It's time full the b a q a a, the b a qep.
A Okay, the big a qa hey brown ambition question to answer where you have questions and we have answer ish. We're just two smart brown girls who are just sharing our opinion. But we are not your attorney, we're not your certified financial planner, we're not your accountant, so certainly reach lean into them for the final say.
But you know, we have a little suy here too. Okay, we know some stuff. We definitely know some stuff. All career and money questions, y'all continue to hit us up with those. Go to Brandimission podcast dot com click ask us anything, or you can just hit us up directly send us a DM. We are at Brandabission Podcast on the gram also Brandamission Podcast at gmail dot com dot com.
You will be taking your questions. Give us a fun name though, you know, if you want to be anonymous, give us little pen name, the pseudonym you wish you had that you used for all your you know, your childhood fan fiction on the internet.
Sick name Sally, okay, or like Big Booty Judy.
I'll never know my fan fiction pen name. Never. Well, let's get into we got some fun money questions today. You excited? I am. Let's start with listener TD A bank fame. I don't know all right, TD says, Hey, ba team, I love the show and love you too, doube Queens. I'm so glad Tiffany's Backish, I've been praying for you, and I've led two book clubs with getgu with money Woo woo. A stand Yes, while I would like to remain anonymous, Yes, TD is your pen name.
I hope you will consider this question for the Friday Q and A. First, I'm not even gonna look at my four oh one K or my roths, which I've totaled about three hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand dollars in the good old days aka two weeks ago. I'm locked in for the ride until I'm fifty nine and a half. In time is on my side. This is so true. Second, my emergency fund is about thirty K, which is about six to eight months of expenses right now in a high yield savings account. My house and
cars are paid in full. I have about sixty K and three mutual funds that are being hammered right now. I've had fifteen K and losses since Friday. I had a goal of having one hundred thousand dollars in my emergency fund in the next one to two years. I'll be closer and feel a bit more secure if I can move fifty K to my emergency fund. I'd also like to purchase ten K and I bonds. So here's my question. Would it be unwise to move the mutual funds to my high yield savings and replenish them later
by continuing to invest in the downturn? Here's the caveat. I'm thinking of taking an adult gap year or global nomadding in mid twenty twenty three, and I'd plan to liquidate my mutual funds for that life event next year. Any perspective you could offer would be great. Thanks, Ned, advance ted first and foremost. TV is impressive girl, Okay, can we look? Can we stand for this system? Right here?
We can stand? Yes, four hunderd K in her four oh one K. Yes, emergency fund, six to eight months of expenses saved in the high yield savings, house and car paid in full. Boom boom damn. She should have co written Good with Money, No, not just led the book clubs, I feel like, but she's so, I get this sense. She's basically so, she's talking about her investment account outside of her four oh one K. So she's got like a brokerage account and she's got sixty K
in there where she's being invested. She's been investing in mutual funds, which are being hammered right now, aren't we
all right? Yes? And she wants to know if she, if she, if, what would we think about her dipping into that brokerage account, selling those investments and then selling fifty thousand dollars worth of those investments and putting them in her emergency fund and then using the ten K of those funds two or ten K of her investments that are in mutual funds right now, liquidating them and purchasing eye bonds instead. Good question, juicy.
I know one, you're thinking, well one, I'm thinking, like, this is the fact, is you you for even okay? You found them back. I'm stuttering because I'm like, my miscreaction is like leave it alone, Sis, But you do have a special case because Sis got going on her. You know, her retirement accounts looking cute and good. She doesn't have the major debt that everyone else has. I'm assuming you probably don't have credit card debt either, because siss, house paid off, car paid off, you sound a good
credit card debt free CISK. And then the fact that you have your your emergency fund funded six to eight months. So normally i'd be like, no, leave it alone, but ugh, because I don't know what the market is gonna do. You know, you've already lost ten to fifteen thousand dollars and it might get worse or I guess my concern
is locking in the loss versus taking your money and run. Normally, if you weren't going to take this money so that way you could know mad in mid two thousand, mid twenty twenty three, i'd be like, leave it, you know, don't don't lock in the loss by drawing your money. But because it's for something specific, I mean, if.
You want to do it, I'm not going to stand in your oasis.
But don't tell nobody I told you, you know, because like I said, normally, i'd be like, don't do it. But because you have so you're so strong everywhere else financially. Yeah, because my concern is this recession is not looking like it's not looking like what the last mini recession looked like, which was like an instant bounce back, you know, like
it went down the right back up again. It's looking like it's only gonna get worse before it gets better, and we just don't know how much how much worse. So I A'm mad at you. I'm mad at you because you have the rest of your financial life together. So if you want to do it, I mean you might see me right alongside with you. You see me now, I'll say, ooh, you have to tell me nothing now that I am recording in the upstate New York instead
of my house. But I'm like, oh, look at me traveling and doing the Paul guests, so you might have me right along with you.
I was excited for you to do the show on the back of a camel in Jordan, but that didn't happen. Maybe, oh that's really not happening. Ah, this is really interesting because it's so timely right. So, and she's talking about you know, she was thinking she wants to basically take this money out of the market so to so snatch it up while she still can before she loses even more. But what's important here and the reason you're giving the advice you are, and I want to make it clear
to our audience. It's different than what we usually would say. Her time horizon is so much shorter now. She's talking about she was wanting to use this money for mid twenty twenty three. That's only a year away. And she had planned to use this money to global nomad, which is incredible, right, that's only a year away. And like what Tiffany is saying is with the way that trends are showing right now, things may get worse before they get better. It's possible that if she were to leave
it tied up in mutual funds in the market. Let's just assume I don't know what the mutual funds are holding, but let's assume they're all stock index fund or things like that. Tracking the S and P. It's looking like things will get worse before they get better, so she could lose even more. She needs the money in the year. It'd be different if this was what the money that she was investing for her retirement. She's got that in
a separate bucket. Retirement bucket is looking amazing four hundred K in a four to one K, So this is her you know, her wealth building fund on the side, So yeah, I can I can understand Tiff why you're saying what you're saying. It's scary to me still, but you know, it's really scary to me still. I love that she's I like that she's doing the eyebonds. Here's the thing, you know, so what are let's talk about some ways to yield a higher return out of the
stock market. So if she's gonna take sixty k out of this fund, then what could she do? I think ten k and I bonds is great. We talked about eyebonds a few weeks ago. They're getting super sexy and exciting now because they guarantee I think a nine percent nine point sixty two percent. At the time, I should double check that they are meant to hedge against inflation, and with inflation being as high as it is, the interest rate on ebonds was like over nine percent, and
that's guaranteed. You can contribute ten k per year in an ibond. So if you want go back and listen to that episode we talk all about it. That's smart, but an emergency savings fun. I mean I did get an alert from my online only bank that the savings rate is going to be going up I think two point nine percent or one percent now, which is hoo exciting,
But at least look into CDs. I would say, like, I don't know what CD rates are right now, but you know, CDs can make sense if you are okay with tying up your money for a little bit of time. I mean there's CDs as short as like three or six months, sometimes as long as I don't know, five, seven, ten years. You're going to need your money in the next year, so see what twelve month CD rates kind of look like. You may not need. You're going to need some money at the beginning, sorry, some money next
year when you start your travels. You may not need it all at once, though, So there's something called a CD ladder where you can choose CDs of different links so that they mature and you can withdraw the funds
in a staggered pace. So you could do a six month CD, at twelve month CD at eighteen month CD at twenty four months CD to kind of like carry you through your travels, and then each time they mature you can withdraw the funds and then you know your money will have grown, probably not at an enormously amazing rate because rates are still pretty low but better than
what you may get from an emergency fund. And because they are CDs, they're held by FDIC insured institutions, so you have security there as well, like you're not going to lose your money, which is of course different to money you lose in the stock market, because nothing we can do about all that. No, that's really smart.
I really like that because it's like it's like a it's a good mix of our innate girlly that money alone. But also I get it because you've done everything else really responsibly and you deserve to no mad if you want to know bad, especially with what's happening in USA the USAA, but to do so in a way you know that you know where you get to make a little bit of money on your money. It's not just sitting you know, in your in your savings account. I
think that's that's brilliant. Let us know where you planning on going, CYS. I would love to hear, right, I'm like.
Just want to be your friend, I know, right. I was like, you want to come on because she sounds dope. We need a third co host. I don't know that's incredible. Well, good try, I mean, good luck. That's so exciting, and talk about setting goals and then going out and freaking reach them. Didn't even mention that she still has thirty K and her emergency fund on the side too, so
she's covering literally all her bases. Yes, but I would also end this with this might be a good one time meet with a financial planner to get a strategy in place. I think maybe TIF and I can help
you with like the beginnings of thinking about that. But I would love I mean, you can probably get a financial planner to talk to you, you know, as an initial call, just to like strategize this particular instance of your money, just to get that extra you know, professional opinion, and they can look at your whole picture very carefully and give you real specific advice in that case exactly for.
Like one hundred and fifty two hundred and fifty bucks.
So yeah, you could do that. Yeah, all right, y'all. Should we take a quick break and come back with another of your questions? This is a ba Q and A.
And we're black. Get back.
You want to read this one? Sure?
Our next question is from Chanel. I hope you don't mindus using your name because you didn't say it was anonymous. So Hi, my name is Chanelle and I had a quick question with tales of the recession coming, what should we be doing to prepare? If this was already answered in a podcast episode, would you be able to tell me which one? Thanks for your help, so now we might have but cis with what's going on now we've find to answer it again. Okay, So how should people prepare?
And how are you preparing, Mandy for the upcoming recession? I feel like it's like a party, like, all, how are you doing what you know for the recession? Girl? Over?
There is recession girl summer?
Is that a thing? Yeah?
So the thing is. That's one of the reasons why this week I held a free workshop called Recession Proof your Career, because I believe very strongly that so much of our career is the root of our financial of the ability for ourselves to grow our finances. So professionally, what you can do to sort of hedge against recessions and tough economic times are to always be investing in your own skills and the value you bring to companies.
The people who will be in most danger of being cut you know, and if companies do decide to downsize, they as they have been doing, are the ones whose skills can be easily replaced or automated. So what are you bringing to the table that is going to make you super valuable? And maybe you are released from your job, but will other people be looking for someone with your skills and talents? Sometimes people are laid off through no fault of their own or not because the company doesn't
need their skills. But companies just got to make their They got to make the books. You know, the math has to math for Wall Street to be happy with them, right, so they make these drastic cuts. Doesn't mean that your skills are not needed? But will other companies want them? So I'm always thinking about, like, what are the skills that I have today? And then will multiple companies be interested in me? I think that's a great way to
give yourself some professional security. Don't wait until times are difficult either to actually reach out to your network and to keep your network warm, because it's a lot harder to reach out to folks for help or for referrals or for like help you know, getting a job or whatnot when things are really dicey and everyone's sort of stressed out. I think it's better to cultivate those relationships,
you know, always. And I think our previous question too, was a really good example of like, I don't know how to look at your where you have your money now and doesn't make the most sense for you, you know,
are you? And I think it's a good time to like be restructuring your investments if you're overly risky, Like maybe your risk tolerance for investing in the stock market is not as strong as you thought it was, and you can't sleep, you know, and you have so much of your investments tied up in stocks, and maybe it's time to rethink that maybe you're getting older or you just you know, can't handle the anxiety, and maybe you need to shift some over into less risky investments. Like
our last listener, she asked about eyebonds. You know, there's other forms of bonds you could purchase as well that are protected, you know, high yield savings CDs, things like that. I mean, there's a there's a bunch you can kind of do.
What do you think, TI, Well, I would say, well, first and foremost, I need you to figure out what your noodle budget is I mean, this is when I survived the two thousand and nine session. That was a mistake that I made that I did not quickly drop down and get your noodle on girl. Eh, drop down
and get your new girl. So your noodle budget is like think back, like if you had to eat Ramen noodles like college, right, Meaning if I look at my budget and let's just say, my life cost me five thousand dollars a month mortgage, car know everything, right, but it also includes like hair done, nails and everything did, but my life could potentially cost me four thousand dollars a month if I cut out the things that are
not necessities. Right. So I'm not saying you should live at your noodle budget, but you should know what it is. That way, if really the shit hits the van, for lack of a better word, then you know instantly what you can cut out. You know, because too many people were losing their homes and still had cable. And when I say too many people, I am people. You know.
I was still face like one.
Hundred and something dollars a month for cable and I lost my home to foreclosure, and it was like, not that one hundred something dollars a month would have saved my house. It wasn't about the house at that point. That was grocery money for me, you know, that was other bills that could have been paid. So one identify your noodle budget. You don't have to drop down to it yet, but just know if times get tough, you can.
So that's one of the things. Something else too, is like sometimes you have to identify even more than your noodle budget.
I call it my health and safety budget.
So noodle budget is I can still pay the bills, but I just don't have the excess. My health and safety budget is what I had to drop down to when I lost my job during the recession, the two thousand and nine recession, and I lost my house to foreclosure. Now is really really struggling, and the health and safety budget is ain't nobody getting paid unless it supports my
health and my safety. That meant they were people like my credit cards that were late, and I had to be okay with that because nothing is I am more important than my bills. I had to call the credit card companies and say, hey, I don't have it right now because I'm going to get my abs, my medicine instead, I'm going to make sure that I have enough for this place where I have to live, so I'm not homeless. You know, I'm going to have enough to I can eat.
And so there's levels. There's your regular budget, which you're likely living at now. Great, Know what your noodle budget is, so if you have to drop down to that, which is just the non bells and whistles budget, great, Then know your health and safety budget, whereas it means that some bills won't get paid because you have to take care of your health and safety. So really understanding your tears and doing so, but also too. One of the reasons why I wrote We're going to do I haven't
done a GetGo of Money plug in a long time. Okay, my New York Times bestselling book Gets Good with Money. But honestly, one of the reasons why I wrote it was in response to how I struggled during the twenty
nine and ten recession. I wanted to create this holistic look of your money that I call financial homeness, and that is these ten components of your personal finances that will allow you to see you through the good and the bad, and so focusing on your financial holeness honestly, So that is so here are the ten components budgeting, savings, debt, credit, learning to earn. So that's like financial hollness one oh one, that's the core foundation, and then financial holness one oh
two is investing for both retirement and wealth. Right, it is your insurance, it is your money team, your net worth and estate planning. So I would focus on the first five components of financial holness, like really tightening up on your budget, on your savings, plan on lowering your debt, and managing your credit and learning to earn. You know, if you need help with that, you can go head on over to get Good with Money dot com and
go ahead and scoop that book up. No, but honestly, like, that's why I wrote that book, and honestly, it's just an accumulation of the work that I do, which is I'm really here to help you to build this financial foundation so you can see your way through the most difficult parts of your financial journey and you're in your
life's journey as it relates to your money. And so that's what I would suggest, understanding your tears, really working on this financial homeness part and also not purchasing any big ticket items unless you are really solid with your dead, your your your investments, you know your you have your retirement fund, you have your six to twelve months worth of of an emergency fund. I would not be buying like a big ticket item right now because you might
need that money to survive through this. So just keep those things in mind.
Yeah, and Chanelle doesn't mention much about her assets and how much she hasn't She hasn't mentioned anything boy her dad, her or her cash on hand. But for those who have the means and for those who have a long time horizon, I would not want y'all to stop investing. I mean, this is my advice with a lowercase A, not an investment. But if you have the means and you know our previous are I almost had previous caller, our previous question from listener TD who has you know,
wants to do something with her investments next year. That's a very short time horizon. Yeah, snatch that money up and do something else with it. But if you have a long if you're investing for retirement, things like that, I would say, you know, keep investing. Things are cheap, look at it that way, you can buy more shares of companies now than maybe you could you know, months ago.
And that was one of the great lessons I learned post recession of two thousand and eight, thousand and nine, when I was laid off in twenty ten as a result of that, like several years it took for that whole recession to just like chill out, and I learned then like investing even during tough times, and it has benefited me enormously, you know, investing through the pandemic, investing through my early years in my career, which was post
eight crisis. It's just hard to give that specific advice to you, missionel So I don't know all your business, but if you have a professional advice or who does, and they can certainly help you. There. You mentioned credit card debt to Tiffany. I was reading something about how Americans are, like credit card debt is starting to rise, which is concerning, right, I mean, non surprised things are so much more expensive, Like, and there's a there's this
calculator that I want to share with y'all. I get to find a link to it. It's like your personal inflation calculator, and it helps, I think, give a lot of it helps give important perspective to how not everyone is in Not everyone is feeling this inflation at the same pace as other people. It really depends on your lifestyle, your household size, whether you're renting, whether you're owning a home, if you need a car, like and your personal inflation rate can be so much higher than what we all
say is like, oh, eight percent. No, it can be double triple that, depending on what you're going to give you.
Like I drove down here. I drove to you know, like Upstate New York from from Newark because you know, typically I don't drive. I work from home, and so I was not to the sting of paying for gas because honestly, like the whole foods I go to is in Newark. You know, my sister lives around the corner my other you know, everything is so close until like the tank finally got to eat and I filled it up. When the man told me ninety five dollars, I looked like, who.
Was he talking to?
Not me? What did you That's cause I put I put I put up.
Are you driving? What are you driving?
Jerell has a Lincoln mk Z. I don't know one of these big cars. I'm holding for Alyssa that she wants for when she turns like I guess seventeen or eighteen, so she can crash the car because that's what they all do. But so I gave my sister my car. I know, I gave my sister my car, and I kept Jerell's car, which is kind of a it's kind of a big car. But he was always like, no,
make sure you always put premium gas or whatever. I was like, this thing's about to get some water, and so I filled it up and I was like what, Because the truth is, I never really looked like I just go to the gas station. Back when I was driving a lot, like I used to live in South Jersey and I would drive all the way to Newerk, I knew exactly the cheap gas stations because I'm like no, no, no, no no. And I was driving like a little like Nissan Ultima, and so I could put like you know,
rocks and stones and that thing could drive. So but I like, because I hardly ever drive, I wasn't really looking at prices. I just pulled up, was like fill it up. And I was like I'm sorry, what or did you just ask for a car not So to your point, Mandy, about the inflation hits people differently, someone like me who doesn't drive very often. You know, I, you know, the the inflation of gas has not hit me as hard because I'm not you know, filling up
my tank as much. So just being mindful of your lifestyle and asking yourself, you know, if you had to cut back or if you had to make more, start planning out what does that look like now? Because that might be coming. And so it's like, Okay, if I had to, I could do this or I you know, I could do this, Because I was just talking to one of my friends, Cabrel, today about ways that he was like, you know, I'm really good at this, this,
this and this, and I call that the bank. You know, the bank is an area in my life that I could bank on making money. Like if things got really tight,
let's just say. You know, everybody hates the budgetista, right, I could do one on once and I could bank on that and say, hey, you know, people do want to sit down with me with your personal finances and so like that's like I remember, Mandy, when you first started your business, your bank was you know, you were an editor and you're like I can I can write, I can edit. It may not be my fave, but I know I can bank on that skill set and
make money in PROCP. You know, so ask yourself too, you know, for those listening, like, do you have something you can bank on?
For me?
Even when I was teaching preschool, my bank was I could tutor, I could babysit. You know, the bank might be driving uber like, what does that look like for you? You don't have to do it now, but identifying that it's certainly going to help. So if you need to tap into it, it's the aren't ready for you?
I love that. It's almost like a noodle budget for your career or your professional skills. What's your I work on that? But that's really smart. I love that. Well, let's be clear too, we're not technically in an official recession yet, but I think it's the slow burn of this whole painful situation, is that there is time to make changes now that could definitely prepare you if it came to that. And if you know, a year or two from now, you personally are affected by the down
this downturn that we're going through right now. So yeah, absolutely, I love what Tiff said, your noodle budget, beefing up your savings, paying down your debt, just those good fundamental I mean, I know you don't have your big get good with money picture behind you right now, but I do have the book back there. If you guys can see go ahead and to get Good Money dot com.
I'm gonna get you a copy for really really now. Now is the time to really lock in on the fundamentals, the financial fundamentals.
Hell, yeah, that's the like, what is it twenty bucks now? Twenty bucks worth well spend y'all, It's probably on sale and Amazon, but supporting local bookseller. Thank you mission now for your question. Thank you all for your incredible questions. Y'all can hit us up. We're Brannambission podcast dot com. You can also dm us at Brannambisson Podcast on Instagram
or email us Brownabission Podcast at gmail dot com. Hey ba fan, we could not do this show without your support or the support of our team behind the scenes. The Brown Ambission Podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network. It's edited by the wonderful Imani Crosby and produced by Tanya Bustos. Dennis Demplinsky is our in house tech guru and I am Bandy Woodard Santos, your co host, and I will see y'all next week.