail from first birthday photo shoots.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You like you pay a photographer and you go to
Speaker 3: a studio and you put them in a ridiculous outfit
Speaker 3: and then they there's like the cake smash video where
Speaker 3: you actually like prepare it, like the photographer includes a
Speaker 3: cake in it and it's just photos of the baby
Speaker 3: like smashing the cake apart, and then just like sometimes
Speaker 3: crying or whatever. Yeah, it's the first like how does
Speaker 3: how much does this cost?
Speaker 2: Dang?
Speaker 3: Like my dad would just take some pictures on his camera,
Speaker 3: you know at the most, well.
Speaker 1: Your dad, your dad's also a really good.
Speaker 3: Time so okay, you know he had a nice camera,
Speaker 3: But I mean it's just it's and you know, it's
Speaker 3: you know, if that's your thing, that's totally fine, that's
Speaker 3: how you want to capture your child's But it just
Speaker 3: feels like everyone's doing it now and more like, you know,
Speaker 3: once that becomes the trend, then like you don't want
Speaker 3: to be that one. I guess it's like that pressure,
Speaker 3: that social pressure to have that fantastic first birthday cake,
Speaker 3: smash photo and all that names.
Speaker 1: We'll just call her fancy girl. But one of my friends,
Speaker 1: when her son turned one, she had like a logo
Speaker 1: maid and it was like monograms on his cupcakes. It
Speaker 1: was now She's like, yeah, I might have one over
Speaker 1: now he's three now, but she's this is is this
Speaker 1: a logo? It was it's his first, middle and last initial.
Speaker 1: It was team two damn much. I was like, girl,
Speaker 1: She's like, I look back at it now. Meanwhile, like
Speaker 1: he just turned three and like literally she's like, come
Speaker 1: to the house with cutting cake and there'll be some pizza.
Speaker 1: She's like, I've learned, I'll be on that point right now,
Speaker 1: which I thought was hilarious. But yes, a logo a logo.
Speaker 3: It's hard enough keeping a tiny human alive. All the
Speaker 3: other extra stuff and like and then I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know if I'm ready for this,
Speaker 3: the whole like culture of mommyhood parenthood these days. You know,
Speaker 3: the playdates and you know, you get invited to their party,
Speaker 3: then you gotta invite them to your party and oh,
Speaker 3: it's like keeping up with the parent Jones is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I got a couple We got a question from someone
Speaker 3: actually who are not It wasn't even any question, it
Speaker 3: was just a response to you know, last week we
Speaker 3: had Ontasha Danielle who talked about her debt freedom story,
Speaker 3: you know, debt free by age thirty. She paid off
Speaker 3: eighty thousand dollars in debt, and one woman had written
Speaker 3: in and said that, you know, if you're a single
Speaker 3: parent is even harder and that you know, she feels
Speaker 3: like a lot of which doesn't. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: there are some really good debt stories of families who
Speaker 3: got in out of debt. She she was just mentioning
Speaker 3: how she felt frustrated because she felt like a lot
Speaker 3: of advice was geared toward or a lot of success
Speaker 3: stories were also people who you know didn't have kids
Speaker 3: or you know, you know, earned a decent earned a
Speaker 3: decent income, and she was like, I don't feel like
Speaker 3: my situations represented.
Speaker 1: We don't who know who talks about that though, Emma,
Speaker 1: I think Emma Johnson. She actually has a brand called
Speaker 1: Wealthy Single Mommy, where she she kind of like that's her,
Speaker 1: that's her things, Like, you're right that that's not typically represented,
Speaker 1: and she was like, no, like I was a single mom.
Speaker 1: I believe Emma has two kids and got a divorce
Speaker 1: and you know, just struggled financially and figured you know,
Speaker 1: figured it out, you know, the hard way. And then
Speaker 1: since then she's like, I'm going to come back for
Speaker 1: all my single mom's sisters, and so you might want
Speaker 1: to look into that, because you're right, you know that
Speaker 1: that's often that's not often the story the success story
Speaker 1: that you hear, but they're out there, you know. Wealthy
Speaker 1: Single Mommy definitely. And she's dope, and she's irreverent and
Speaker 1: she's hilarious. She actually has a book, but yeah, she's
Speaker 1: hilarious and she cuts and busses and I think she's
Speaker 1: just she's like super a super fun, off the cuff
Speaker 1: financial expert.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Her book is called The kick Ass Single Mommy. No, yeah,
Speaker 3: kick ass single mom. I think that's what the book
Speaker 3: is called. But there we had also on maybe we
Speaker 3: should do this, we should run this episode again. We
Speaker 3: had Aja McClanahan on the show a year or two ago.
Speaker 3: She was from Chicago and her and her husband have
Speaker 3: two young girls, and they had paid off an enormous
Speaker 3: amount of debt. I think it was, I don't know
Speaker 3: it was. It was tens of thousands of dollars of
Speaker 3: debt while you know, purchasing a house and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. So the stories are out there. But
Speaker 3: I see what you're saying with peel you. I was
Speaker 3: raised by a single mom. I know the struggle. Keep
Speaker 3: hanging in there. It's it's if it's hard enough on
Speaker 3: your own, obviously, it's a lot harder when you have
Speaker 3: a tiny human who doesn't care about your budget. Yeah,
Speaker 3: to take care of definitely. But thanks you for thanks
Speaker 3: for your email.
Speaker 1: You know who inspired me a lot. So Kevin Matthews
Speaker 1: the second. He's one of our financial friends. He's a
Speaker 1: brown brown is like, we have a group of financial
Speaker 1: we have a group of financial folks. We have a
Speaker 1: Facebook group of financial folks, and we collectively kind of
Speaker 1: get together and talk about how we can serve our
Speaker 1: community better as it relates to financial education. And we
Speaker 1: call ourselves the Browns because everybody in the group is
Speaker 1: some level of brown, like you know. And so he
Speaker 1: just had a baby, and literally, while his wife is
Speaker 1: upstairs in labor, he comes downstairs to do a quick
Speaker 1: video and says, Hey, my son's being born at this
Speaker 1: very moment, and I have decided that I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that by the time he retires, he will
Speaker 1: be a millionaire. And here's how I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: I was like, ooh, tune in, and he had a wait.
Speaker 3: While his wife's in labor upstairs. I mean, listen, I know,
Speaker 3: Kevin Cousin could be with your wife. We know you.
Speaker 2: We know you didn't just decide labor.
Speaker 1: So she hadn't quite starved, but she was at the
Speaker 1: hospital ready to get it.
Speaker 3: Still, I would snack that phone out of his hand.
Speaker 3: It's nice, though, nice feeling, nice, nice thought.
Speaker 1: In the room with her. But he had some really
Speaker 1: great advice. And his advice he showed this chart that
Speaker 1: I've seen before. I think we If you ever spoken
Speaker 1: to a financial advisor, they almost always show you the chart,
Speaker 1: which is it's a It's a chart that kind of
Speaker 1: shows the power of compounding interest where if you start
Speaker 1: investing early versus later, versus later versus later, how much
Speaker 1: you have to save. So here's how the chart works.
Speaker 1: If so, this is what Kevin's doing, Like on average,
Speaker 1: the market does about eight percent you know, over I
Speaker 1: don't know a thirty year span. So he said, if
Speaker 1: he sets aside starting now at birth, two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year for his son, So that's about one hundred
Speaker 1: something dollars a month, two thousand dollars a year for
Speaker 1: a son, he could literally stop contributing to that custodial
Speaker 1: account at age ten, he said, between ten and fifteen,
Speaker 1: and then by the time his son was ready to retire,
Speaker 1: that money will have grown too, about a little over
Speaker 1: a million dollars. And I was like, what he just
Speaker 1: did a really quick It wasn't like some super in
Speaker 1: depth lesson, but he was showing the chart. And I
Speaker 1: remember seeing that chart when I was twenty something and
Speaker 1: a financial advisor was trying to show me, like, if
Speaker 1: you start putting aside two thousand dollars a year now,
Speaker 1: the difference between if I waited five years or waited
Speaker 1: ten years that you actually have to put aside much
Speaker 1: more money longer in order to reach the same the
Speaker 1: same goal of a million dollars by the time you're
Speaker 1: sixty five. That if you start when your child is
Speaker 1: like literally an infant, you don't have to put as
Speaker 1: much and you don't have to put as much for
Speaker 1: its long So I just thought that, you know, aside
Speaker 1: from the fact that he probably should have been upstairs,
Speaker 1: I just thought, like, you know what, it's just great
Speaker 1: that there are parents out there who are starting to
Speaker 1: think about that early. That if I can put aside
Speaker 1: some money now, then I can set up my child's
Speaker 1: teacher and start building generational wealth. And you know it
Speaker 1: just things like know, a lot of people don't even
Speaker 1: know that there's something called the custodial account. I know
Speaker 1: parents like a Sandy from Yes I Am Cheap and
Speaker 1: Dominique Brown, who is another financial expert, they they actually
Speaker 1: have roth iras for their kids. And the way they
Speaker 1: do it because they both are entrepreneurs, so they quote
Speaker 1: unquote hire their kids and then their kids don't get
Speaker 1: the income. Instead, their income goes into a retirement account
Speaker 1: that gets to grow tax deferred. No, well, yeah, it
Speaker 1: gets to grow now not even tax deferred, tax free,
Speaker 1: because the taxes are preyed beforehand. That's what a roth
Speaker 1: ira is. And it's just I love seeing parents really
Speaker 1: figuring out the system so that way their kids don't
Speaker 1: have to struggle financially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's there's five to nine plans, which with
Speaker 3: the tax reform, one of the benefits of that is
Speaker 3: that now you can use it for It's sad because
Speaker 3: in some in some in some cities it's like New
Speaker 3: York City, like public schools are difficult to get into,
Speaker 3: and then even then might could still cause tuition or
Speaker 3: money or whatever. But now with the tax reform, you
Speaker 3: can use your five two nine plan, which used to
Speaker 3: be just for college expenses, and actually use it for
Speaker 3: K through twelve expenses too.
Speaker 2: So it's like, yep, yep, you can.
Speaker 3: I think it's up to ten thousand or I forget
Speaker 3: now ten it's ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: I think you.
Speaker 3: Could put toward K through twelve tuition and fees. Although
Speaker 3: I still think it's crazy to pay for, you know,
Speaker 3: for school for your kid. But it's just a little
Speaker 3: Georgia me who just went to the school down street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I'm like, yeah, and I'm like maybe I'll
Speaker 1: feel definitely when I have kids.
Speaker 2: But I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 3: You know, sure, man, What else happened this week?
Speaker 2: The Fed? Oh, the Fed.
Speaker 3: You guys probably read this headline, and if you're like me,
Speaker 3: it took you several years before you finally were like,
Speaker 3: what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Excuse me?
Speaker 3: The Fed, the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate
Speaker 3: this quarter, and they're planning on raising it every quarter
Speaker 3: this year.
Speaker 2: That's what's predicted.
Speaker 3: And I just thought, I thought that's worth mentioning, especially
Speaker 3: as you know, we were when we were buying our
Speaker 3: getting our house, getting that process underway, we were trying
Speaker 3: to get a mortgage, we were getting like, you know,
Speaker 3: pre approved for mortgages and comparing rates and stuff, and
Speaker 3: in the back of my mind, you know, I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 3: mortgage rates are going up, like not just day by day,
Speaker 3: but hour by hour right now. And that was a
Speaker 3: big reason why I you know, it was it was
Speaker 3: a little bit of a nudge just to like, go ahead,
Speaker 3: lock in your mortgage rate now because rates are getting higher.
Speaker 3: And sure enough, the FED raised the Federal funds rate,
Speaker 3: and this is the baseline target interest rate that the
Speaker 3: FED sets. So like if your if your you know,
Speaker 3: your credit card, for example, is tied to the federal
Speaker 3: funds rate, when the federal funds rate goes up, your
Speaker 3: credit card rate's probably going to go up a little bit.
Speaker 3: Mortgage rates also go up. Those are the negative things,
Speaker 3: so basically the cost of borrowing gets more expensive. On
Speaker 3: the plus side, savings rates go up. So you may
Speaker 3: have noticed if you have like like me, I have
Speaker 3: that Ally and Capital one three sixty Marcus, all these
Speaker 3: online credit sorry online savings accounts over the last several
Speaker 3: months have been inching their rates up. It feels like
Speaker 3: once a month or something, just you'll get a little
Speaker 3: bit of a bump up. And that's also because the
Speaker 3: federal funds rate is getting higher, so they have their
Speaker 3: sort of passing on that higher rate return to customers,
Speaker 3: which is a plus side. So there's like pros and
Speaker 3: cons to it, but it's just something to think about,
Speaker 3: especially if you're you know, you're thinking about getting a mortgage,
Speaker 3: if you're ready to get a home and you're looking
Speaker 3: for a mortgage, you know, it's just a little bit
Speaker 3: more of a reason to to to maybe to start
Speaker 3: comparing rates now before they go up even higher, because
Speaker 3: that is certainly where they are headed.
Speaker 1: I'm just, yeah, they are Hey, I think that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, like, just how do people have? Like
Speaker 1: how does somebody get ahead? I just know so many
Speaker 1: people who are struggling financially. It's almost like you know
Speaker 1: that person that's like, but I am exercising and I
Speaker 1: am eating better and I'm not losing weight, you know,
Speaker 1: And I feel like that would find nasus zero Pepe.
Speaker 1: There's so many people who I know they're like, but
Speaker 1: I do work, and I don't have cable, and I
Speaker 1: don't get my hair and I don't go out, and
Speaker 1: I say, you know, and it's like, but I'm still struggling.
Speaker 1: And it's hard because it's true that you can do
Speaker 1: all the right things and still have a hard time.
Speaker 3: You know, absolutely, there's so many things that are there's
Speaker 3: so many circumstances in your life that aren't necessarily in
Speaker 3: your control that will that will you know that will
Speaker 3: and manifest themselves themselves in your life later as an adult,
Speaker 3: when you're earning things that you do, like where you live,
Speaker 3: who your parents are, what their socioeconomic status was, man,
Speaker 3: there was this there was this really amazing, amazing slash
Speaker 3: sad New York Times infographic.
Speaker 2: I think it was up last week.
Speaker 3: And you can see you can see basically was it
Speaker 3: was a It was a comparison of African American men
Speaker 3: and women, but mostly specifically men who grew up in
Speaker 3: a higher income household versus white men who grew up
Speaker 3: in a higher income household. And you saw the infographic,
Speaker 3: the dots representing both black and white men in higher
Speaker 3: income households. You saw them move across the screen, and
Speaker 3: then you saw the black men dropping down, because that's
Speaker 3: the trend, like, even if black men are born into
Speaker 3: a higher income household, they're more likely to drop off
Speaker 3: until lower, like more likely to become poor later in life.
Speaker 3: And women there was no women, sorry, African American women
Speaker 3: versus versus white women in higher income households or wasn't
Speaker 3: much You didn't.
Speaker 2: See that major drop off?
Speaker 3: Yeah, just I mean, it's just one more reminder that,
Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to put your finger on what
Speaker 3: it is, but to me, that's just more proof that
Speaker 3: to be an African American men in this country, you're
Speaker 3: just born with a disadvantage.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: It's sad and true, but you can't look at someone
Speaker 3: and just say, oh, you know, you can't look at
Speaker 3: someone who's struggling and just be like, oh, you must
Speaker 3: have done something wrong. You know, it's your fault. Yep,
Speaker 3: you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in some cases that's true. But in a lot of cases,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just not sorry for being brown, like
Speaker 3: sorry for being black, sorry for being a man in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 1: Really, what I remember, it was never more poignant to
Speaker 1: me than when I started teaching in Newark, because I
Speaker 1: mean all my life i'd gone so like, you know,
Speaker 1: for the most part, I mean when we were really little,
Speaker 1: you know, we were probably like poverty level, but you know,
Speaker 1: I would say lower middle class and then middle class
Speaker 1: eventually and so and you know, I didn't realize just
Speaker 1: how how little resources other communities had until like I
Speaker 1: went from Westfield and that's where I mostly grew up,
Speaker 1: and I started teaching in Newark, and I was just like, wait,
Speaker 1: like the three and four year olds, I remember being like,
Speaker 1: how do you function in this dysfunction? Like just walking
Speaker 1: down the street was like, I mean I would walk
Speaker 1: down the street and like my uniform was a nursing uniform,
Speaker 1: like where you had to wear scrubs because you're playing preschoolers.
Speaker 1: They wanted to do not to worry about your clothes.
Speaker 1: So I'd walked down the street like during my lunch
Speaker 1: break in my scrubs, and men would proposition me and
Speaker 1: assume I was a prostitute in my scrubs and I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait what because where I work was the area was
Speaker 1: really just not a good area and just hearing gunshots
Speaker 1: and having to run inside with the kids. And I
Speaker 1: remember us playing at the park and one little boy said,
Speaker 1: miss Tiffany, Miss Tiffany, I got poked. And I was like, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: that's okay, you want to catchen boo boo. He said no, no,
Speaker 1: I got poked by a needle. And I looked at him,
Speaker 1: like wait. My heart started racing. I'm like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: he doesn't know, maybe it's a stick. And then I
Speaker 1: remember his mom worked at the clinic, and like he
Speaker 1: just might know what it I need to look like.
Speaker 1: And so he pulled me over and I looked at
Speaker 1: his little finger and the little spot of blood that
Speaker 1: came up was like a perfect circle that wasn't a
Speaker 1: scrape or a scratch, and sure enough he showed me
Speaker 1: that there's this needle on the ground, that this is
Speaker 1: where at night at the park, this is where folks
Speaker 1: shot up and someone had left their needle and this
Speaker 1: little boy got poked. I I wanted to like, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what to do. We raced him back
Speaker 1: to the school, called his mother, called the emergency. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do, so for like, I don't
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I you know, he got
Speaker 1: tested right away, but he has to get tested for
Speaker 1: the next or he had to get tested for the
Speaker 1: next couple of years out of his life. But can
Speaker 1: you imagine, like you can't tell me that that's a
Speaker 1: fair start, you know, And so it's just it was
Speaker 1: too much. After ten years, I was like, okay, I
Speaker 1: can't do this, you know. It was like a total
Speaker 1: on my spirit. But I had a choice not to
Speaker 1: be there anymore. And a lot of these kids don't
Speaker 1: have these choices not to be there. A lot of
Speaker 1: their parents don't have the choice not to be there.
Speaker 1: And from that that that economic disadvantage starts there. And
Speaker 1: how do you dig your way out, especially if the
Speaker 1: tools and resources are kept from you.
Speaker 3: So's it's like the it's that instinct as a parent.
Speaker 3: You know, my mother moved us out of a bad neighborhood.
Speaker 3: You know, A big reason my parents got divorced was
Speaker 3: this tug of war between where we were going to
Speaker 3: grow up and my dad wanted us to keep as
Speaker 3: close to family, close to where he grew up and
Speaker 3: not the greatest areas. There's a lot of crime and poverty.
Speaker 3: And my mom was like, I don't you know, she
Speaker 3: didn't want that for us. We ended up moving to
Speaker 3: the suburbs, you know, and and good schools and all that.
Speaker 3: But that that like desire to get out and find
Speaker 3: better opportunities for your kids elsewhere. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: not as extreme, obviously, we were not. We moved half
Speaker 3: an hour away and had a better life. We already
Speaker 3: live in this country and we could do that. But
Speaker 3: you have so many like these immigrants who are trying
Speaker 3: to come into America just because they just want to
Speaker 3: reach for something better, because you know, they they they
Speaker 3: they have it's not there by by no fault of
Speaker 3: their own. They're in an environment that's not you know,
Speaker 3: conducive to success or health or good livelihood and it's
Speaker 3: I feel like it's just everyone should it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's idealistic, but everyone should have that should have that opportunity.
Speaker 3: And the sad truth is that is that they don't.
Speaker 3: And I guess, you know, for someone who's thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: what can I do, it's you know, reach out in
Speaker 3: your own community and maybe reach out to someone who
Speaker 3: you know is struggling and be that helping him and
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 1: Life the upside downs, the ins and out. Speaking of
Speaker 1: the ying and the yang, are you ready to brown
Speaker 1: break and brown boost?
Speaker 2: Sure? I can boost the brown booze dead break.
Speaker 1: I've actually gone to break. It's kind of lighthearted, but
Speaker 1: I did an IG story on it, and I think
Speaker 1: I've been extended here. So a friend of mine, i'll
Speaker 1: call her Georgia, she hit me up. She said, I
Speaker 1: thought you would get a giggle out of this message
Speaker 1: somebody sent me. So Georgia has a Facebook group for women,
Speaker 1: and I won't say specifically what, just in case like
Speaker 1: the person who did this to her listening, But I
Speaker 1: don't know, let's just say it's for facials or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so Georgia posts, Hey, you know everybody's wanting more
Speaker 1: facials here's an app that I use that helps me
Speaker 1: save money, so I can so you guys can save
Speaker 1: and get more facial So the app is a referral link,
Speaker 1: because it's like there's like like apps like for example,
Speaker 1: like digit that I really like. They also sometimes offer
Speaker 1: a referral link. Well, they'll give you like five bucks
Speaker 1: for every person that signs up from your link. Like again,
Speaker 1: this is Georgia's group, Georgia's business, not just the Facebook group,
Speaker 1: it's her business. So somebody in her group also posts
Speaker 1: their referral links and a few of them, and then she,
Speaker 1: being nice, hits the woman behind the scenes and says, hey,
Speaker 1: you know you can't post your referral link, you know,
Speaker 1: so I just want to let you know. And the
Speaker 1: woman said, oh, well, if I have to delete mine,
Speaker 1: you should delete yours. Meanwhile, George's business Georgia's group, and
Speaker 1: Georgia says, mm, well what makes you say that? She
Speaker 1: was like, well, how come you can make money but
Speaker 1: I can't. She's like, well, we use the we use
Speaker 1: the money from the from the referrals to do the
Speaker 1: giveaways like when you guys win, Because Georgia does giveaways
Speaker 1: like when you guys win free money or or prizes
Speaker 1: or whatever. That's where we get the money from. And
Speaker 1: the woman the you know, the group person who's like, oh,
Speaker 1: so as long as you're not benefiting personally, So ma'am,
Speaker 1: what was your intention? Can you imagine? So she first
Speaker 1: of all, I told Georgia you you you're too nice
Speaker 1: to me, because I mean, and maybe I was like
Speaker 1: that before too, But like what I guesse, she said, great,
Speaker 1: glad to hear you'll be using any personal game from
Speaker 1: those referrals to go toward events and give away. Georgia
Speaker 1: can use that money to literally wipe the bottom of
Speaker 1: her shoe. It's her business. Do you ask the owner
Speaker 1: of McDonald's so when you sell these burgers, like, where's
Speaker 1: the money going? Oh? Okay? Well you know, because I don't.
Speaker 1: I would hate for you to benefit like you. It's
Speaker 1: my brown break is please stop going in other people's
Speaker 1: businesses and try to reap where you do. Not so
Speaker 1: I just don't understand, like why that's such a huge concept,
Speaker 1: because there used to be women who used to literally
Speaker 1: fight me in the group and say, I don't understand
Speaker 1: why you you won't let so only you can make
Speaker 1: money here and I'm like, well, one, this group doesn't
Speaker 1: make me any money. Like this group, it costs I
Speaker 1: pay people to run this group. And I was using
Speaker 1: my referral link money for that too, to like, just
Speaker 1: to like, and it wouldn't even cover most of the time,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when I first started. But it was
Speaker 1: just enough so I can pay some folks to be
Speaker 1: in here regularly, so that way I could keep the
Speaker 1: group open because I just couldn't manage it on my own.
Speaker 1: But even if I was using the referral money for
Speaker 1: something more, it's part of my overall business. Or people
Speaker 1: not allowed to make money in business. It's like if
Speaker 1: you wouldn't go to McDonald's and set up your barbecue
Speaker 1: in the parking lot and say, well, McDonald's, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's smart to set up my barbecue here because one
Speaker 1: McDonald's has done the work and like building the space.
Speaker 1: Two McDonald's has clearly scoped out this location and knows
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of high traffic. You know, McDonald's
Speaker 1: people are already coming in for food, so it's a
Speaker 1: perfect location to take from where somebody has put the
Speaker 1: work in. You would never do that, but you would
Speaker 1: do that to a small business one McDonalds wouldn't let
Speaker 1: you too. You would never dream of doing that, Like,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why people think that they can
Speaker 1: park in other people's small businesses and then reap the money.
Speaker 1: I know, girl, that this is a great place for
Speaker 1: you to upsell your credit, Like I know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've built this brand like blood, sweat, tears, money, time, energy.
Speaker 1: I just don't like. It blows my mind where people
Speaker 1: are literally upset that you won't let them solicit in
Speaker 1: your group. And I'm like, when you have literally your
Speaker 1: own Facebook page where you could post whatever you want,
Speaker 1: you don't have to post it, like see that old
Speaker 1: Tiffany used to feel really bad and try to explain myself.
Speaker 1: Now my block game is strong. Some of y'all in
Speaker 1: my inbox right now, like tivity, can I come back?
Speaker 1: I don't read it. I don't, I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: look at my other inbox. So once you're blocked, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, girl, dead to me, like because you
Speaker 1: know better. When groups first came out, I could understand
Speaker 1: the confusion. But groups are old now, and you know
Speaker 1: it's like everyone literally has the same rule positivity in
Speaker 1: the group and don't solicit. Everyone has that rule unless
Speaker 1: it's a group specifically for like sharing, like your specific business.
Speaker 1: And if you don't adhere to that, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you're run into a nicer group member
Speaker 1: who will just mute you or just like give you
Speaker 1: a warning. I don't give warnings. I'm black. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh oh you want to okay, oh oh ay black.
Speaker 1: Because the rules are posted every hour on the hour
Speaker 1: they're scheduled. Everybody's always like, we're all just black folks
Speaker 1: because we're all grown. Now we don't know and now
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: If you don't know, now you know.
Speaker 1: Now you know what about you? Are you going to
Speaker 1: boost a break?
Speaker 2: I have to do a boost.
Speaker 3: I have to acknowledge the March for Our Lives that's
Speaker 3: happening against gun violence all over the country today, yesterday
Speaker 3: and today. There's been protests, like organized protests all over
Speaker 3: the country to stop gun violence. And of course it
Speaker 3: was all incited by the Parkland shooting at Marjorie Stoneman
Speaker 3: High School or sorry Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School a
Speaker 3: couple back in Valentine's Day in February. But just to
Speaker 3: see the kids' children, I mean, it's it's pretty it's sad,
Speaker 3: but it's also so uplifting to see these small humans
Speaker 3: who are so smart and so so what's the word
Speaker 3: when you can speak really well articulate? Thank you something
Speaker 3: that I'm not right now, I'm not articulate. There's one
Speaker 3: little girl everyone was really touched by. You know. One
Speaker 3: of the things that came up after the Parkland shooting was,
Speaker 3: you know, the children, the teenagers who became sort of
Speaker 3: the face of that shooting just happened to be I
Speaker 3: think there was Emma Gonzales. I think it is Latina,
Speaker 3: but largely white. It's largely white high school, and there
Speaker 3: was a lot of people who, you know, a debate
Speaker 3: sort of opened up, you know that had this been
Speaker 3: a black high school, would it have a majority minority
Speaker 3: high school, would it have been as much attention. Would
Speaker 3: all these celebrities have been donating, you know. Obviously Black
Speaker 3: Lives Matter has been happening, you know for years now,
Speaker 3: been you know, trying to raise awareness about violence against
Speaker 3: African Americans, and then at this march there were some
Speaker 3: pretty noteworthy young long, young black kid black girl magic
Speaker 3: that was happening, and I think it was smart on
Speaker 3: the organizer's part to not to sort of make right
Speaker 3: I think this lack of conversation around gun violence and
Speaker 3: violence against African Americans as well. So they had Martin
Speaker 3: Luther King's Martin Luther King the third, his granddaughter spoke
Speaker 3: and she's like nine years old.
Speaker 2: And then there was a.
Speaker 3: Little girl whose speech already went viral, a very short
Speaker 3: speech but very powerful.
Speaker 2: I don't know who this girl is, she's magic.
Speaker 3: Naomi Wadler, Yeah, gave a speech and basically saying that
Speaker 3: she read off the names of some African American girls,
Speaker 3: women who had been shot and murdered and said, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm here to represent these names, these voices of these
Speaker 3: people who haven't been heard or spoken about as much
Speaker 3: during all this conversation we've been having. And it was beautiful.
Speaker 3: You know, she had a huge standing ovation. So of
Speaker 3: course my celebrity crushed. Limen wil MORENDA was out there,
Speaker 3: you know, he was performing, and it's it feels like
Speaker 3: we're living in this like the nineteen sixties and seventies
Speaker 3: all over again, all this these marches and these protests
Speaker 3: every day. But it's it's heartening to me to see, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the young people really leading the charge, and I think
Speaker 3: that they're making progress where a lot of the grown
Speaker 3: ups obviously haven't.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I love that. Did you see those gel
Speaker 1: with the young man said he's like his speech was
Speaker 1: basically like no more. He was like, Yo, we're voting,
Speaker 1: so like many of us are voting in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: If you think that, you know that we're going to
Speaker 1: allow us to continue to think again.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
Speaker 3: I mean that's the fear, right, that's the fear that
Speaker 3: these people will be mobilized and organized. They've that's what
Speaker 3: they've always feared. The status quo is people in this
Speaker 3: status quol. The GOP is the youth, you know, because
Speaker 3: they know that their generation is dying out and you know,
Speaker 3: the minorities are gonna out number everybody by what twenty
Speaker 3: forty two, that's the estimated year it's happening. It's coming,
Speaker 3: and these kids are on the face of it now,
Speaker 3: and that's that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Exactly, boost to them, exactly. Oh that was a good see.
Speaker 1: That was i' glad you went after me. Nice little
Speaker 1: boostems to my.
Speaker 2: Ranting to keep it balanced.
Speaker 3: Do we have a good question, yes, ma'am And you guys,
Speaker 3: if you want to send us a question, you know
Speaker 3: you can go to brand Ambition podcast dot com drop
Speaker 3: us a note there I have to ask us anything
Speaker 3: tab You can also email us at brand Ambition Podcast
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com to get in touch and thanks
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 2: I found a couple of good questions.
Speaker 3: Let's se if you need to do a couple this week,
Speaker 3: let's do two anonymous ones a mysterious. This question is
Speaker 3: from Anonymous number one. Anonymous number one says, I recently
Speaker 3: found out that surprise, I'm pregnant. My husband and I
Speaker 3: just bought a home in the Bay Area, which was
Speaker 3: no small mortgage, I imagine so, but we are otherwise
Speaker 3: very financially secure in our mid thirties. We have good
Speaker 3: salaries and careers, no credit card debt, a little bit
Speaker 3: of student loan debt, no car debt. But a baby
Speaker 3: was never part of our life or financial plans. However,
Speaker 3: since we're taking a sharp left turn in doing this,
Speaker 3: I need some help. What are the top things I
Speaker 3: should be doing to say for this kid starting now?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Well, are you doing any spec Well, we just talked
Speaker 3: about Kevin Matthews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, opening up, Uh, you can start saving like, well,
Speaker 1: he in order to have a custodial account your actually
Speaker 1: you have to have a Social Security number.
Speaker 2: So he's okay.
Speaker 1: You know, honestly, I would like, I'm gonna pull myself
Speaker 1: out because I'm like, I don't have kids, but I
Speaker 1: would do what I would normally do with any major
Speaker 1: change that's going to affect my finances. I would start
Speaker 1: living at the new rate now, So I might You
Speaker 1: might want to ask any friends of yours that have,
Speaker 1: you know, that just had babies, like babies that are
Speaker 1: under one years old, and to kind of get a
Speaker 1: gauge of like what the cost kind of looks like
Speaker 1: month a month on average, and start setting that aside.
Speaker 1: So if they tell you, well, honestly, girl, I spend
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars a month on my baby. That's just
Speaker 1: how much it costs. That's what I'm been spending, then
Speaker 1: I would start setting aside two thousand plus a month
Speaker 1: because you're gonna have to spend it, you know, when
Speaker 1: the baby comes. So get used to living at that
Speaker 1: level now, and then you'll have a nice little, nice little,
Speaker 1: you know, bucket of savings. That's probably my best advice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've I've talked to financial planners about this question secretly.
Speaker 3: So I am a I'm a planner.
Speaker 2: Header No, I.
Speaker 3: Don't have a kid, but I, like you also think
Speaker 3: what can I do now so that I'm ready by
Speaker 3: the time I have a kid, I'll have some savings,
Speaker 3: YadA YadA. I mean I was saving from my wedding
Speaker 3: and like five years before I had a wedding, just
Speaker 3: because you know, and saving for a down payment years
Speaker 3: like those things. It's great. The fact that you're even
Speaker 3: looking ahead is a big difference. There's people who can
Speaker 3: look ahead and plan ahead and there's people who live
Speaker 3: in the present. And it really it's you've already sort
Speaker 3: of got that one element in your favor, the fact
Speaker 3: that you're thinking ahead, which.
Speaker 2: Is really good.
Speaker 3: So for me, it's not so much about, you know,
Speaker 3: a baby fund, but it's what Tiffany said, it's it's
Speaker 3: it's actually learning to live on the new reduced budget
Speaker 3: that will happen once you have a kid. So think
Speaker 3: about the cost if you have to put your kid
Speaker 3: into daycare when a part of your budget is going
Speaker 3: toward I mean, diapers alone cost hundreds of dollars, food
Speaker 3: for your child, those types of expenses, you can. A
Speaker 3: financial planner once told me that he advises couples but
Speaker 3: when they get first get pregnant or find out that
Speaker 3: they're pregnant, to go ahead and start living on one
Speaker 3: income and see if they can make it work.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we've been living on we've been we've been
Speaker 3: doing the one income thing. This is this is ourt
Speaker 3: in the last few months. I mean, we've It's not
Speaker 3: that we were saving. It was the first time we
Speaker 3: actually said, Okay, we're just gonna do this, We're going
Speaker 3: to live off this one income and save the other.
Speaker 3: We were kind of saving about the same before, but
Speaker 3: it was like you give a little and I give
Speaker 3: a little. It's just much easier this way. But we
Speaker 3: know we have that income going toward savings and then
Speaker 3: but my whole thing is is not just can we
Speaker 3: live off one income if we were to have a baby,
Speaker 3: but you know, could we live off one income if
Speaker 3: one if something were to happen to one of us.
Speaker 3: That's important to me. And that's one thing that you
Speaker 3: could do now is maybe practice living on that one
Speaker 3: income and see if you can make it worker, at
Speaker 3: least at least drastically reduce it and then put that
Speaker 3: money aside in savings. And I mean other than that,
Speaker 3: there's you know, that's that's that's a lot more than a.
Speaker 2: Lot of people.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are able to do anyway, in
Speaker 3: terms of planning for a kid. I think that will
Speaker 3: put you ahead. And then once the once the baby
Speaker 3: Anonymous is born, then you would you know, you can
Speaker 3: set up a castodo ira. You can open up a
Speaker 3: five two nine plan. My friends have five two nine
Speaker 3: plans that actually run the birthday times or baptisms. They'll
Speaker 3: send the link around and you can you can contribute
Speaker 3: to their five to nine plan. It's almost like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, putting money in a savings account for their kid.
Speaker 3: You can just you know, credit card, debit whatever and
Speaker 3: put money in it.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 3: It's actually a nice little way to give a present.
Speaker 3: And then you have eighteen years to build that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sooner you start, the better. But no, I
Speaker 1: think there's isn't that book isn't a book by Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Warren called one what was it called the Two Income
Speaker 1: Myths or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Lizzie Warren wrote personal finance books. I still find
Speaker 3: that really funny. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Yes she did. She
Speaker 3: had a she moonlighted us. She used to be a
Speaker 3: bankruptcy professor, a bankruptcy law professor. I think that's where
Speaker 3: it came from. And then she wrote about Yeah, a
Speaker 3: couple of books on debt. I didn't know there was
Speaker 3: a two income book though, or sorry, what was it?
Speaker 2: One income?
Speaker 1: You know, it's called something where she basically talks about
Speaker 1: like the myth that really you're supposed to be living
Speaker 1: off one income. It's called like the the something. So
Speaker 1: just look up Elizabeth Warren two income. I think it's
Speaker 1: called the two income myth something to that effect. But
Speaker 1: I remember a friend of mine read end said it
Speaker 1: was really good. So yeah, you might want to look
Speaker 1: into that about like, because I just think what that
Speaker 1: advice Nandy gave you about trying to live off one
Speaker 1: income is really great advice.
Speaker 3: Thank you very question Anonymous. All right, we have a
Speaker 3: we have an in congratulations on your baby. Yeah, it's exciting.
Speaker 3: We have another anonymous question. This is also she's also
Speaker 3: find she just spent out she's pregnant, which is exciting too,
Speaker 3: but unrelated to her pregnancy, she says, I'm thirty years old, married,
Speaker 3: one year old, and also pregnant. My husband and I
Speaker 3: are blessed to have a thriving business together. We just
Speaker 3: moved into a new home and we're in the process
Speaker 3: of selling our last home. The only debt we have
Speaker 3: is our mortgage, my husband's car loan, and some credit
Speaker 3: card debt. My question is, is there a suggested method
Speaker 3: for closing credit accounts once they've been paid off when
Speaker 3: you have so many or should you just keep them
Speaker 3: all open? It feels weird to have so many credit
Speaker 3: card accounts open, and I feel like I should cancel them.
Speaker 3: Most of these cards are store cards like Victoria's Secret
Speaker 3: and Taylor Macy's Best Buy. Do these cards factor differently?
Speaker 3: Good cool questions?
Speaker 1: So here's the factors that I would write down. One,
Speaker 1: whether it's a store card or regular card, because store
Speaker 1: cards definitely should get canceled before regular cards. But then two,
Speaker 1: another factor is how long have I had the card?
Speaker 1: Because you're wanting if you're going to close a card,
Speaker 1: you're going to want to close cards that are that
Speaker 1: are newer versus older, because I believe is it leng
Speaker 1: is length of credit history? Is that fifteen percent or
Speaker 1: ten percent of your credit score.
Speaker 3: It's ten or fifteen, I forget I think might be fifteen,
Speaker 3: and then the mix of your credit is ten, he
Speaker 3: gets the fifteen percent one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so length of credit history. So you're wanting to close,
Speaker 1: you're going to close, You're wanting to close the newer cards.
Speaker 1: But to me, the most important factor in closing cards
Speaker 1: is how will it affect your your utilization rate? That's
Speaker 1: thirty percent of your score. So what that means is
Speaker 1: that So let's just say I've got two cards and
Speaker 1: one of them is maxed out, so I have one
Speaker 1: hundred both of them have one hundred dollars limits. One
Speaker 1: has one hundred dollars limit and one hundred dollars balance,
Speaker 1: and the other I'm not using at all, zero limit
Speaker 1: but one hundred dollars I mean zero balance, but one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars limit. So one maxed out, one not used
Speaker 1: at all. So, as it is, right now, your your utilization,
Speaker 1: which is thirty percent of your score, is an average
Speaker 1: of your credit cards. Right so you've got a maxed
Speaker 1: out card and a not used card. So right now
Speaker 1: you are utilizing fifty percent of your available credit on
Speaker 1: your credit card. So fifty percent is already high. You
Speaker 1: really don't want to go over thirty percent utilization. Really,
Speaker 1: you want to be in like the ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: percent range. But thirty percent is a max max math.
Speaker 1: If you close the unused card and you go from
Speaker 1: two cards to one card, now, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you went from a fifty percent utilization to one hundred
Speaker 1: percent utilization, and you are definitely taking your score. And
Speaker 1: so if you're going to close cards, I always tell
Speaker 1: people because they get so excited. They're like, I paid
Speaker 1: up a card, I want to close them, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, let's do the math. Let in
Speaker 1: all your cards, write down all of your balances, write
Speaker 1: down all of your limits, and do the math. If
Speaker 1: I close this card, what's my utilization? Okay, it's still
Speaker 1: ten percent. If I close the next one, what will
Speaker 1: my utilization be? Okay, twenty percent. So you might want
Speaker 1: to stop right there until you pay off more and
Speaker 1: more of your cards.
Speaker 3: And so, yeah, you know, I used to use credit Karma.
Speaker 3: On credit Karma, they have a simulator tool. I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure they still do. They'll tell you what will happen
Speaker 3: if you open a new card or close a card.
Speaker 2: I'm quite sure.
Speaker 3: I like that, which is really handy, and she does.
Speaker 3: She does write a little bit more about her account.
Speaker 3: She says, most of them have been paid off. She
Speaker 3: just recently did a balance transfer, so a lot of
Speaker 3: the debts were paid off, and now she has these
Speaker 3: two newer cards that she opened up for the balance
Speaker 3: transfer offer. You know, a balance transfer is when you
Speaker 3: open up a new credit card that has an intro
Speaker 3: zero percent APR period and you use it to transfer
Speaker 3: all the debts from other cards onto it and then
Speaker 3: paid off that you have one card with one monthly payment.
Speaker 3: And then she's thinking, you know, I'll close off these
Speaker 3: once these balanced transfer cards are paid off, then I
Speaker 3: can close those off. Those are my newer cards. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that she's thinking about it smart. I mean,
Speaker 3: those those store credit cards, they don't necessarily hurt your
Speaker 3: credit any more than a you know, a Chase reserve
Speaker 3: card would hurt your credit like a normal credit card.
Speaker 3: But they may be the only thing is they may
Speaker 3: be temptation for you. I would say, just put them
Speaker 3: in the back of the closet. I don't think any
Speaker 3: of those cards have an annual fee. Victoria's secret and
Speaker 3: tailor Macy's best. But I don't think they carry a fee.
Speaker 3: Put them at back of the closet. I mean, they're
Speaker 3: not they're not hurting anything. It does seem like a
Speaker 3: lot when you're looking at both you and your husband's
Speaker 3: credit cards put together. But certainly if they're if they're
Speaker 3: going to be tempting you, you want to, you know,
Speaker 3: get rid of them. Maybe do that, you know, do
Speaker 3: what Tiffany said, you know, do the mass dewer utilization
Speaker 3: rate is see if credit card MAK can help you,
Speaker 3: you know, stimulate what your score might be if you
Speaker 3: do close those cards. If it's not the biggest hit,
Speaker 3: and you can immediately, you know, flood your credit history
Speaker 3: with positive information from all your you know, you're paying
Speaker 3: off your debts obviously with these balanced transfers, you're making
Speaker 3: on time payments. Eventually you will come back from that,
Speaker 3: you know, closed credit card account ding. That will happen,
Speaker 3: especially if you know you just moved into a new home.
Speaker 3: You already have your mortgage. It's not like you need
Speaker 3: you're about to take out a new mortgage and you
Speaker 3: need to have the best credit score right now. I
Speaker 3: don't think that you know, it's it's really, it's a
Speaker 3: personal preference. And if it's going to make you sleep
Speaker 3: easier at night having these cards closed, and you don't
Speaker 3: necessarily you're not applying for any new credit right now,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't matter. If your score goes down, you
Speaker 3: know a little bit, then you know, go ahead and
Speaker 3: take the plunge. But if you just want to do
Speaker 3: the most logical thing for your score and keep that
Speaker 3: score as high as possible, then you know, keep the
Speaker 3: cards in a dark corner and and don't charge them
Speaker 3: up and keep them open.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, thank you very question.
Speaker 1: It was a good question. And oh, anonymous, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be anonymous. That was an easy, breezy one.
Speaker 2: You never know. Some people are shy, that's true.
Speaker 1: Some people are like my cousin list of this, you
Speaker 1: don't even know my business.
Speaker 3: Sometimes sometimes I want to be anonymous, not gonna lie.
Speaker 3: And one one really last quick question someone asked, actually,
Speaker 3: because on a previous show I had mentioned in an
Speaker 3: APP that I love using called level Money to manage
Speaker 3: my money. It actually was acquired by Capital one through sixty.
Speaker 3: It was an awesome app. She's like, I looked it
Speaker 3: up recently and I couldn't find it is. It's still
Speaker 3: available to download. Sadly, it's not available anymore. These apps
Speaker 3: come and go so quickly. It's like as soon as
Speaker 3: I like one, they just shut them down because I
Speaker 3: guess they don't make a lot of money. You know,
Speaker 3: they're they're obviously when you're your customer base, you're trying
Speaker 3: to help them save money. They're not paying for the
Speaker 3: app anyway. Yeah, Level Money sadly does not exist anymore,
Speaker 3: and she wanted to know if we recommend any other
Speaker 3: apps for budgeting.
Speaker 2: She says she's tried.
Speaker 3: Mint and she's not a fan. I sadly, Level I'm
Speaker 3: just as side as you are. Level was my money
Speaker 3: app and sense Level I. I have downloaded Personal Capital,
Speaker 3: which is very similar to Mint. It just has an
Speaker 3: interface that I'm not following my budget as like as
Speaker 3: closely as I was in the past, like every single transaction.
Speaker 3: What I like Personal Capital for now is just to
Speaker 3: get like a bird's eye view of where my money
Speaker 3: is going. You know, Oh, I spent you know, twenty
Speaker 3: percent of my budget on restaurants last month. That's a lot,
Speaker 3: Like I need to cut back that type of information. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I miss I miss Level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, You're right. These apps do kind of coming go
Speaker 1: And I'm not a lie. I'm just good old fashioned Excel.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know so a lot of people. I
Speaker 1: feel like people either love it or love it or
Speaker 1: hate it. But you know what, how about this? I
Speaker 1: would love the BA listeners if you're using like a
Speaker 1: budgeting app that you absolutely love. I've heard good things.
Speaker 1: You don't've heard good things about you?
Speaker 2: You need you need a budget? Yeah, yeah, I've.
Speaker 1: Heard good that. I haven't used it to be fair,
Speaker 1: but I can honestly say I've heard good things. People
Speaker 1: say good things about them, so you might want to
Speaker 1: check them out. Why nab you need a budget?
Speaker 3: That one costs, I believe, and there's a feat so
Speaker 3: it's not a very large fee, but it's an actual
Speaker 3: it's it's it's really good if you're trying to pay
Speaker 3: down a lot of debt and that's why you're budgeting,
Speaker 3: because they think they do a zero sum budget method.
Speaker 3: You know, every dollar in your account goes toward a purpose.
Speaker 2: Kind of thing. I like that.
Speaker 1: That's what I use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you need a budget that's that's a good one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then if you have like BA Listeners, definitely
Speaker 1: hit us up on Facebook, Brown Ambition, Twitter, The BA podcast.
Speaker 1: Are we the BA podcast on Twitter?
Speaker 2: At the BA podcast?
Speaker 1: Yep, the B a podcast, you know, but like would
Speaker 1: love you know, because people ask all the time. So
Speaker 1: if you're using a budgeting app that you absolutely live for,
Speaker 1: certainly tweet us or Facebook us. We'd love to share it.
Speaker 2: All right, Ready for some wins.
Speaker 1: I am and my wind who child, I've been holding this.
Speaker 1: I've been waiting. This is for Wakanda. So it's official.
Speaker 1: Black Panther is officially the highest grossing superhero superhero movie
Speaker 1: in the United States of all time.
Speaker 2: An I mean, like.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean that's I mean, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what to say, highest grocery in US history. Free, black
Speaker 1: on black on black. I feel like President Obama has
Speaker 1: Remember when you won ever it was like my president
Speaker 1: is black. My land Bow was too. I'm like, my
Speaker 1: movie it's black. Yes, I mean, it's I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to say because it wasn't even like a
Speaker 1: kind of black movie. It wasn't even like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: there's a black superhero. But the rest of the movie
Speaker 1: is no. No, this movie is it could not have
Speaker 1: gotten a blacker. This movie is the Lemonade of like
Speaker 1: like like Beyonce's album Lemonade that was super and black
Speaker 1: and black. This movie is Michael Basin Black.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I had something to say, which is, can y'all go?
Speaker 3: Can you just stop going to see it? Because I
Speaker 3: want to see it again, but it's always sold out.
Speaker 3: We tried to go again Friday, I was like, na,
Speaker 3: bra couldn't even get a seat.
Speaker 2: Really, I just love that, and I don't.
Speaker 1: Like what it shows is that, like you know, the
Speaker 1: BS about like, oh, there's no money when you cater
Speaker 1: to us, or not even just cater to us, because
Speaker 1: we're not the only one who saw it. It was
Speaker 1: it was just a good movie. I mean when they
Speaker 1: broke down the statistics of like the people that went
Speaker 1: to see it, well, you know, of course we came
Speaker 1: out in like record number, but we weren't the largest
Speaker 1: group of people that went to see the movie. It's
Speaker 1: just a good movie. And I just hope that this
Speaker 1: starts to signal to Hollywood, because you know, nobody listens
Speaker 1: to any but money these days. So I hope that
Speaker 1: the financial ramifications of having a movie like this will
Speaker 1: help to shift, you know, the type of things that
Speaker 1: are developed in the future. But yeah, this is just awesome. Honestly.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, I just want to see you again. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just want to see the I just want to
Speaker 1: see everyone again. So Challa, I want to see you again,
Speaker 1: even even kill Manger. We can hang, we can Hay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come see you guys.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I don't think Kill Marker is going
Speaker 3: to be the next movie spoiler alert. That was Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was amazing. And I heard Ava du Varney is
Speaker 3: directing another DC comics like Superhero movie, So it's it's
Speaker 3: all happening, man. I mean, I hope it continues. I
Speaker 3: hope it's not just a moment. I hope it's more
Speaker 3: than that. I hope it's a movement. I'm super excited too.
Speaker 2: So my win really quick.
Speaker 3: I wanted to do a win for Lena Waith, who
Speaker 3: is killing it on all levels and was just is
Speaker 3: gracing the cover of Vanity Fair magazine this month, which
Speaker 3: I don't know, who's the last black queer woman you
Speaker 3: remember seeing on the cover of a magazine Never I
Speaker 3: could think of nobody ever, So I just I think
Speaker 3: it means a lot to so many people what she
Speaker 3: represents it. But the photos that were captured of her
Speaker 3: and her and her girlfriend in their apartment in La
Speaker 3: just living their lives. It was a different kind of
Speaker 3: photo shoot, you know, it wasn't the glamorous thing. And
Speaker 3: all she's doing to represent black screenwriters in Hollywood is
Speaker 3: just fantastic. So that's what I mean, man, turning around,
Speaker 3: reaching beyond your circle. She's reaching behind her and pulling
Speaker 3: people up and making sure they get the opportunities, the chances.
Speaker 3: You know that that she it took a long time
Speaker 3: for her to get. I think that's just beautiful and
Speaker 3: I wish her all the success and all the badass
Speaker 3: magazine covers she can get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, it's just such a good time to be
Speaker 1: to be brown. I mean, well, well it's good and bad,
Speaker 1: but I mean the bad part has always been here,
Speaker 1: so there's just an extra little boost to be brown
Speaker 1: right now. And so yeah, I'm feeling good.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling good. Well, go ahead and enjoy the rest
Speaker 3: of your weekend, and we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we shat, and by then I'll have been back
Speaker 1: from my romantic Jamaican vacation.
Speaker 2: Are you going to Jamaica?
Speaker 1: Yes, I told Tuoperman I said, before we start this renovation,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm going to need a little bit
Speaker 1: of R and R because the renovations on the house.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's a new frontier. And so I found
Speaker 1: really a really great deal on Orbits. It's like five
Speaker 1: star all inclusive. I was able to book our flights
Speaker 1: because we used the Chase card Chase Venture, so I
Speaker 1: was able. We had enough points, so our flights were
Speaker 1: I just used our points to fly and it was
Speaker 1: like forty five percent off or fifty percent off whatever
Speaker 1: the hotel normally is. So it was like five hundred
Speaker 1: bucks apiece for five fifty apiece for the hotel for
Speaker 1: Friday to Monday. And so I'm really excited because, you know,
Speaker 1: for five hundred and fifty bucks we get to enjoy
Speaker 1: paradise for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Sounds yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm told I'll take lots of pics so everybody can
Speaker 1: be like, damn it, I.
Speaker 2: Hate you fpulous.
Speaker 3: Next episode, we will have this Art steel on who
Speaker 3: I spoke with a state attorney.
Speaker 2: Extraordinary.
Speaker 3: She's gonna come on and answer a lot of good
Speaker 3: questions about life insurance. How to plan for this is
Speaker 3: a big thing. How to plan to give to past
Speaker 3: generational wealth on to your children and your children's children.
Speaker 3: That is her message and that is what we will
Speaker 3: be talking about in next week's show.
Speaker 1: Yay Art, who Can't Wait?
Speaker 2: All right? How Fun? And Jamaica Come on? All right?
Speaker 1: Bye bye