Hey, now it's time for the b a q a.
A me a q a.
What is saying the b a q a with Manda, the b a q a with Toda b a q a.
I love the an sync pronunciation of the why.
I'm getting on my Mary jay Blie my dancery somebody, y'all. If you don't know what that means, child, go listen to some Mary. Yes, it's time for the b a q a where you have questions and we have some answers. Although we are not your attorneys, your financial advisors, but we are two smart brown girls when it comes to your money, when it comes to your business, and when it comes to your what do we do career? I'm like, wait,
what's career? So let's crack over b a q a. If you have any questions, you can always send them to us.
One.
If you want to be on BAQA and sitting the hot seat and ask us some questions, you can send an audio note to us on Instagram. We are Brand and Mission Podcasts. On Instagram. You can go to Branipision podcast dot com and click like the contact us button or whatever and ask a question that way. We'd love to have you whether it's here in person, when the digital studio, or we just answer your question.
So we've got somebody name, do we want to use her name? Because what does she doys want that to be her name?
She should have used a pseudonym, Isabella. Let's go with Isabella.
That's my Okaya.
So Isabella says, Hey, Mandy and Tiffany, I recently found your show and I've been obsessed.
We love that Isabella.
My partner and I have a goal of buy a house in five years. I have an HYSSA. But when I'm doing my research or what is the best place to save the best way to save for a down payment, I've been getting overwhelmed with all of these ways to save. Should I be using an HSA, HYSA investment or open ACD account? Currently working on paying down my loans and
credit card debt while building an emergency fund. Once I get all of these things taken care of and debt free, my goal is to start saving toward a future home. Thank you so much in advance, Love you girls, Ea Saba.
La all right, okay, so high Yield Savings account is hyssay? I mean the good news is that High Yield Savings accounts are actually high yield again because the FED has been raising rates. I think I'm more up to like over two percent in online only banks. Yeah, two whole pennies, yes, one hundred dollars yep, or one dollar, I don't know. Yeah, so it's been I mean, you got five years, which
is a long time horizon. So the good news is that you do have these other options you could you know, there could be a case for a semi aggressive ish investment account to save for that to invest for that house. You do have to look at the economy, of course. I mean, if you were gonna drop money into an investment account, would now be the worst time? No, it depends on what happens in the rest of the year.
But the market has gone down, down, down, down, downtwntown, So there could be the expectation that you could put some money in there and then if you weather the recession that's coming, that it would grow five years from now. History would tell you that that is probably the case. But you know, I feel uncomfortable predicting the future, So there's that. So it depends on like your level of risk,
you know, aversion are you or risk tolerance? Can you handle the idea that you may lose some money if you sink it into investment account or do you want to know that every penny you sock away will remain there. Yeah, and if that's the case, then a CD could definitely
be a nice little alternative. With the CD, you do have to lock up your money for a certain amount of time, but in return for locking it up, they will give you a much higher interest rate than what you make it from, even the high yield savings accounts. So yeah, that's definitely an option to what do you think?
Well, for sure, the number one thing, Isabella is that you want to make sure that wherever you're checking, is this money ain't because lord knows, if you're like me at Target like ooh, checking is like sis, now you know you.
Don't have it.
Savings is like, well we have it, girl, And then you hitch your finger on the button and transfer from checking the savings and in two point two seconds you have your money available. So that's number one for Isabella or anyone listening. Any money that you want to have saved, you have to make your money inconvenient, because inconvenient money gets saved. So that's first and foremost and a highild savings account is inconvenient as long as you don't have
a checking account at that same bank. And investment account definitely inconvenient. That means it's not super liquid, and a CD is definitely inconvenient if it was me. But here's the thing that I'm reading in this is she wants to pay off her credit card debt.
So here's the here's the thing.
Because of the way the market is, I mean, things are down like woof, like the market is down bad. But as Mandy said, it doesn't ever stay down bad. It has yet to stay down in history. But then again, we haven't had a pandemic in one hundred years, so we don't know.
If it was me.
I don't know about you, Isabella, because you know, I can't give you investment advice. But if it was me, I probably would be putting some in an investment account and then some in either high yield savings or a CD because I would want to try my luck a little bit. Like let's just say, if I was aside, if I'm paying off my credit card debt, I told myself, I'm gonna save like say, you know, I don't know
three hundred dollars a month towards the house. I might do like one hundred in my investment account or one fifty, no more than that, and then the other one any of their like you know, in a higal savings and then save up enough until like you know, had enough to put like a good amount into a CD for like a year or two years, whatever, you know, whatever, whatever length of CD that you're looking for. The longer the length of the CD, the more money that they
will pay you an interest. That's probably what I would do, is a mix of the two if it was me. Because I cannot give you financial I cannot give you investment advice.
I'm talking about Tiffany.
Yeah, but I will say this, I don't know how much your what your interest ran in your credit card debt is. If the interest on your credit card debt is double digits, then you need to double down on that. If the interest is under double digits, then I would be saving for the house at the same time as
paying off my credit card debt. Because you basically have to say, ask yourself, will the cost of the credit card debt, meaning the interest, wipe out any returns that you might get on your investment because on average, you know, you're looking at a ten percent return annually on investments. I mean some years you'll get more than ten, some year less than ten, but it'll average out to be
about ten. So if your credit cards cost you more than ten, even if the market gives you ten, the credit card debt will credit card interest rate will wipe that way those gains.
I hope that makes sense.
So if your credit card debt interest rate is twenty percent, thirty percent, pay that off, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. If it's eight percent, nine percent, six percent, seven percent, I'll be doing both credit card debt and and setting aside for the house. And when I say set aside for a house, I mean like investing, so that way I could take advantage of these these
of the market being down. But that's about with Tiffany, not if I was Isabella, because the Sabella got to decide for herself.
You see see what I did there?
Yeah, assue me. I mean the more I think about it, I feel like, because she wants to build up her emergency fund too, I think AHIL savings accounts a great place for an emergency fund. It is like Tiffany said, harder to get to, but it's still you're able to get to it, you know, because it's supposed to be really easy to get to. And if you wanted that separation, I like the separation of accounts for your goal. So if you wanted that separation for your your down payment fund,
then you've got five years or more. So open that CD. You know, get a long term CD. You can even do. You can google and you'll probably find an old article that I edited at Magnify Money on how to do a CD ladder, because I'll never forget it the labor of love. So you know, if you don't like the idea of getting like a five year CD and putting everything in there, you could, you know, kind of stagger it so you can get a twelve month CD and then like an eighteen month and a twenty four month
and like, you know, work your way up. But but I like that. It's it's really hard to get to and it's your home fund. And you know, when you can choose how much you want to put into those CDs and just kind of set them to the side and they'll grow at a higher rate than they would and your you know, your high he oled savings.
I know, hopefully I know those. It's like that that's what I ask you, guys. I'm like, I know.
Basically what we're saying is there's no wrong answer, as long as you make your money inconvenient do.
A little bit about all of it. She's like, just tell me the one thing to do.
Yes, It's like, that's probably what I would do. I probably would do a little mix.
Helpful all the info. Good luck on saving for the house though, very exciting, and thank goodness you're not in a rush because I don't know. This is a tough time to buy it is. Should take a quick break and come right back with another question from Carolina.
Carolina Catalina. That was my best friend from elementary school. That was her name, Carolina.
All right, let's get into this question number two. I forgive you. You put a y at the end of my name. It does not belong there, but I forgive you Ktalina. Catalina says, Hi, Mandy and Tiffany, I love your podcast. I hope you can give me advice. I am thirty and I'm in a divorce process after five years of marriage. I'm walking out with empty pockets. Due to many wrong decisions I took. I was living Inmany and now I've moved back to my mom's and sister
in Canada. I need help finding out what I can do to plan ahead for my retirement, a house, or just to have a good life. I'm debt free, but I have no savings at all. Please girls advise me here. You're a Latina fan, you can call me Catalina.
Oh oh, Darlena. Well forst of starting over, don't beat yourself up. Talking about many wrong decisions doesn't sound wrong to me. You don't moved back with moms smart and you have no debt, super smart, So you sound smart to me.
Sis, So let's start there.
And so I mean, I don't you didn't say anything about, like, you know, what you do for a living, or if you have income coming in, if.
You are living probably starting all the way over coming from Germany to Canada after a bad marriage. Yeah, I think all roads stem from your career, you know, like financial roads. So what I'm hoping is that your mom and your sister, if you live with's or just one of them, that they can give you some some freedom and some space to like build yourself back up. Which is a gift in and of itself, and shout out to all the families who are that soft place to
land for us. And I would just focus on to having a fresh start in your career and finding a job that you really enjoy that pays you well, and investing in some time to you know, dust off that resume, get it spruced up, have someone look it over. I don't know if English is your first language. I know that you said that you were living in Germany. I don't know, but yeah, maybe getting that spruced up and making sure that you're like positioning yourself best for the
opportunities that you want. And as far as like starting to build up your savings, I would start like priority You can't do it all, yeah at once, So like what do you need to prioritize for you? It may be like saving up enough to pay your first few months of rent if you wanted to move out on your own and have that independence back. Or it could be you know, you could live with your mom for a long time time and just focus on building up
your emergency fund. I'm just really sorry what happened in this. In this case, it's I mean, my my mom really struggled financially after her divorce, In fact, both of them did. It was a hot mess. But I feel like the mistakes, or you know, the mistakes you may perceive to be mistakes, you're still so young. You have so much time to learn from them and do everything differently this time, and you're gonna, you know, you're gonna be amazing.
I just want to like encourage you, Catalina to first start with like it's gonna sound kind of like cheesy, but like I want you to forgive yourself, you know, because I promise you you're probably like kind of like, you know, like being really harder on yourself than you ought to. I want you to think of yourself and ask yourself. Okay, let's pretend like this is my sister and you know, she after a divorce, is back with me.
And mommy, Like, would you would you? I know you are.
You're talking to yourself in your head, and I bet you're being harsh.
Would you talk to your.
Sister like that? You wouldn't, you'd be like on, I'm just so glad you're here. I'm glad that you decided that, like it was so smart of you to come back home to where you're safe and where we can help you. Like, I want you to talk to yourself, nice girl, right, I want you to lean in and because if you don't, so, I don't know if you got a chance to watch Get Smart with Money on Netflix, the documentary that I
did on Netflix. And one of the things that really I worked with Adriana on she's like this amazing Dominican woman who I helped on the show, is that she was so hard on herself. And because she was hard on herself, she experienced a lot of shame and she
couldn't get past the shame because shame shields solutions. And so even though it was like a yo yo diet, even though she would budget a little bit, she would go right back to overspending and she would get her credit card bills down, and she would go right back because it was that mental thing that she had not addressed first. So it's going to be very hard, Catrolina, to fix whatever you want to fix financially if you're
being really hard on yourself. So I want to give you the permission to say I did the best that I could with what I had before me, and now that I'm in a better place, I'm going to do even better. That's what I want you to say, right when that other Catalina reads and rears her head and says, girl.
You should have done.
I did the best that I could with the situation that I was in, and now that I'm in a better situation, I'm doing even better because look at you writing it to Branhambischion listening to Brian ambition that speaks volumes about like what type of person you are that you're like, oh no, no, no, no, I am going to have a better life, and you will. And so I just want you to start there, and shameless plug,
I want you to work on financial wholeness. I want you to work on the ten core sets, especially the first five of your personal finances. So that's budgeting one, savings two, debt three, but your debt free, which is great credit for and then learning to earn five. That's those the first five of the ten steps of financial hollness. And so you can you can get help. I wrote a book Get Good with Money, and you can get help. I get Good with Money dot Com and work through
those steps. But I just want you to forgive yourself because I can hear I can almost hear you through your writing that you're harding yourself and we wish you look and keep up if you get I we love updates. So if you anyone listening is like, oh my gosh, you answered my question and I listened or I didn't, or it worked or it didn't, we'd love some updates.
Just make sure you let us know, like what name we used.
It was like, oh my gosh, I was in whatever episode and you know, you guys called me, you know, silky savvy or whatever, So not what we know, because we'd love to know.
Remember we had who was a guy with whose wife? Kevin McKidd girl.
Kevin was like, my wife needs y'all help me, while it was Kevin the need a.
Little bit of help, but we hi Kevin.
Hi, Kevin.
No.
But we love the updates, So you know, we hope that you enjoyed this episode.
If you have questions, if you want to be in the live digital studio with us and ask us your questions about career, about business, about personal finance, go to our Instagram, Brandovich and podcast. Leave us a voice note via the message and you know we'll listen and we'll amani are our producer will listen and will help choose. And if you don't want to be in but you still want your questions answered, you can go to brandibitchapodcast dot com and ask us a question there via the contact.
We're just sun a regular role text dm ye really quick. I did want to mention cut Alina. There is an incredible podcast you mentioned there Latina. My girl Jannise Torrez just went through a divorce and she's been incredibly brave and courageous and all the things. And she has this episode with her sister, her little sister, and it was October. It's episode one seventy nine of her podcast You Okada Dnato.
I love it. It's called two Sisters, Two Survivors. They both came out of abusive relationships and talk about it and it is the most like realistic sister chat about to force love it and like Janis is the older one and you can tell and like her little sister for her name now is like really sassy Lianne Leanne. So and also it's a great podcast to check out if you're looking for a Latina perspective. I love Jennie and she's phenomenal, So.
Go awesome that's good. That's a good tool of the sources. We love y'all.
Yeah, thank y'all so much for your questions, and we'll see you next week on the ba qa.
Hey ba fam. 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 Emani Crosby and produced by Tanya Bustos. Dennistimplinsky is our in house tech guru, and I am Bandy Woodrid Santos your co host, and I will see y'all next week