It's times or b a q q A b a q q q A.
Oh there's a spider on my stel, Like, I'm gonna look back down. I don't want to see that.
The spider is just what's a little b a qa? As well? They were like brod a mission question and answer.
I's gonna pretend like that didn't just say but I am working in a basement of there you go, Hey, long time, no ser.
Are you ready for b a q A?
I'm always ready for our new mini episode. I'm loving this. I'm loving our new changear, switching it up, keeping things fresh. BA audience.
If anyone has a q A for b A, where can they send in their cu You guys.
Can go to Brandnambition podcast dot com and click ask us anything, or you can hit us up on Instagram. We are at brand Ambision Podcast. Follow us while you're there. I'm trying to get to ten thousand, y'all.
We close.
We're gonna hit ten thousand this week. I'm so excited. But be one of the last five hundred or last one hundred. Okay, So Brown Ambition Podcast on ig or old fashioned email Brownambision Podcast at gmail dot com.
Dot com. All right, let's get to the first question.
Just keeep do it. Let me let me read this one for us.
Allow me.
Hi, guys, I recently found out about your podcast and I'm obsessed all caps. I have a son who is eighteen months old, and I'm trying to set him up for success. I know you guys have talked about investing for your kids, but I'm wondering what you all think about the Gerber life grow up plans. Something about it doesn't seem like the best idea, but I'm also not sure at all.
Help.
I just I want to just say, like, I love your intuition, your spidery chanswers, so like, hm.
Baby food, food, life insurance. What's not adding up?
One of these things does not be long?
Yeah, I forgot about these policies and I had to do some googles after we saw this question because I'm like, what is that? But it literally is a It is a whole life insurance policy, so you can purchase it for your kids. I'm reading this from Value Penguin dot com, which is an insurance comparison website, and I know the content team there, so I trust their information. They say
that with Gerber's Life's Grow Up Plan. It's a whole life insurance policy you can purchase on your kids or grandchildren between the ages of fourteen days and fourteen years old. It's a typical whole life insurance policy that has premiums and build builds cash value. But there's a few differences. Until the child turns twenty one, the person who opens the account, so the parent is the policy excuse me, owner, and you can only purchase between five thousand and fifty
thousand dollars worth of insurance or the child. The benefit I think is that the policy's death benefit doubles when the child turns eighteen, So a twenty five thousand dollars policy would turn into a fifty thousand dollars policy then without any rise in premiums.
Now here's the exciting stuff.
I think we should all that tofay what is the purpose of life insurance? I'll tell you what the purpose of life insurance is. It is typically because you are financially responsible for other people and if something God forbid should happen to you, that they would still be able to maintain the life that you're providing for them. So you are a parent and you say, if I'm not here, you know, how will my children be able to eat,
go to school, transportation all that stuff. So although I'm not physically here, the financial component that I brought to the table is still here.
Right.
Or if you were going to leave behind a financial debt that would be inherited by your heirs, right, let's just say some student loan debt, right, so not your federal but private student loan debt. Or and if you have a mortgage or a car note or whatever that would have to be paid even if you're not here.
You might get a life insurance policy. So basically the life insurance policies one to bury you, you know, like if you know if the people who would be responsible for bearing you don't have the money, and then but especially two, to take care of your financial obligations that you would leave behind. Riddle me this, mandra You've got a little baby, he's super cute. And what bills does we o pay?
You know what?
As of now zero he pays zero. I'm embarrassed to say I don't charge him rents. Girl, life bill has gone up since he got his own room, and he has contributed no coins, no coins at all, I feel like the only case when you would have to get life insurance for a baby is if maybe they're like a baby's baby actor, a child actor, or a child maybe I don't know, a homegirl who won the spelling bee, who's probably got like agents flocking to her right now.
Because honestly, there are some kids who do contribute to the bottom line of the family, you know. And so I mean, I have a whole thing about whole life versus term anyway, you know, whole life is. We'll talk, We'll have a whole life term conversation another day. But you know, but it doesn't really make sense for the
most part to put that money toward life andsjurant. Although I'm so there's some financial advisors who are like, no, you want to know why because they get paid when you do that, right, so exactly, they get commissioned.
So having life inschurane for a baby. So if if unfortunately that baby passes prematurely.
I can't think of babies me. Don't make me do it.
But that money is you know what I mean, Like what is that money for? Like you know, you know what I mean.
Is that is that fifty thousand replacing income that the baby was bringing in. No, does that baby have dead No. The only time that it might might might might make sense. This is from my wealth planner and certified financial planner.
She said, Let's just say that your.
Child, maybe you have like a some sort of illness that runs in the family, and you're pretty sure that they're not going to qualify for life insurance later on in life because that illness comes up, you know, She said, that's as possible, like there might be something where like, you know, half of your family has gotten cancer by the time they're thirty, or or you know, I don't know something that you just are pretty concerned that they're
not going to qualify. Then she said, it might make sense then to be like, you know what, let's let's get your life insurance in place now, so that way, you know, by the time you're older, at least you'll have something for your children when you if you decide to have children or whatever dependence that you might have later.
So that might make sense, but all in.
All, it would be better for you to use that money to save for their college fund if you think you're going to send them a college to set aside just for them, you know, like and to invest on their behalf versus giving it to especially a whole life policy. They talk about the cast benefit, but you you know, the average return on that cast benefit is two. I mean up until recently, you could get that in a savings account.
Yeah.
No, and so maybe a bond these days. Yeah, and you don't have the flexibility as you would like if you just the spider's getting closer if you just put the money into a brokerage account for.
Because just in case that's.
It's not anything. I don't want to look at it anymore. Why is it always me and vermin? Remember when I had mice running around anyway, different place, not this place. Yeah, I do have life insurance. I have a term policy and I got that when I had a kid because I decided that, you know, prior to that, my husband he's still able to work and you know, provide for himself, and we had plenty of savings, et cetera. But for my son, you know, God forbid anything happens to me.
I just wanted to be sure he was set as well. So that was my form of protection for him. But yeah, Gerber, it's cute, like their food is cute. But maybe not their whole life insurance for the fourteen day year old.
Ah, so we say pass on and over here.
Next question is super easy breezy anonymous here, which is funny because this question is not really what I would think of, befo anonymous. But okay, yeah, well, asking for a credit line increase on a credit card affect my credit score?
Tricky? You said it'd be easy. Tricky, tricky because people still get this messed up. So first you want to talk about what a credit line increase is.
Yeah, so that means like, let's just say, right now, your credit like you know, like your credit card, the limit is five hundred dollars, and you're like, you know what I'm feeling, grown I'm feeling sexy. I'm feeling a thousand dollars is more appropriate to where I am right now. So you can ask your credit card company, Hey, credits worth, look at good syst stop playing me out. I would love to go from being able to potentially borrow five
hundred dollars to one thousand dollars. And they ask you all these questions like how much do you make? They'll obviously look get your credit score and they'll make the assessment. Then and then they'll either say.
Yay or nay.
Now here's the thing. They're going to decide whatever that number is. You know, you might say I'd like to go to a thousand. They're like, girl, nobody asks you.
We'll put it where we want to put it. Yeah, So, which is funny. You're like, oh, oh seven fifty, okay, okay, seven fifty.
So that is a credit line increase just basically your limit increases. In Europe, you have more, you have a greater availability dumb to cash and money.
Yeah, and when you you can actually request a credit line increase. I did this before. I don't know if you have, but I've done it for not the right reasons in the past, which is I really wanted to go to Boston for New Year's Eve for some reason in two thousand and eight, and I had like a seven hundred dollars limit on my college credit card and I was like, can I have a little bit more? And I immediately maxed it out and it took me
three years to pay it back down. Don't do that, but there is you know, in that case that hurt my credit score because what I was doing is maxing out my available credit limit. Which utilization which is just a f word for how much you're using on your credit limit. It really it's like one of the sec it's the second most important factor for your credit score. So if you are maxing out your cards, no matter
their limit, your score is probably going to go down. Now, there's an upside to getting a credit limit only if you just don't use it, or if you do use it, you pay it off each time your bill is due. That's the only way to be sure that you know you're going to have a continue to have a strong credit score. I know when would people?
So it's off in half right, so meaning like it can actually raise your score, it can actually lower your score. So this is how it can lower your score.
Like if they do the credit line like increase, which they will do from time to time, naturally that's not gonna that's a soft inquiry, meaning like a soft inquiry is when you have not given someone the express permission to look at your credit and make decisions you know, about your about whatever financial product or service they might offer you. That's soft and so it's like kind of involuntary, so they don't know it doesn't they don't give you a ding on.
Your credit report as a result.
So if you get a nap because and that happens, like I'm going to say once a year or whatever, you're if you're using your credit card a lot and paying it off, well they'll just do an increase, no ding to you. Now, if you ask for one, you have the potential of that being a hard inquiry, meaning that you've expressly allowed someone to look at your credit report and make a decision. And so hard increase have the can bring down your score, And so you want
to be mindful. So I've raised it, and if I've asked, this is gonna be a softer heart inquiry and usually it is a herd incurey because I'm making the request. So that's how it can potentially bring down your score, but it can increase your score in this way because Mandy mentioned something called utilization. Utilization is just how much credit do you have available versus how much you're actually using.
So let's just say right now you only have one card, or let's just say now you have two cards.
Each of them has a one hundred dollars limit, and one card is fully.
Maxed out one hundred dollars limit on both cards and one car is fully maxed out. So if one car is fully maxed out, you're utilizing on average, fifty percent of your utilization. Because one card is not used at all the other card is fully maxed out, you're using half of your credit limit between the two cards. Now, let's just say you take that one card and say I'm going to bump up my credit limit and ask and they say sure, and it goes from one hundred
to two hundred. So now you're not utilizing fifty percent of your credit available, you're utilizing one third, you know, thirty three percent, which is which is really the max of where you should be. No, really, ideally no more than thirty percent of your your credit cards available to you. Do you want to be utilizing so that it can actually help to bring up your score because you lowered your utilization. They like to see you have some breathing room when it comes to dead. So can ask me
for an increase bring down your score? Yes, because it might be a hard increy. Can it bring up your score? Yes if it gives you more breathing room and puts you into a safer utilization zone.
So it's.
I feel things crawling on me it's just all one big mind trick. I hate it, but that's the way the game is played so far. With credit cards, they just want, like the way that you get a good score is like to prove that they can put that chocolate cake in front of you and you're not going to eat it.
And for some.
People that is harder to do for others, and that's just how they get you. You need to prove to credit card credit reporting agencies rather the people who actually track your credit and then that goes into your credit score. You have to prove to them that you are able to resist that temptation. And it sounds unfair because it is, but that is the way it is, right now, Okay.
This was this was this resist all right.
We just have time for two questions today. We'll do more or less next time. But if you have questions, please follow.
Us on the gram ask there, or go to Brownibishy podcast dot com and ask click to ask us anything button.
We love your questions. We got a lot this week, and we love your questions. They're like, really they're becoming even more insightful than ever. Befel And as for usual, if you listen this far, it means you love us, and you know what you do with things you.
Love, You share them.
Okay, so I want you to take this direct link and share with three different people.
Share in your group chat, I see you on WhatsApp, key King behind the scenes, Share in your group chat, share in your group text, and let folks know they need to listen, especially that one friend that's always asking you money questions. You want to be like sis, Just listen to Brown Ambition. The girls there have you?
All right, y'all until next week. Tiffany always a pleasure, Yes.
It is always a pleasure. Not with me, I mean with you.
It's all pleasurable. All right, let's not go there again. That was funny, but now we're recording in the daytime. We can't be saucy. We can't be like Brown Ambition after dark. This is coffee in this cup, not about katonic unfortunately. Well, se all next week.
Yes, I say, with your brand mission muck okay, represent.
I'm on brand right Brandimission store dot com. Yes, you can get your very own brand and ooh, that's my lipstick. It doesn't come with the lipstick stain. You'll get a clean cup, I promise, BRANDI Mission Store dot com okay by