Hey, hey, hey, just so you know, like each hey, my, my, I do jazz hands, and each layer, my hands get higher until they're all the way out and my fingers are wiggling in the air. I just want to give you a visual.
Oh that's a good visual. And just I know you can't see me either, just know that I'm I'm taking a knee right now.
Oh wow, Yeah, let's talk about that. Like that's a really great way to open up. Hey, y'all.
Ambition, Happy Brown Ambition Wednesday. Yes, So this is one of those news stories that seem to be unfolding over the weekend, and I would catch a tweet here and there, like a like a news alert here and there, and I was like, what's happening. I don't really watch football, but I remember all like the controversy with Calan Kaepernick
is how you say his name? I think so he refused to he took the knee way back like last season during all the you know and protest of police violence against black blacks in America, Right, that was why he did that then. And then apparently like he hasn't been able to he hasn't been drafted this season, Like no one wants to touch him and hire him, and and then it just sort of like it seemed like every day the story escalated and it got bigger and bigger,
and there's all these there's like these players. Now what was a small problem. Trump came out as he does with all his free time, to tweet and rally, his bass calling. He even at a rally apparently referred to people like Colin Kaepernick indirectly as a son of a bitch. Yeah, yeah, our president, cool President Doulthart. You know, it's like when you think he can't go possibly any lower, he just exceeds the expectations.
He literally like literally you say to yourself, this man can't go lower, and he says, get me a shovel. I'll show you, like I'm.
Gonna dig this. I'm gonna dig this ditch all over.
All the way down to Korea and sit with their president so we could talk about how we're both nuts nuts though, mister man. No, honestly, it's just crazy to me because you think to yourself, Okay, with all the things that are happening with you know, Hurricane Irma, with what's happening in Puerto Rico, with like you know, North Korea with just like world events in general, for you to take the time out of your busy comb over schedule to like make comments about not just the NFL,
but the NBA. Did you see the comment he made to Stephan Curry. No, So, Stephan Curry. You know he's a guy with the super cute daughter, right, yeah, super cute family. And so I guess they invited him to the White House. I don't know if they want a championship or whatever. For whatever reason, he was invited and he declined. And so because our current president is a child, he tweeted him, Stephen Curry, coming to the White House
is an honor. And because you're hesitating, your your your invited is rescinded.
And I'm like, oh yeah, what He's like, well, you can't come to my party. I uninvite you. Yes, you can't come.
To my birthday party. You can't come. We're not even present anymore. And You're like, what are you five?
Yeah? Literally, he has the he has the the temperament of a five year old. This is what This is the same thing. He's so predictable. This is the same thing he did after the CEO of I forget which company it was stepped down from his business council in the wake of his comments or sorry lack of comments after Charlotte'sville, and then that business owner was the CEO was followed by a couple of other CEOs and he's like, oh, you guys can't leave my business advice col. I'm just
banding the whole thing. There will be no Business Advisory Council to leave. I mean, this is just like textbook president mango face. Maybe I'll watch sports.
Now, Yeah, I just let Superman give me the recap. Oh my gosh. So now that you know how people say like like it was, they'll tell you like when you like, if you're a book writer, you're they'll say, you know, you think you know when you're writing the book, it's the hardest part. They're like, ah, man, that's the easiest part. It's what comes after. So now that we've bought the house, it's the what comes after. Oh so,
so apparently you know so well one like we did. Uh, so you know that the we haven't exchanged money for the house. We had to do a title search, which which just was clear today And apparently I didn't realize with the title search, I thought it was just the home, but apparently there's a title search on you, like who do you owe? And I, of course I came back clear. But Superman had something from when he was eighteen. It was like one hundred and eight bucks, but we have
to pay that. And it was like, yeah, I didn't.
Know that to what entity, like a public utility or something.
Something I don't know, Like I was looking through, I just knew that it was his. I took a cursory glance because his name is it's not common, but it's kind of common because its last name is Smith, so his first name is semi common ish. So there was a lot so we had to really dig through, like page after it was seventy three pages. I didn't realize that, and I was like, wow, So the title searches like the property to see if the property has any leans
on it. It doesn't own anyone the person before you, like who owned the property before you, to make sure there's no leans that would stop the sale of the house, and then you yourself. And I was like what And so, like I said, I came back clear, but he had
this one hundred and eight dollars. Fine. It looked like something from like like it looked like maybe it was like a ticket or something from court or something like that when he was eighteen, and you know, likely it was just moving from place to place and just forgot about it, and so it came up in the title search and you know, and I was just like, wow, okay, I mean, obviously we'll pay one hundred and eight dollars. But I thought I didn't even I never knew that
was something I'd bought a house before. But I guess because nothing ever came up under my name, it wasn't something I thought about. And so yeah, so I was like, oh, okay, we'll pay one hundred and eight dollars, but I just I get.
A deal breaker, like who it is?
Surprisingly like not that it's a lot of money, but so I asked her, well, what would have happened if he owed, like you know, or like just say if we're paying I said, is this because we're paying cash?
And my realtor was like, no, the bank would have actually held up the mortgage until it was satisfied, because their worry is that you don't want anyone to have to come and say, hey, before this transaction takes place, this person or this property or whatever owes me, and so I was like, oh, okay, So I don't know. I'm sure I'm saying it incorrectly. I probably could have got more detail, I guess because it was one hundred
and eight dollars. I wasn't digging super deep. But it seemed like we wouldn't be able to get title insurance, which means that I guess if later on, ten years from now, someone says, hey, there is actually a second mortgage on that house. You Oh, we wouldn't have to pay that because we have title insurance. But they wouldn't clear us for title insurance if we didn't pay these things off.
So how much time do you have?
They said that they want to close by my birthday, which is October sixteenth, so we have plenty of time. I mean, we're like, basically, we have a title company, so we're just gonna I called to figure out, like what do we do now, because I'm like, I don't even know who to pay, like what court to pay or whatever. So we just give him the eight oh one hundred and eight dollars or whatever, and then he pays.
He satisfies the payment, you know, gives us a receipt and then we're good to go, so we can have title insurance so no one can then come and put a lean on the property based upon old debts. Basically, because we did our due diligence and I didn't even know that, I'm like, woo, mind blown.
Wait, who takes a check from you?
The title insurance company, so they they run the title search, and so everyone is paying the title insurance company. They're like our es grow basically, so we paid the deposit to instead of instead of getting like a lawyer, we decided to go with the title insurance company because we're paying cash, so we're not negotiating anything. But I still wanted a title search. Like the bank side who we're paying, they do a title search, but I wanted to do a title search too on our side to make sure
that this property doesn't have any leans on it. And in order for us to have insurance on the title search, meaning you did your due diligence, you're no longer liable. We have to satisfy whatever it is that we owe and whatever it is that either party might own, and so we end up owning one hundred eight dollars. Everybody else is free and clear. So I asked, well, how do we pay because it says like I don't know, New Jersey State Court whatever it is. And I'm like, well,
do we just call them up and pay them? He's like, no, you could pay, you know, write a check out, we pay them obviously he sent you proof of payment, and then we can move forward with the closing of the of the sale of the house. And like I said, I might be said, I know. I was like, like I said, I never because I guess I like, none of my friends ever had anything come up, at least they never told me, and I've never had anything come up in the title search. So it was like, oh, okay,
well that's not true. When I fought my first house, the man who owned the house had gotten a divorce, so in the title search it did show that his wife was like co owner or whatever that was, but nothing came up on my end. So I didn't realize
that that there you might have to pay. But what was crazy was there's different iterations of his name, and there are people there that like, if you added up everything they owed, it was like ten twenty thousand dollars And I'm like, so what if they wanted to buy a house and didn't even know they owed all this, you could literally just not be able to buy a house, you know. So it just, you know, really important, and that it's just another I guess bullet to say why
it's so important your credit and stuff. Staying on top of your credit and credit report is so important because.
And you never do think about yourself the buyer being because the title social whole point of it, I always thought was just to make sure that the people who were selling and had the right to sell it.
Me too, me too honestly that I was like, wait, what, I'm gonna do a little more digging. But I was like, what, I didn't know that, and she said yep. So, like I said, it wasn't much for us, But what if it was like he owed, you know, eight thousand dollars, what would we you know, I mean, we pay it, but it would have been like a huge shock, you know, like what thanks.
There's a lot of people who would be like, oh, that's putting us out of the game, Like there's no.
Way exactly, That's what I thought to myself. I was like, look look at you, sir. He was like, it's one hundred eight dollars. I'm like still, I was like, I'm not looking at the date. It's like nineteen ninety eight. I'm like when you were eighteen. He was like it probably with some ticket and I was like whatever, And I'm like, it's come back to haunt you. So it's just an interesting part of the journey. I'm gonna do a little bit more digging and maybe I'll explain it
a little better next time. But this is what, like, it literally just happened today, So it was like fresh on my mind, like what and.
Would that not show up on his credit report?
We didn't see it because it's old. It's it's clearly some sort of violation. It looks like you might have had a ticket or something because it's old to a court system, so it didn't show up on his I don't know, do like parking tickets or whatever tickets show up on your own on your credit report.
Not like the one you get from experience, not that I know of, but I know, like you till like one time. I remember in college one summer, you know how every summer you move out of your apartment or whatever I stayed, I had, we all moved out, but like the power bill was still in my name and it was never shut down. And I had these a bunch of like missed payments from Georgia Power on my credit report that I had to you know, it wasn't I wasn't supposed to be charged, but they just had
never cut off service anyway, so I had to. But that showed up on my credit report. But I don't know what tickets.
And that's why I thought. That's why I was thinking, because I checked his credit report it didn't show up. So it's like that tickets, outstanding tickets don't show up on your credit report. It just shows up, I guess during I don't even know super thorough background checks because I've never I mean, I've had tickets that I'd forgotten to pay, and I've gotten like, you know, like warnings in the mail, like we're gonna take your license, and I haven't seen that on my credit report, So that's
likely why it was missed. He says. He vaguely remembers, like, oh yeah, I kind of vaguely remember, but you know, so just keeping that in mind that like if you have some outstanding like tickets, it looks like most of the stuff is legal base, meaning like most of the stuff that wasn't his, and all the pages that I kind of went through, it looked like all of them were court related in some way, right, like you know what I mean, like if there wasn't anything on there,
like like I saw a guy, oh, child support, and then it was like somebody there was like some forensic something, so I guess I don't know if it's oh, there was a public defender one where somebody I guess, you know, had gotten into trouble and I guess they were charging them for the public defender. I don't know. It was just really interesting to kind of kind of intrusive. I was like, well, that's not even his full mate, like like some people had different spellings of his name in
totally different years. But I was able to see like all that they kind of owed, So it was really interesting to be like, wow, this is kind of like like they would even say, did you live at this address? That's how we knew which ones were his. It was it had like the last four digits of your social the address associated, and then the name, so those three things kind of had to match, and it was only one for him, and then the rest he was like no, no, yeah.
Yeah, I'm reading that. This is right. So it's not that the city like will send an unpaid parking ticket, like report that on your credit. But if they sell it to a debt collector, which some cities do for like even for the library finds like library finds are unpaid yeah, parking tickets, then that collection activity will be reported and then maybe you can track it. But that's that's weird.
But I mean, you know, part of the process.
Yeah, any other like uh, pickups or lessons learn.
And well we did find that, like and I guess it's true. Like for an old house, like I said before, like the the we have to get the house rewired, which could be anywhere from eight to fifteen thousand dollars. So but that was something we knew ooh fifteen ou I know, but that was something we kind of mentally prepared for because I knew that of the four major things plumbing, foundation, roof, and electric that at least won in a house that's almost one hundred years old, at
least one of them was going to be something. So of all the ones, that's the one I was kind of like, Okay, that's less than doing you know, a foundation, which we would just have to leave the house. And so that's, you know, something that we're trying to figure out now, like, so what are we going to do as far as fixing up the house. A lot of it is cosmetic, but some of it is cosmetic, but large projects that I want, Like I want a new master bath and I want a different a different kitchen.
So the kitchen in the bathroom, they're fine and they're functional. I just want it new, you know what I mean. So lead the electric, yes, only the electric is like we must do it. Everything else is like paint and sanding and you know that kind of stuff. So we could technically just pay for the wire and then just paint and like sand and stuff ourselves. But I'm like, well, we're gonna live here for a while. I want to come home every day. Well, I don't leave the house.
I want to be in the house every day. I want to be in the house every day and saying like, oh, I love my house. So we're trying to figure out, like do we go with the contractor or do we instead hire different subcontractors to do the actual work itself, Because if you hire a contractor, you kind of pay a premium because they're going to hire a subcontractor to do the work. So we're trying to figure out, like
what's the best way to move ahead. I really don't want to spend more than sixty thousand dollars to get the house to where we want it.
But I'm assuming it's all according to my HGTV reachurch. I know that's exactly why kitchen, right, that's what I've heard somebody brothers could do that.
I know I was thinking that, but then I was thinking because like downstairs, like I feel so like official because downstairs there's only one real wall, and I'm like, this looks like a load bearing wall. Meanwhile, how would
I know? But my assumption is it's the only wall downstairs, so and it's separating the kitchen from the dining room, and the kitchen's a little narrow, so I'd love for that wall to be taken down, But I don't know is that obviously that's going to increase fixing the kitchen, you know, buy a lot and so my concern so that's what we kind of are now, like, well, where what do we do do we cause there's a lot
of work that he can do himself. So we certainly will like painting and sanding and stuff so we can save money. But he can't renovate a kitchen and he doesn't know how to go totally renovate a bathroom. So we're just trying to figure out, like what do we do because if you have an electrician, you have to know where things are going to go.
Yeah, and a contractor is like they're sort of like the man. They're managing the whole process, and I don't know, I feel like that's the one thing I woultn't skimp on personally, but you have someone who can sort of like has experience, even though husband you know it too.
Yeah, no, but no, but I told them for the major project, we're getting a contractor. So I guess we're just trying to figure out, Okay, beside the kitchen in the bathroom is there. I don't necessarily want to hire a contractor for the electric work because we could just
hire an electrician, you see what I mean. I guess that's where it's like, well, do look at I want to hire professionals for all the major things, but I don't necessarily want the contractor to hire the professionals for the for certain things because I'm like, well, we could just go directly to that professional themselves and let the contractor just work on like maybe two major projects and then like if we need a plumber, let's just hire a plumber, not the contractor to hire the plumber. So
there's like more money, you know. So there's a bunch. But I'm honestly everybody's seen the house. I've brought everybody through, even though you know, technically we're not supposed to all be in the house because we haven't paid for it.
But whatever, a house warming. I wasn't invited.
I know, we've just been walking through, Like, girl, what you doing on Saturday? We want to go through doe walk through and so like opening the lock box right using the key you meanwhile, you're not supposed to do that, but why here now I'm just really excited.
Okay, this is a private conversation. It's not like thousands of people are going.
To y'all don't know where the house is, you don't like, wait, I've never sent the address or whatever.
And by like challenge accepted, girl, and don't talk like that. When the interwebs these days, I know Chinese are probably listening the Russians probably listening to us, right.
But I'm excited though, because I can't wait to have like I want to have Thanksgivings and definitely won't have a house for me. Of course you and husband are definitely invited. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be like that.
I want to be down play how exciting it is for him, because I'm really trying to drag this out.
Now get a house.
We went. We went looking at a couple of two neighborhoods that he has liked, has been looking out online in Jersey and I was finally like, let's just go check out these neighborhoods and see what they're like and see what the houses are like. And the neighborhoods are Montclair and Maplewood, New Jersey.
Who you should have told me, I would have came with you. Those are great neighborhoods, honestly, like Montclair from what I remember. And I don't know if this is still true, but it's one of the it's like the interracial it is.
Yeah, we saw a few, yeah, but.
Like officially the interracial like capital over or something crazy, like the most interracial couples like per capita in the city or something like that, something crazy like that.
I know who lived there are both or both interracial, so confirmed, it's true.
It's a great, great, great city. And then Maplewood is also an awesome city. You guys would really like it. It's really like Homie, it's really like and it's next to Newark and and that that you at the airport and travel to the city. All of that stuff is really easy. But I'm not gonna lie maple Wood and Montclair, especially Montclair Parise.
Yeah, but not as pricey as the apartments I want in Historia and Jersey City. But we're just looking, you know, I feel like it's hard. It's hard too. It's hard to just look at listings online. You know. I want to be out there and just kind of see and get a feel for towns. But it feels very much
like going back to my suburban upbringing. And you know, in a lot of ways, it's you know, I love seeing like kids playing in the neighborhood and you know, trees and greenery and you know, kind of like a real neighborhood, you know, not like where there's sidewalks and it's separate from traffic and it's kind of back in like really beautiful old houses, and they're both really beautiful, but it's just it's just too far. There's just so quiet.
I don't know, hang out. I'm like, yeah, we'll be neighbors for real, because literally New York is like literally like you know, maybe like ten minutes if that, Like.
Yay, come on, Mandy, it's a now.
I honestly, truthfully, it's actually Jersey City. It's super close to NewYork. But you know, it's just very like I love like, I love Montclair and because I went to Montclair State University, it's got amazing restaurants. You'll love that.
Yeah, And that's how we got me there. He'd lure me there. It's the promise of dinner.
Yeah, did you where'd you guys eat.
This restaurant called Raymond's.
Oh yes, I love Raymonds. Oh my gosh. I'm like, maybe we're gonna be housewives together.
Oh shit, I'm gonna be sick again. Was an evil laugh. You should have hurt yourself. That's what happens when you get booed up and get suburban life. You just want to lure everyone else in.
I feel like you and I'm like come on in turn to barbecue on Saturdays, come on into like to like you know, garage sales on Sundays. Resist Now so all right, Well, now that we've sick in Jamal and them, I know he's like, whatever.
It is time, I believe. Don't you have anything else for buzzworthy?
I don't think anything else? Well before I before I put my foot in my mouth because I haven't I missed something, but other than and just my heart goes out to Puerto Rico. Yeah, I think, oh, oh, actually, do you know anybody who has a parent or a grandparent in a nursing home? No, no, or like hospice care. Well, I my both my grand or my grandpa said at a certain point it was in hospice care. And my
great uncle is in like an assisted living facility. And I just my heart went out to families because there was a story in the Times over the weekend that came out. It was so heartbreaking. After you know, when you put your you put your loved ones in a home because for a lot of reasons, there's a lot of guilt involved because you wish you could take care of them, but it's also a full time job. You
need help. And you know, these places are expensive, like they can cost thousands of dollars a month, and it's not the kind of thing that Medicare covers, or sorry, Medicaid covers. And you know, if you haven't invested in things like long term health insurance, it's hard to find the money. So I understand where so many families why you turn to these facilities to help your loved ones. And if your budget isn't big enough, you may have
to settle on a less instillar facility. And there's a story in uh in Florida, I believe around Miami, the Miami area, there was this nursing home, nursing home and for three, no, several days after the hurricane swept through, this one was Maria. Wait wasn't Maria or Jose or Irma one of these? I think it was Irma Wait?
Okay, probably whichever was.
Sorry anyway, the generators at the nursing care facility went down, and the nursing care workers were sort of like they They called the governor's hotline. He had given not even a hotline, his cell phone number, he'd given his direct number. They left a message saying, you know, the generators are down. Quality of life is you know, is decreasing. And there were other calls made to the power company and to another organization that was supposed to be helping with recovery
efforts and rescue efforts, and somehow nothing got done. And three days later, several patients died from past Oh my gosh, and wait they were across the street from a hospital. Across from the hospital. Yes, so one patient was one of the people in the nursing home was taken to the hospital with a high, high, high fever and another one was and known what the hospital thought is it's a pattern, you know. No, it's just like it's just one of those It's one of the most heartbreaking things
I've ever read. And I just so yeah, I don't know. I just thought, it's it's sad, and it's it's one of those facilities that you know, isn't the most expensive kind of place, and you know, it wasn't apparently on anyone's you know, top of their priority list. And it's just so sad that these these grandparents, great grandparents, you know, passed away in such a sad way.
Wow, I can't even imagine, because I mean, I my I'm trying to think my my father's and father passed away way before I was born, and my grandfather passed away maybe when I was a teenager, and my grandmother when I was in my twenties and so, but they all lived in Nigeria. So the concept of nursing homes and all that kind of stuff is kind of it's it's not part of typically the Nigerian culture, especially if
you're inside of Africa. So I can't even imagine. It's one of the reasons why in like African culture that you live in a the way you live in the community, like each each village is really extended family. So I remember, you know, I remember the first time I went to Nigeria and I'm in this village and they're like, because my last name Aliche is so unique in America, and so my dad was introducing me to people like, oh, this is chi k Aliche. I was like, oh my gosh,
my last name's Alche. And this is John Aliche. Oh my gosh, my last name's Alcha. My dad was like, get it together, everyone here is Alchia. I don't know. I didn't know. I was like, wait, everyone, he was like yeah, and I'm like, wait, everyone, And it was such a beautiful oral history because you could meet a seven year old and they would be like, oh, my name is Mandy Aliche. My great grandfather and your great grandfather were brothers. And then so they could trace everyone
could trace back to how you were both Alich's. And then my mom lived in a neighboring village and all of hers were her maiden name, and so that's how in that culture you kind of like made sure you didn't intermarry because you lived within your village, so you know, you didn't marry within your village, you know, and so it was kind of great, you know. And then plus two, because you knew your oral history, you could trace like, well, who is your mother, your mother's mother and mother, so
you could trace back. So literally, when you like someone, your people would sit down and trace their history together to make sure there was no overlap before allowing you to date and marry, which is kind of like awesome. But I say all that to say that, like, as a result, my grandparents lived in there, they lived amongst family always, and so I just can't even imagine, like even now that my parents are getting old, my dad
is in his seventies. I always think to myself, like, well, what would we do because I.
Have your sisters and you talked about it.
No, and we should. You know, my mom is much younger than my dad. My mom is like, you know, young TENDERRONI eleven years younger, so you know, but still, you know, she's in her sixties and what I don't know, honestly, but it is something that I've thought about because my dad, although he's really active in plays tennis and all that kind of stuff, still he's in his seventies, and you know, if something were to happen to him, were my mom, I would be like, obviously, come live with me, mommy,
even though I know she'd work every least nerve in my body, but you know, that's what moms do. But I would love for her to come live with us. I can't even imagine putting her in a home only because of that. I'd be afraid that someone wouldn't look after her properly. You know.
Yeah, you're right, it's such a cult. It's a different kind of culture in America. Like I feel like, obviously there are a lot more normalized nursing homes and assisted living facilities and stuff. But everyone I know, you know, it's including my husband's family who's Dominican. That's not how they operate like you will. They will pack as many people as possible into a you know, an apartment just to be together and just to be supporting each other,
which on the one hand is beautiful. On the other hand, it's like, Okay, you're on top of each other, and you know, everyone's sort of in each other's lives. But it's a different it's a totally different way of thinking. And yeah, it'll be interesting to seek our parents, aren't you know that that old it's where we have had to have those conversations. But it's something I think about
all the time. You know, when my mom, when my mom got remarried recently, I can't lie when I said, in the back of my mind, I'm like, okay, good, she'll have someone to be there if she gets hurt again. You know, it wasn't that long ago. I think it was two three years ago that she fell on ice and shattered her kneecap and my sister, thank god, my sister was there and I had to fly out and we had to you know, she couldn't walk for a long time, and I remember thinking, God, we you know,
she's on her own. Oh and I just she you know, what is she going to do if something worse were to happen? So I feel like this is just part of like adulthood. It's not like we become the parents. But it's hard to have these conversations and they and it's hard to even know where to start.
Yeah, I should ask.
Her if she has a will. I don't know. I don't even know if she had the power of attorney. I should know these things.
I know, right, I know, being the financial people that we are, you know, I mean my dad is really uh, I know that he had a will, but now that we're like like fully grown, I mean, and I'm sure he still has a will, but I wonder if it's updated because I can remember being like a teenager or whatever him showing us, but I don't know, like what it's what it is now. And you're right, power of attorning all that kind of stuff, you know, or the.
Passwords like well your mom know. I think about, well, my mom has control over everything because she's been on her own for a while. But you know, I if the husband A lot of times it's you know, if the husband, men do on average live shorter lives and women. So that's why I'm kind of stereotyping this situation. But you know, if a husband passes away and the wife
is left, you know, does she is she empowered? Does she know where everything is so that you know, she knows where the how the bills are paid, and where the finances are, and where to find the will and where to find you know, all the information that she'll need. Because if she doesn't, you know, it's it's it can be, it can be all that more stressful to it. Really already like said, you know, situation, Yeah, don't worry. I have all my information in a Google doc. That's exactly what it's called.
You know what, it's crazy.
My financial planner didn't think that was a good plan, but I think it works.
He's like, oh, that's great. So at any moment of time, someone could hack you.
I mean, come on, we're all hacked now.
I'm just assuming that's true. Leave it to us to end BuzzFeed on such an uplifting.
That's why no one wants to talk about it. But see what I'm trying to do here, I'm trying to like, you know, taboo we talk about money, why can't we talk about and old people? The poor old people. So anyway, my heart goes out to people in Miami. Sorry to be a downer, but you know, you know, think Thanksgivings coming up? What better time to sit down and have really morbid discussion about wills and powers of attorney with your mom and dad.
So it's time for brown break, Brown boost. What you're gonna do? Are you gonna boost? So? Are you gonna break with you? Oh?
It's a little twist on it.
I know, I go where Mine's just easy. I am going to boost Acora fabric and fashion. Do you know what anchor is?
Do you? Ankara is a city? A city? Where is the city? Is it in Nigeria?
I don't know. Maybe Anchor is the city, but that's not what I mean. Is so Ancora is So it's usually like Africa.
I've been to Ankara. This is really tragic. I literally have been there before. All right, continue, Sorry.
Well, when I'm talking about Acera, I mean, and I don't know where they got the name from, but it's it's basically African print that's typically cut or oftentimes cut in a contemporary manner, so meaning like I just bought a bomber jacket, but it's African print. So there I went. I was in Atlanta for an event for Ford in Essence, and there was a woman selling like her fashion designs and I was just looking through them, and I was like, it was so cute a bomber jacket but with African print.
So it's like this fun funky, like I don't know, it's fun.
A bit more of that. Remember that girl though I forget her name, the teenager who like made her prom dress out of that Kyra.
Or something like that Kai or something like that. Yep, And so that's Akora, you know. And so I love it because it's like it's you know, as a kid, like when I was younger, my mom would like get us all dressed up in like African guard, but I didn't like it because it was like the cut was very like, you know, basically old fashioned. And now it's like you can represent or even if you're not African, you can still wear it. But it's like fun and funky. You can get a blazer. I have really cute pencil
like these little pencil skirts that are oncre fashion. So I just want to give a boost to that because it looks so fly and I cannot wait to stunt
on these hicks out here. No, just joking, y'all, don't gotta care, but I just can't wait to wear it because it's so cute, and I'm just like everybody should love a little bit of anchor because it just adds a little, a little something extra because you could be wearing literally like a black turtle that can black jeans and then my blaze, my bomber jacket, and you guys are gonna think I'm so stylish. Hmm.
Interesting. I wonder if this is gonna become the same thing as like what are the long shirts to Scheky's.
Yeah right now.
Yeah, But then there's like this whole conversation about cultural appropriate, you know, like who can wear a dashiki and who can't wear a dashiki? Like they've become so widespread that you'll see. I remember listening to Another Round one time. I love that show, and they were I think it was Tracy. She's like from Kentucky and she was making she was talking about seeing like a white guy at the Verizon's store, like wearing a dashiki and she's like it's gone too far? Where did we drive it?
On?
How far?
How much African ancestry to deny? Can I wear akara? I don't want to offend anybody. I probably shouldn't.
No, No, you totally could. I think. I think that's what's so special about ankara is that it's purposefully cut, oftentimes in this contemporary way, so that way it's it it invites like people who might not otherwise wear African fabric because you're like, this is a really cute blazer that you know, you know, So it's not like you're wearing a galet, which is like a head tie and you're like, hey, like you know, and like there's certain
there's head ties where it's tied contemporarily, and there's really like cultural head tides where people might feel like which I wouldn't mind either way, but I get what you're saying. But I think that's the purpose of cutting akara and like stuff that you would normally wear like a pencil skirt or like you know, like ankle pants and like, you know, stuff like that in blazers.
So yeah, when I wasn't in my friend to lose wedding, she's Nigerian and shees hey to Lou, but she if you were like a close friends, she let you. We all wore the same fabric, but we got it cut in like modern Like I had a pencil skirt, but it was in that it was in the pattern the colors that she had for her wedding, and I thought it was so cute. I actould Actually I need to find that skirt.
But that's what it's called. It's basically like African like like African like bridesmaids. Basically, so you, you and all your girls were like the same fabric. My sister did that, and so like you give your girls a fabric and everybody gets to cut it in their own flattering way. So that's you're part of her ushaby. Oh, I'm probably saying with the wrong inflection. I know there's who are carranging cringe away ebos. I know I have the worst ebo accent.
Me too. I gotta work on that.
Now.
I love it, though, beautiful. I'm on nija dot com looking at some examples right now.
Maybe I'll get you a little some I start you off with a little coin purse.
Coin first, the starter pack. Yes, okay, I'm actually going to break I'm gonna break. I'm really trying to get my I'm really trying to get my meal planning down. So you know, I broke. I had to take a break from Green Chef, which I did. I finally, you know, they make it really hard to cancel your subscription to Green Chef. They do not want you to go. And this may be the case for all these meal delivery plans.
But like you can skip a week, you can go to your calendar and say I'm gonna skip this week, but then you have to do it. You can only do up to four weeks at a time, so you have to remember to come back and skip if you forget. And thank goodness, I checked my email and I saw a reminder because I had skipped the last four weeks and it was like, you're a due for a meal kit next week. You only have twenty four hours to cancel it. And I quickly canceled. I was like, I'm
done with this. I want to cancel. You have to send an email to them. You can't even like do it through the website. You have to And the answer to how do I cancel my subscription isn't any where easy to find. It's not in your account settings, It's not in your profile. You actually have to go to the faq and then find the question how do I cancel my subscription all the way at the bottom almost and then email them personally to ask to have your
subscription canceled. So that was like a mini break. But anyway, my my real break is I was like, Okay, we're going to go to Trader Joe's this weekend. I'm going to get I'm going to get like, I'm going to get some protein, I'm gonna get vegetables. I'm gonna get I got some spaghetti squash to make, like my favorite, you know, low carb pasta or whatever. Have you ever
had spaghetti squash? Side note, No, I'm not a big squash fan, but listen, if you're doing like vegan, I don't know, you can't eat pasta right because it has eggs in it. Right, Listen, like spaghet squash. It's so cool. You cut it in half, you put it in the oven, and it looks it looks crazy. It looks like the inside of a pumpkin. You have to scoop the seeds out, but then you just drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper. Put it face down on a pan and for forty
five minutes and that's it. And then you can take a fork and you scrape it and it comes out like noodles, but it's squashed. It doesn't have any strong taste. It's just like a really good and it takes on the flavor whatever sauce you put on it, so it becomes like a really healthy alternative to spaghetti. So I know you should. You should definitely try it. You have to put in the rotation, but it's so good, you.
Know I'm gonna try. Because I only don't like squash because of a bad childhood experience. I carried.
Squash horror story.
So I'm like, so i've ever since that, I'm just like, I don't like scratch, even though I probably have not Like I like pumpkin, which isn't that a former squash who eats pumpkin. I mean it's.
Pumpkin, like a pumpkin pie. That's not real pumpkin.
No, I've had like there's like there's just Jamaican dishes that they have like pumpkin. It's like pumpkin soup and pumpkin stew, and I like it. Okay, but yeah, so I'm gonna try. I will try.
It's not really it's fun and it's tasty, but I'm getting off track again yet again.
That's what we always Okay, So.
First it took a mini break. Now sidebar, Now back to the mad break. Anyway, We're at Trader Doos. I'm getting all these ingredients and I get home. First of all, I'm exhausted from even going to Twitder Joe's. And then I spend the next three hours I'm gonna I try to cook all the food I'll need for lunch during the week, because I usually spend like between twelve and fifteen dollars a day eating out in New York City
for lunch or whatever, easily twelve fifteen dollars. So I'm trying to cook enough lunch for the week to try it out. It took me four hours. Like I didn't know how much your back could hurt from standing in the kitchen all day, cause you're it's not just cooking one piece of chicken or two beets like for two people. When you're trying to you need every pot and pan, like the biggest pans you have. Everything takes longer to
cook when you're cooking into big batches. Maybe I was just a little too ambitious with the meal I chose, but I felt like it was not worth the money I was saving to spend four hours of my Sunday, my beautiful Sunday, just just like slaving over a hot stove.
I mean, I think that cooking can be sird of overrating. I'm not gonna lie some days, I'm just like I remember one time hearing like this radio host saying, look, my job as the wife is to make sure you eat, whether or not I cook it or not, that's my business.
How I wish my mom was that way too. My mom would would like know she would have no guilt over just slapping down a sack of Taco Bell tacos on like a Wednesday night and being like, this is all it's gonna happen to night. Kids. Adjust your expectations all I can do.
So I feel like that's how I mean that I do cook because I do enjoy it, but night's where I'm like, yeah, So the good thing about Hopeful do they have a hot whole food market, which I want? And so yeah, so like Friday nights, I just don't cook. And then I just kind of cook when I get a chance, like today, you know, Superman, for whatever reason, he decided he wanted meatball subs or palm or whatever
it is. So he made them, which I thought was so cute for him and Supergirl, and I was like, okay, well, I'm glad you cooked today because Mondays are like my busiest days, and so he cooks, but typically he cooks very guyish, so today it was like a huge departure. I was like, look at you get in fancy because he has this thing called turkey ronie, which I'm like, uh.
I was gonna say, how do you eat meat ball subs?
Well, he just WoT, we just like we have the ground turkey. So he just seasoned them up and baked them, which I'm not sure IF's the way he's supposed to.
Do it, but I was like, I guess you can bake the falls. Yeah, And I was like, what's happening, Blond, He's like baking.
There's like twelve meet balls. He's like baking them, and I guess he went out and went to get like that crusty like long bread you know that it's just gonna cut them and slice them and then put like two or three metcalfs in each and some cheese and some sauce, and you know, him and Supergirl will have a delicious time, I guess. And so I thought that was cute, But usually his his normal fare is very basic, to say the least, Like, like I said, turkey roni,
which is just elbow macaroni with ground turkey. It's basically spaghetti sauce, spaghetti with elbow macaroni and ground turkey, and like you know whatever, mixed bag of vegetables. And he swears that it is the Bob dot com because he will make up that of it you could swim in the I'm like, who was eating all this turkey ronni? Sir?
So like, I'm putting in the freezer. We'll save it for later in the back well.
Whenever he makes turkey roni, I just invite the neighborhood kids. They always ko got the door for food anyway. I'm like, who wants turkey ronni? They're like, oh, mister drown make turkey ronni.
I'm like, I'm back to small batch cooking and hanging out because I feel like my time is firth money. But I'm like, what's the point in doing well. I mean there were I remember back in my law three sixty, like Business Insider days, when I would literally get the ninety nine cent can of sad Trader joe soup and I would eat and I would mix it with the free pretzel rod sticks but used to have in the kitchen at Business Insider, and I would nuke it in
the microwave. And I'm not even like the saddest soups like turkey chili, like dog food and like split pea soup. I can still remember the texture of the split Peace soup from Trader Joe's because that's all I could have. You know, I was so broke, and you know that that was eight years ago, Amandy, Like treat yourself to a ten dollars salad. Just do it, Just do it.
That it is hard to get past that. We should talk about that and in like one day for our tips or whatever, like how do you get past the financial guilt of not.
Being broken anymore? And like treating Like how do you know when it's lifestyle inflation because you don't have to worry about that too, you know, like just because I'm earning motes, I mean I need to be wilding out and like doing you know, getting the bigger apartment, getting the bigger you know, car, and not that I'm doing that,
but I think people will run into that problem. And it's it's like, yeah, you want to prevent that, but also you don't want to be nickel and diming yourself to death to where you know you're spending half your Sunday like I was slaving ye.
All right, all right, well questions. We have a good question today.
Questions. As always, we have some good questions. Just a reminder, you guys can go to Brannambisson podcast dot com send us your questions. You can be anonymous. We promised no one has been outed yet on this show.
We will keep keep for our boos. Right, they're like you said my.
Name, thanks zillions of times. And if you follow us on Instagram, I mean at least me, you know who the boo is. But anyway, the biggest, the worst kept secret. Anyway, Yeah, we have a good question, So briannibisionpodcast dot com send us a question click that asks us anything tab or you can email us at Brannambission Podcast at gmail dot com dot com.
That's how you pause.
I'm like, that was a layup. I set it up for you. You did, Okay, Okay, we have a good question. So this person, her name is Tiana. She said there, I really need to repair my credit, and I don't know where to begin. Besides my student loans which are currently in deferment and a voluntary reprocession, I don't have much on my credit report. Negatively, I have a lot of inquiries that needs to be removed. But I need to find out the best secured card and how to
get some financial freedom. Tiana wants to rebuild her credit. Student loans are in deferment, she has a voluntary repo that's a car repossession. I'm assuming on her credit, she has inquiry so it sounds like she's been applying for credit. Yeah, and she says that needs to be removed. Well, those can't be removed.
I was going to say that.
Point one.
Well, I think, well, where you work, Mandy is a great place to start. Magnify money for secured cards. That's where I send everyone.
Honestly, what's a secured card, Tiffany, Well, a secured car card is.
I call it a credit card with training wheels, because a secured card is like, hey girl, we don't trust you with our money. So what we're gonna do. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take your money about five or six hundred dollars and put it in a money market account, which is just a glorified savings account. And then we're gonna give you a card and guess what your limit's gonna be that same six hundred dollars
that we put up. And as you're swiping your card, if for whatever reason, you decide to get cute and not pay us, we're gonna just take the money out of your money market account and pay off the card. I cannot stress enough how important it is that if you are not ready to make on time payments, do not get a secured card like you could, because it's already like I equate getting a secured card and was like, m,
you kind of messed up in credit class. So you're set to detention, so you have time to redeem yourself. But if you active a detention, then you might get expelled. So if you're not really ready to do, what to do right with a secured card? Because what that what does that say? If you're like, yo, I can't even pay myself back no one is going to trust you
to pay them back. So that's what I would go to magnify money type in kind of like if you I think it's like a drop down menu for secured cards, and just know that you have to pony up usually between like five and six hundred dollars and they'll put that up for you and they'll give you the secured card for that limit. And also a great place to
look for a secured card is your bank. Some banks have secured cards, and sometimes I prefer getting a secured card directly from the bank that you are actually bank at, if they have one. Because like Superman when I met him, he had a secured card at his bank, and then after meeting him and then helping him like pay like get his credit like to where it needed to be, they actually took the secured cart off his card and
made it a regular card. So the bank, because there was already a bank card, he didn't have to reapply for a regular card. They just basically upgraded him without that inquiry, which was great. Even though he thought that he won five hundred dollars, he was like, bank, that's not five hundred, Mandy, you would have been rolling we're at the bank, which is like weird because who goes to the bank, but whatever, and I guess he checked his balance. He was like let's go. I'm like, why
are we rushing out? He was like this five hundred dollars in by account And I was like, sir, like either way, if it's not your't they gotta come get it? Like what do you think is happening? And so we asked the front and like you know, they looked at his account. They're like, oh, your security card and you've done well with it for like the last six months or eight months or whatever, and we made a regular card,
so we just gave you back your security basically. And I looked at him like you were about to go out there and trick up your money, your own money.
Well, then they need to notify you. See, you don't get confused.
He was so exciting.
He was like, we didn't make a withdrawal.
I know, let's go, let's go.
I was like, what, yeah, how many? How many headlines to be? We always see the one like once every few or a few months. There's always a headline like so and so spent like a multi thousand dollars, you know, mysterious deposited the bank account, and then so and so got arrested or so and so, you know, get clawed
back by the bank. You don't Unlike, it's one thing, you know, recently, I got to pay out from like an old insurance claim I completely forgot about, and like, I'm not going to do my due diligence to make sure that, you know, go back and remember what this check is all about or what it was like from three years ago. I called them, they said, yes, it's a fine to cash it, So I cashed it. But
like a bank, I don't know. I feel like that's the one thing if you get a mysterious bank deposit that's you don't want to just assume that it's yours
because it's not. Prallly ain't. But yeah, secured cards. I'm going to actually last year for the Liberature Challenge Magnify Money, we did like a secured credit card guide right for your Liberature participants, So I might just resurrect that and put that in the show notes if you're looking for a secured card, and also if you're like brand new and you just started college or you graduated from college and you didn't have any credit while you were in college,
don't have any student loans or whatever, then a secured card is a good way to build credit, even if you like it's not just for people who have bad credit. It's also good if you don't have any credit, yeah, to rebuild it.
And also, what do you think about self Lender? Thus far, I've liked them.
I don't have enough about self Lender. I know, I know enough to be like, I don't know if I trust this.
Well. I a year ago I started doing a little bit of research on them, and a bunch of because a bunch of dream Catchers, you know, the budgetiese. The gang. They started saying signing up on their own. So I was like, and they would ask me my opinion, and I was always like, well, I can't. I can't, you know, give a thumbs up to anything that I have not signed up and use. So I did just to see and honestly that's far. I mean, well, my credit score was pretty good already, so I was a hard gauge,
you know, because I'm in the eight hundreds. But I certainly didn't drop anything. So the way self Lender works, for those of you listening, is that self lender. You you sign up for self lender, I always say, borrow the smallest amount possible, which is I think it's five hundred dollars. But when you're borrowing quote five hundred dollars,
they're not actually giving you the five hundred. They're putting it in that same money market account like we talked about before, and then you pay it back every month, and I think it's like maybe like a forty nine bucks or whatever it is. And then at the end of the year you have paid back the five hundred, and then they basically give you that money back because you never actually got it. So you're basically putting up
the money. You get that lump sum back, that five hundred back, and I think it costs by the time it's all said and done, it costs like maybe like I don't know, I want to say twenty or thirty bucks or whatever, like that's the quote unquote fee, because you're gonna be paying the monthly amount plus a little interest every month, and so it ends up being about
twenty something bucks from what I remember. What I like about self lender is that one you know, as you're paying the monthly fee or you're paying the monthly, you know, the five hundred dollars off in monthly increments, it shows for twelve months that you've paid every single month, So that's what's supposed to raise your credit score. And at the end, or you pay it off, you get an additional boost because you paid off the debt in full,
even though you technically didn't get that money. And then it's a savings tool and that you get that lump sum back to you. So thus far, honestly, I've liked. It's been about a year, so I can confidently say I haven't had any negative feedback about self Lender. I signed up, and like I said, for me, it's a little weird because I already had good credit. So I definitely have heard people varying degrees of success as far
as credit score bump. So you know, some people like you know, oh, I've raised one hundred something points and some people twenty. So it all depends on like your other credit stuff. And what I really like about self lenders is there's no inquiry. They don't. You don't get approved by self lender based upon your credit history. You get approved based upon what's called check systems, which is
basically like the bank's tattletale system. So if you overdraft with a bank and don't pay them back or you owe the bank money, they will report you to check systems and they'll basically other banks won't mess with you as a result. So self lender just looks there and says, have you and reported the check systems and the answer is no, then you'll then you can check, then you'll you can sign up for self lender, So it's not it's not contingent upon your your credit score, credit report.
So so basically self lender is like a secured card, except as an online loan, and you're not like actually swiping a card exactly.
And what's different is that because a lot of people don't have the five or six hundred for the for the secured card that you have to put up, so self lender doesn't require that. They basically say, hey, Mandy, you're gonna borrow five hundred from us, but we're not gonna give it to you. We're gonna put it up, but you're gonna pay it back, and then once you finished paying it back, we've got to give your money back. So it's so if you don't have the money for
secured card. It's another option. That's what I like about it because not everybody has five or six hundred dollars.
Yeah, that's absolutely true. That's interesting. I actually Magnified Money did a review on this right before I started last year, and I'll post that as well. It'll just kind of break down what Tiffany was just talking about how self lender works, pros and cons and other ways to build credit.
Yeah, I said a bunch of ways, and that's the word. You can also sign up for the Live Riture Challenge. Me and Mandy you know, we're integral parts. I mean obviously I was, but.
Yes, he was around.
But no, it's totally free and we partner with Magnify Money and then every week you guys get to because we had such a good time, we do like me and Mandy did like a weekly powow to talk about the challenge. And so if you go to l RC credit dot com, it's totally free, it's awesome, and there's a bunch of Magnified Money like resources and stuff in there. So l RC Credit for Literature Challenge dot com And if you want to raise your credit score without having to pay anybody to help you.
Okay, it's time for Windesday.
Get it Wednesday. I did that last week.
I did, right, you did. But it's still good.
Yes, it's still good Wednesday. Yeah, but I'm bump chain. We'll be here all night, all right, So when do you go first? Because I'm still thinking about my winning.
Yeah, So I rewatched Hidden Figures over the weekend because it's just becoming it's becoming my favorite feel good movie. But I wanted to give a special special shout out because Catherine Johnson, who was portrayed by, of course, to Roji p Henson in the movie NASA. Oh, I'm pulling up the headline now, NASA decided to honor her and gave her a dedicate, dedicated a new research facility to her after decades of her being a quote unquote hidden figure.
And if you haven't seen Hidden Figures, you must. You must go out and see it right now. It's such a good movie. But to Catherine Johnson, who's like, I don't know how old is she not like a hundred or something, just finally getting her dues, I love that.
For me, my win is just brown women because I feel like right now we're really I mean not that we haven't been slaying, but I feel like the all the starting to you know, starting to realize, like from Rihanna and Fancy Beauty from like you said, hidden Figures from like A Girl's Trip. I just feel like there's this uptick and trend in like brown girl dopeness that we knew, like in our brown girl community. But I feel as the world is like, hold up, wait a minute.
I'm like, yeah, we've we've been lit. What we've been lit? You just now notice it best kept secret? Yes, And I just feel like, you know that it's like, you know, what is it was it Forbes that had that article that said the fastest growing group that is that are starting businesses, it's black women. And so browness overall is just really rocking out. And I just, you know, just want to give a shout out to my other brown sisters out here in this struggle, just trying to be
cute and fly and maintain life. And we see you and and we just enjoy you because we know that you make up the majority of our audience. Although we love you all, you know, just a little shout out to the brown Brown ambition sistars.
To piggyback, though I feel like it's not just it's not just it's it's brown women, but it's also brown women supporting brown women. It's like a lot of there's just real sense of community and like holding people up and letting them shine and shining lights and other people and it's just it. It goes against every stereotype out there. I think of how women interact with one another, you know, even at I don't know, I just I just feel it.
I feel like the women in my life, you know, the older I get, become even more important and you know, shout out to women helping women. I love that gift of like have you seen it with that? You know, you know, I'm not even describe it. You know what I'm talking about.
It's like the women lifting each other up and it's so dope. It's like a cartoon. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that gift. I feel like, now you have to find an input inside the home. So yeah, now it's time to say goodbye to all our family. Bro o wn ambitchun. That was good.
And now I know what the reference is what Nicky Girls Club. You told me that one time. I didn't know what it was. Oh yeah, it was the whole thing. Now, I know the education of Mandy.
Yeah, it's a miseducation of Bandy