Speaker 1: All right, ba fam, I am so excited.
Speaker 2: B a q A.
Speaker 1: I stole Chris and y'a Nelly and they're sticking around
Speaker 1: to take y'all's questions. Welcome to the brand ambition. QA
Speaker 1: yan Nelly. You haven't done a QA with us, have you?
Speaker 3: No? I have? Oh, I do one with Tiff. I
Speaker 3: think on the episode where me and Tiff were when
Speaker 3: you were just had just popped.
Speaker 1: Oh he just pop, Oh my baby. Okay. I was like, yep,
Speaker 1: what like when I get out of bed whole and
Speaker 1: everything pops like that?
Speaker 4: No, it snap, crackle pop like you popped out a baby.
Speaker 1: Oh man. Well, b a qa, y'all have questions, We
Speaker 1: have answers with the lowercase A. I like to say,
Speaker 1: get your salt shakers out, because you're not gonna sue us.
Speaker 1: This is infotainment. It is information from people who are
Speaker 1: pretty smart and know some stuff, but for entertainment purposes. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not your financial advisor or your financial planner, so
Speaker 1: you know, sue someone else, just not us. Don't come
Speaker 1: for us, all right, and please submit your questions. You
Speaker 1: can hit us up on IG. You can send us
Speaker 1: a d M. A voice message is fine on ig
Speaker 1: or just a regular old text message. You can also
Speaker 1: email us Brand Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: we got some good questions today. So the first question
Speaker 1: is from someone who's anonymous and wants to know. I
Speaker 1: have been following your podcast for over a year and
Speaker 1: we have a question for you. Can you recommend a
Speaker 1: good auto refinance company for me? I hate Capital One,
Speaker 1: It's not an option, thank you auto refinance. So this
Speaker 1: is like, you have an auto loan and you're not
Speaker 1: happy with the rate or like the monthly payments and
Speaker 1: you want to REFI have you guys done that before?
Speaker 3: I have refinanced, Like I'm not refinanced a car loan,
Speaker 3: but I have just like done like a credit card
Speaker 3: consolidation before. And yeah, I mean I feel like it's
Speaker 3: hard to say there's one really good company because which
Speaker 3: you should really be doing is shopping around so that
Speaker 3: you can get the best rate. Especially right now, rates
Speaker 3: are starting to change.
Speaker 1: You the rates are starting to drop.
Speaker 3: So you know, somebody might have just dropped their rate
Speaker 3: a little lower than somebody else, and it's kind of
Speaker 3: on you to do that due diligence to find the
Speaker 3: best option out there for you. Rather than just saying, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, well I heard Capital one is good or
Speaker 3: not good kind of you know, shop around and compare
Speaker 3: lenders until you find one that's going to give you
Speaker 3: the best deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've heard of a company. I heard about them a
Speaker 2: little while back called Auto Approof. They're supposed to be
Speaker 2: a company that will help you go out and find
Speaker 2: a good refinance deal for your auto loan and help you.
Speaker 1: With the process like a marketplace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're kind of like walking through the process
Speaker 2: and get you through there. I haven't haven't checked them
Speaker 2: out in a little while, so I don't know what's
Speaker 2: going on right now with them, But that's one but
Speaker 2: kind of again I was saying, also checking out your
Speaker 2: local areas. Your credit unions are a great place. But
Speaker 2: then you know, if you I'll be curious where they're
Speaker 2: at in their auto loan, Like, are they like a
Speaker 2: couple of years in did they just start? Because I
Speaker 2: mean the way they set up these auto loans, you're
Speaker 2: paying kind of like a mortgage. You're paying most of
Speaker 2: the interests up front in the beginning, and it kind
Speaker 2: of tapers off as you go. So if you're like
Speaker 2: getting that midway point you probably already paid a ton
Speaker 2: of interest at this point, and sometimes refinancing kind of
Speaker 2: just resets that clock and might call you can get
Speaker 2: a lower rate. You might end up paying more interest
Speaker 2: over the life of the loan, so you might want
Speaker 2: to just take time kind of think about it, play
Speaker 2: with a couple of little auto loan calculators, kind of
Speaker 2: just see where you're at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to my former employer, lending Tree, because
Speaker 1: I ran the content team there for like five years.
Speaker 1: And lending Tree is a marketplace too, so if you
Speaker 1: want to shop and compare, that's their whole platform is
Speaker 1: you can compare rates among different lenders. Now, they will
Speaker 1: be calling your ass when you submit for that free quote,
Speaker 1: so use the number that you don't answer all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but.
Speaker 3: Set up a Google voice number.
Speaker 1: That's kind of Yes, that's exactly. But using one of
Speaker 1: the sites as great, and you know they take some
Speaker 1: of the legwork out for you. But yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: really good point, Chris, like pros and cons of auto
Speaker 1: refi is you know, it's a good point. It's also
Speaker 1: one of those things where sometimes if your payment is
Speaker 1: just too high and you're like the cash flow. You're
Speaker 1: having cash flow issues, you will make a bad decision
Speaker 1: for the good of your finances sometimes, and I mean
Speaker 1: the the bad decision being you know, let me refinance,
Speaker 1: even though it's going to be more expensive over time,
Speaker 1: but it's going to give me relief maybe in the
Speaker 1: form of like a lower payment today. That may be okay.
Speaker 3: So as you know that, as long as you know that,
Speaker 3: because the worst scenario is that you make the decision
Speaker 3: under the guys or like thinking that you are saving
Speaker 3: yourself money or making a financial responsible choice, and then
Speaker 3: when you run the math later, you go, damn, I
Speaker 3: really got screwed because now I'm paying more in the
Speaker 3: long run. But if you are aware that you're doing that,
Speaker 3: and you're kind of in a situation where you're like, well,
Speaker 3: this one time, I kind of have to do it.
Speaker 3: It's going to be two or three years like this,
Speaker 3: and then I'm going to get back on track. Fine,
Speaker 3: But I do think a lot of people end up
Speaker 3: making these choices without the full clear picture.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the heartbreaking part.
Speaker 3: But Mandy, you're asolutely right, there's gonna be times sometimes
Speaker 3: you just gotta you gotta do what you have to do.
Speaker 3: For the short term and not necessarily focused just on
Speaker 3: the long term all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, car payments are so expensive.
Speaker 3: Now, girl, the average car payment is a thousand dollars
Speaker 3: here thousand dollars a month. Late twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 3: average car payment was one thousand dollars a month. How
Speaker 3: the hell all the people these cars?
Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to figure out. I wish I
Speaker 2: would have give someone a thousand dollars a month for
Speaker 2: a car.
Speaker 1: Car, Chris, is it paid off? What you got?
Speaker 2: Pay off? My car is eleven years old. I paid
Speaker 2: the thing four years ago.
Speaker 3: For five A long time car about to hit puberty.
Speaker 3: You have a car I've never driven.
Speaker 4: I don't have a driver's license, honey, will you Brooklyn?
Speaker 4: I got a bunch of Metro cards in my wallet still,
Speaker 4: even though I live in Miami.
Speaker 1: So that's how New York I am.
Speaker 3: But no, I've never owned a car.
Speaker 1: How do you guys get around?
Speaker 3: He's a Jersey boy. He definitely has a license to.
Speaker 1: Okay team, so we're a good partner. Privilege.
Speaker 4: I'm a passenger princess. I'm a professional passenger princess.
Speaker 2: When I am I couldn't even get behind the will
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 3: Wanted to, for real, not safely.
Speaker 1: No, No, I feel bad for him if he ever
Speaker 1: needs you to take him somewhere.
Speaker 2: I know we are.
Speaker 3: I could do. I could do the basics, but like,
Speaker 3: if I'm on the highway, I might. You could do
Speaker 3: the basics that drive on the like I could drive
Speaker 3: on the street, like I could drive on the street
Speaker 3: with pedestria and driving and souff. But if I'm on
Speaker 3: the highway, the freeway, like, my heart is gonna come
Speaker 3: out of my chest because I'm so scared.
Speaker 1: Because cars is the easiest thing for me.
Speaker 3: No, it's too fast, it's too meet a car.
Speaker 1: That drives for you, you know.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's what I'm gonna just wait until the
Speaker 3: cars are all self driving and be like, oh look,
Speaker 3: I don't even need to get the license thing because I.
Speaker 2: Don't understand that I'm born and raised inside of California.
Speaker 1: Car payment and I told y'all, I opened up about
Speaker 1: having two cars now, and I just like, man, that's
Speaker 1: my goal is to get that ish paid off. First
Speaker 1: credit card debt.
Speaker 3: Ugh, it's a lot. And that's one thing I will say.
Speaker 3: I've talked to my little brother and my niece about this,
Speaker 3: and I told them, I said, honestly, the one thing
Speaker 3: that I did early like that helped me was I
Speaker 3: never had a car, like I took the subway. When
Speaker 3: I worked in New York City, I took the subway
Speaker 3: to work every day, I packed my lunch. I was
Speaker 3: like super savior. And then when I moved to Miami,
Speaker 3: I kind of like live in a building that's in
Speaker 3: an area where like everything is right here, Like my
Speaker 3: supermarket is right downstairs, the dentist is up the block,
Speaker 3: like there's everything. The airport is fifteen minutes away. So
Speaker 3: my Uber and Lyft rides every month are probably like
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty dollars, no more like in a
Speaker 3: month where I spent a lot, it'd be like three hundred.
Speaker 3: But I don't pay insurance, I don't have a car payment.
Speaker 3: I don't pay for gas, I don't pay parking, I
Speaker 3: don't pay tolls, I don't pay so it kind of
Speaker 3: is like just two fifty on spending. When I need
Speaker 3: to travel and take an Uber here there, it's fine
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I read at Metro North Pass
Speaker 1: costs out here and wessitors, so yeah, Transit costs.
Speaker 2: And even with the paidoff car, I'm paying that much
Speaker 2: in gas and insurance and registration every month. So it's
Speaker 2: like you're not you in the same position just by
Speaker 2: not having a.
Speaker 1: Car, right. Auto debt is just not cute? All right, Anonymous, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for your question. That was from IG. We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a little break and come right back with
Speaker 1: our second question. All right, VA, family are back. I'm
Speaker 1: joined by Janellies Finale and Chris Browning. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: BA Roundtable QA for the week. So I have something
Speaker 1: that I love, which is when a listener who we
Speaker 1: answered their question before kind of like follows up with
Speaker 1: us to let them know what's happening now. So just
Speaker 1: a quick follow up from listener Kathy who says she
Speaker 1: reached out to us. I'm trying to remember she reached
Speaker 1: out to us last year and the episode is called
Speaker 1: no Job, It's Worth a health decline. At the time,
Speaker 1: she had a job at one of the top universities
Speaker 1: in the country. She was saying she commuted up to
Speaker 1: three hours to get to work, so that means five
Speaker 1: hours five to six hours total round trip. Yeah, three
Speaker 1: days a week. She works from home two days a
Speaker 1: week and then she's asked her current job for a
Speaker 1: moving bonus or for more support and staffing, but they've declined.
Speaker 1: At the time and she was asking us, she said
Speaker 1: she might have a full time job lined up that's
Speaker 1: ten minutes from where she lives, but she'd be taking
Speaker 1: a twenty five percent pay cut in a lower title.
Speaker 1: So if she wanted to know, what did we think, Well,
Speaker 1: we had encouraged her to choose what's best for her
Speaker 1: life and for her health and that long ass commute,
Speaker 1: like the mind like the exhaustion of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think at the time we had been pretty much
Speaker 1: like girl, like for your health and your sanity. Twenty
Speaker 1: five percent is you know, plus the like we just
Speaker 1: mentioned about cars, the gas, travel costs, traffic, yes, maintenance,
Speaker 1: all that. So Kathy wanted to follow up. She said,
Speaker 1: I put in the work to find a position that
Speaker 1: has allowed me to have a better work life balance.
Speaker 1: I recently accepted a position thirty minutes away from my home.
Speaker 1: I'm getting the same pay as my previous job, more
Speaker 1: work from home pays, and more professional development. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Mandy for the negotiation tips. Thank you again. Keep
Speaker 1: being great girl.
Speaker 2: Kathy.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy for Kathy because that is huge shaving
Speaker 3: like thirty minutes there and back. That's an hour a day.
Speaker 3: That's so much better than five to six hours.
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine what type of commune.
Speaker 1: My goodness, I mean our Journey to Launch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say it works for people
Speaker 3: who have like a goal that they need that time day,
Speaker 3: they can use that time for Like Jamila used to
Speaker 3: listen to podcasts a lot, and then because she was
Speaker 3: so in tune with podcasting, because as being a listener,
Speaker 3: she was able to create such a high quality podcast
Speaker 3: that like, yeah, everybody knows Journey to Launch. It's like
Speaker 3: super it's such a great, well known podcast. Why because
Speaker 3: she had listened for hours and hours and hours during
Speaker 3: her commutes and kind of knew how to make a
Speaker 3: good podcast that she would want to listen to as
Speaker 3: a you know, loyal podcast listener. So I do think
Speaker 3: if you can use that time, you know, as in
Speaker 3: transitioning to something, that it will benefit you somehow. It
Speaker 3: can work out. But in the long run, yeah, man,
Speaker 3: nothing is gonna just drive you to the ground, drive
Speaker 3: your health down, so your mental health and just robs
Speaker 3: you so much time, Like when you're home is late
Speaker 3: and you're just like, how did the whole day escape me?
Speaker 3: Because all I did today was just go to work,
Speaker 3: and you don't have time for yourself. So I do
Speaker 3: think at some point having a transition plan is so important.
Speaker 3: But man, congrats to Kathy, because thirty minutes from six
Speaker 3: hours ooh from five hours is huge.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy for you, Kathy, and thank you for
Speaker 1: following up. Y'all, if we've answered your questions and you
Speaker 1: want to follow up, please do, please do, okay. Our
Speaker 1: final question for today is from listener Shakira, who sent
Speaker 1: us Shaki Tha. Shaki sent us a DM on IG.
Speaker 1: She's got some credit card debt, she says, about seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a credit card debt. She says, my credit
Speaker 1: is excellent and I make decent money. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm going a little bit backwards because I do have
Speaker 1: some investments in stocks are worth about the same amount
Speaker 1: I have in debt. This is not my four to
Speaker 1: one K, but my side personal investments. So she's got
Speaker 1: about seven k in credit card debt and seven K
Speaker 1: and then her personal investments. So Shakira wants to know
Speaker 1: what it makes sense to cash out the stocks that
Speaker 1: I have to pay off my debt and then just
Speaker 1: start investing again after the debt is paid off. Thanks
Speaker 1: in advance. Oh, this is a good question. I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to hear what you guys have to say.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let Chris take it first.
Speaker 2: I have thoughts.
Speaker 1: You go first. Okay, when do you not have thoughts? No?
Speaker 3: I got a lot of sight, but Chris first.
Speaker 2: All right, I'll be quick. I'm gonna give you more
Speaker 2: of the time here for me. I mean, that's a good,
Speaker 2: good question because you think about it, like, I don't
Speaker 2: know what the interest rates are your credit card, but
Speaker 2: I'm assuming they're not great.
Speaker 1: Twenty something, right, probably even with great credit twenty something, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's still crossing twenty. Now, the likelihood of you getting
Speaker 2: that same type of return on your investments, I mean,
Speaker 2: it might happen, but it's not guaranteed. The average will
Speaker 2: be much slower than that. I mean, so just mathematically,
Speaker 2: I could see the relief going from doing that. But also,
Speaker 2: is it something that you realistically could tackle in a
Speaker 2: few months? You feel like if you had three, four
Speaker 2: or five months, you could just pay this off through
Speaker 2: your regular payments. If I if that's the case, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't rush to cash out that investment because you may
Speaker 2: not be able to put that back. Maybe you'd not
Speaker 2: gona be asciplined to put that money right back in again,
Speaker 2: So you're costing yourself. You may just like eliminate that
Speaker 2: investment option that you're doing all together. And there could
Speaker 2: be some tax implications too. I don't know what type
Speaker 2: of account this is. If it's in the brokerage account, he
Speaker 2: may have had some gains he might have to you
Speaker 2: might end up owing taxes, which is going to eat
Speaker 2: into whatever you would have pulled at anyway. So I
Speaker 2: would say, if you feel confident that you could tackle
Speaker 2: this on your own, and you know three to five
Speaker 2: months through regular payments, I would go that route. But
Speaker 2: if you're like, no, it would take me a couple
Speaker 2: of years to pay this off monthly, I would consider
Speaker 2: it because you'd be paying so much more an interest
Speaker 2: than you probably would be making by just letting us
Speaker 2: sit there.
Speaker 3: How I love that answer, Chris. I was about to
Speaker 3: say the tax part for sure, Like I just that
Speaker 3: is the number one piece of investing that most people
Speaker 3: do not consider because of the way that it's structured
Speaker 3: and set up right. If you were to sell your
Speaker 3: investments today January whatever date it is, let's say January
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, you sell your investments, you don't see
Speaker 3: any taxes, you don't see any tax hit. You take
Speaker 3: out whatever you take out, and that number is what
Speaker 3: you get to send to the credit card companies, and
Speaker 3: you think the problem is solved and you're done. But
Speaker 3: come tax ses in twenty twenty six. You're going to
Speaker 3: owe those capital gains taxes, whether they're short term capital
Speaker 3: gains taxes, which means it's the same income tax brackets
Speaker 3: for the twenty twenty five year for your income or
Speaker 3: long term capital gains which could be zero percent, fifteen
Speaker 3: or twenty percent. So you have to figure out where
Speaker 3: it's going to be based on your income again, and
Speaker 3: which means at the end of the day, you still
Speaker 3: have to do the math and kind of decide for yourself, like,
Speaker 3: is it better for me to delay this and do
Speaker 3: just the tax bill that I'm going to owe in
Speaker 3: the spring of twenty twenty six by selling my investments
Speaker 3: now and getting rid of the credit card. That gives
Speaker 3: me a few months to come up with that money
Speaker 3: that I'm going to owe when I file my taxes,
Speaker 3: or would I rather not deal with that and just
Speaker 3: pay the interest for a couple months until I pay
Speaker 3: off that seven k. It's all a numbers game, right,
Speaker 3: So if the numbers don't make sense to kind of
Speaker 3: do it monthly and the seven k is a lot
Speaker 3: for you. To Chris's point, it might make sense. But
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases, like people just discount, they
Speaker 3: just do not consider those taxes, and it comes around
Speaker 3: and it shocks people and it surprises people, and it's like, wait,
Speaker 3: hold up, what because by the time it comes around,
Speaker 3: you done forgot about it because you sold those stocks
Speaker 3: so long ago.
Speaker 1: So I really do think cost basis right, what.
Speaker 3: Is cost basis and what's long term capital gains versus
Speaker 3: short term capital games. I didn't even know there's a
Speaker 3: difference in those brackets. So I do think if you
Speaker 3: run the math and it makes sense long versus short term,
Speaker 3: make the choice that makes sense mathematically. But to Chris's point,
Speaker 3: there's a little bit of a psychology piece to this too,
Speaker 3: that if you are if your life is going to
Speaker 3: feel exponentially better and you have a weight completely lifted
Speaker 3: off of you knowing that the credit card that is
Speaker 3: not there and that you're not paying twenty nine point
Speaker 3: nine percent interests, then you might want to do it.
Speaker 3: And just now you have time to start preparing a
Speaker 3: separate how you'd savings account where you put a little
Speaker 3: bit of money every month so that when taxes comes around,
Speaker 3: you have the taxes that you will owe because you're
Speaker 3: buying yourself time right with that money. So I do
Speaker 3: think that's kind of the factors that matter the most
Speaker 3: in the decision making process.
Speaker 1: I love both of those perspectives. The other thing I
Speaker 1: will add, speaking from experience, is the cash flow problem
Speaker 1: typically is why people end up in debt. So you
Speaker 1: don't have enough coming in, so you're putting things on
Speaker 1: credit cards that you don't have the cash upfront to
Speaker 1: pay for. And sometimes that's fine, Like I mean, sometimes
Speaker 1: you just you haven't been paid that month yet you
Speaker 1: want to get something you have money coming in, but
Speaker 1: it can start to creep up on you, right, So
Speaker 1: I would just caution you, Shakiras, to really get dedicated
Speaker 1: to a budget so that when you pay off this
Speaker 1: credit card debt, whether you're doing it with you know,
Speaker 1: selling your stocks to pay it down or paying it
Speaker 1: off over time, try to get to the heart of
Speaker 1: how did that seven thousand dollars accrue? It's not the
Speaker 1: most I've ever heard of in credit card debt. Certainly
Speaker 1: I have way more than that myself, but I do
Speaker 1: worry about, you know, if you can pay it off
Speaker 1: with the stocks right now, but then it kind of
Speaker 1: like starts to creep back up because some of like
Speaker 1: the core underlying issue, which is probably the budget, hasn't
Speaker 1: been resolved and that can be hard to confront. That's
Speaker 1: why let me let me speak some good on one
Speaker 1: of my partners, Rocket Money. Have you guys used Rocket Money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a new personal finance app. I really love it.
Speaker 1: Ei there's a free version and a little bit more
Speaker 1: paid premium version for like six bucks. But I've been
Speaker 1: loving it personally, I mean genuinely, genuinely enjoying it because
Speaker 1: it has helped me so much visualize my spending in
Speaker 1: my cash flow, and it's been like a really good
Speaker 1: route awakening to have this app.
Speaker 3: So I just usecourageons that could sometimes be eating away
Speaker 3: at your cash flows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't realize what a generous what
Speaker 1: a generous uh, donator, I am donor, donor, I am yep.
Speaker 1: I've been donating fifty dollars a month since twenty twenty
Speaker 1: to a food bank here, which is amazing, but like, also,
Speaker 1: that's six hundred dollars a month that I could use.
Speaker 1: Twenty five dollars a month is aclu, I'm donating like
Speaker 1: twenty five a month of planned parenthood. I had to
Speaker 1: send some emails.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was me, would save the Children. I did
Speaker 3: that with Save the Children, and I had two three
Speaker 3: years and I was like, wait a minute here, I
Speaker 3: think I gave enough. I think I'm at a point
Speaker 3: where I need to start thinking them home. Yeah, very cool, though, No,
Speaker 3: but you gotta be real.
Speaker 1: Two hundred meals to Westchester. I'm like, great, I feel
Speaker 1: good about that now.
Speaker 3: And if you're in a position, if you're in a position,
Speaker 3: that's fine. Like I'm I'm in a position now where
Speaker 3: I can give Save the Children one hundred bucks a
Speaker 3: month and it's not going to make or break my finances.
Speaker 3: But back when I was trying to pay off my
Speaker 3: credit card dad, that was not the case. So it
Speaker 3: really is about your situation and where you're at. So
Speaker 3: just be real with yourself, but Mandy one hundred percent
Speaker 3: agreed the budgeting is usually the root of it.
Speaker 2: M M.
Speaker 1: Well, good luck Shakira and thank you for your question.
Speaker 1: Now BA fan police, submit your questions. We are here.
Speaker 1: You can stay anonymous, but you know, give us a pseudonym,
Speaker 1: and you always want to be called something, you know,
Speaker 1: use a little, a little non de plume. You can
Speaker 1: email us at Brownda Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: or hit us up on ig We're at Brown Ambition
Speaker 1: Podcast on the Gram. Thank you to my beautiful Brown
Speaker 1: co host jan Nelly and Chris for joining me for
Speaker 1: the v a QA and we'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 1: By