BA Q&A: Pay Your Debt Aggressively

I know you thought I was gonna say brad ambition, but brad ambition is always there, okay, And to have accomplished those three things. I was just taking some time the past couple of days to like soak that in and getting really in my feelings. Now my baby, my first baby, is heading off to pre k and my my number two, little Remy, is doing so well. My mom has been here just being a hero and a goddess and taking care of him so I can get

back into a groove. And now that I have the book deal, now I have to do the book writing right. So at this point I don't have set deadlines on when things are due, but I gave because my editor is like, you just had a baby, take your time, but I gave. I know myself and I need to start putting together like a game plan to get this book done, and I hope I will have the majority of written by the time we yell Happy New Year for twenty twenty four. Okay, so that's a tall order,

but I wrote chapter one last week. I'm almost I'm like ninety nine percent done with it, and nothing has built my confidence more than having at least written a chapter. And I don't know if my editor is gonna think it's good. I don't know. It's probably going to change a million different ways before the book is actually published. But my whole goal was to sit down and write words and don't let fear, imposter syndrome, any of those

doubts that we all have stop me. I just needed to like barrel through them, or, as my son says, steam roll through them, mama. So I steamrolled through them. I got chapter one done, over seven thousand words. And it is all about not waiting for your f you moment to quit, So not waiting until you get so broke, broke down, burnt out, fed up, enraged at your job that you quit like that, quit without having a strategy, a plan, taking the time to find a new offer,

things like that. So I'm very, very excited about it. Wanted to give you guys a little book update. Although I am desperately looking for ways I can go see Beyonce again, it ain't gonna happen, y'all. I'm not going to find my way to Las Vegas or New Orleans or wherever in the world's going to be next. But I will cherish that time that I had with her forever. But yeah, it has been such a joyous summer, and I hope that y'all heading into the season's changing, y'all.

I had to go to Starbucks and get my mom a pumpkin spice latte just last week. It's not even September yet, but seasons are changing. For those of you who are dealing with the back to school craziness, for those of you who are starting new chapters, or for anyone who just feels like this is an opportunity to sort of reflect and start off the last few months of the year with renewed confidence and enthusiasm and excitement.

I just want to acknowledge that and say we got this all right, a few months left in the year. We are doing it all right. Okay, so that's my little update. I mean, I hope that you guys are again just having a wonderful, wonderful summer. I'm going to jump into these questions now again. If y'all want to email us your questions, hit us up Brand Ambition Podcast Gmail dot com or slide into our dms. We got twenty thousand, over twenty thousand followers on on IG now,

so thank y'all for that. But you can slide into our dms there, send us a question. Our lovely assistant Lauda will get those to us, and we are at Brand Ambish Podcast on the gram. Alrighty, right, right. We got two questions today, one more on the finance, the finance side, some credit deck question and another one more like introspective around career and sort of what we would tell ourselves at a younger age. Let me jump on into these, y'all. First, up, Bianca, send us a question

on IG. Bianca says, I love, love love your podcast. I listen to it as I drive from Redbank to Jersey City on my way to work. So many gems I send it to everyone I know that asks any money questions. Thank you, Bianca, and thanks for the segue, because if y'all haven't left us a five star review on iTunes lately, what you been waiting for? Come on now. Reviews not only help us stay at the top of the charts, and they matter. Doesn't matter if you let

the review. When we first started, we depend on y'all to give you give us your feedback, and it lets other people find our shows. So help us keep going strong. Go leave a review. Come right back to this episode, will wait? Okay? All right back to Bianca. Bianca says, I have a question I'm trying to work out. I'm successfully paying off my credit card debt, hopefully to be hopefully I will be credit debt free by early next year.

I'm a W nine employee slash independent contractor, so I don't have a four to one K or a human resources department to go to to figure this out. Should I open a retirement account and start sending funds there, but take longer to pay off my credit card debt? Anything extra that I have doesn't pay my bills anything. Oh, I'm talking about anything extra I have left over that's not going toward my bills. I've been using it to

pay off my credit card debt. I was in twenty seven thousand dollars of debt, but now eleven thousand dollars, and it's been a journey. I hear you guys talk about paying yourself first, like putting your extra funds into savings, and I have an emergency fund that's worth three months of expenses then everything else I used to pay off the cards. I am just tired of carrying this debt

with me. Much appreciated, Love you, ladies, Love Bianca, congrats on the baby in the soft anti life Tiffany, baby for me, Anti life for tiff Yes, okay, Bianca, I love this question. And first of all, can we acknowledge from twenty seven thousand dollars to eleven thousand dollars paid

down in credit card debt? That is freaking amazing, especially because I know credit card aprs are wild right now, Like the average credit card is over twenty percent APR right now, and that is expensive, expensive ass debt to be carrying. But I'm so proud of you for having

paid it down. I wonder if now your credit score is so is a lot stronger, and maybe you could look into, you know, a balance transfer option which would get you to a zero percent a zero percent promotional APR with a credit card that you could then you can be paying down your debt aggressively, but then you're not paying extra in interest. Maybe you've already done that, but I just want to throw that out there because I've used that as a great as a tool to

help me pay down my debt faster. And I know others you know, have had great success with balance transfers, but I'm just so named proud of you, and I hope once this toll twenty seven k is gone, that whatever habits or whatever decisions, sometimes we can't control, like shit happens, emergencies happen. We got to put some stuff on credit. There's no shame in that, but I hope that there's something some changes that can be made so that hopefully you won't have to get yourself back in

this situation again. But even if you do, I'm so proud because you've already proven I can get myself out, you know, I know I can take the steps, I can make the changes and put forth the effort to get myself out. So snaps for Bianca incredibly incredibly proud. All right, So, as a W nine employee independent contractor, you know, you have a tougher job because I also, you know, running my own business, I do a lot of work. Even as an influencer. You know, I'm technically

an independent contractor for brands that I work with. So anyway, I really get this. You don't have four O one K. You have to figure out how you're supposed to save for retirement, and you've got multiple options. The best thing that I did was I taged. I got my two my two gurus together, my financial planner Helen and my CPA, my accountant Safie. And I got Helen and Safie together because I was stressed so much, so stressed out about

what kind of account do I opened? And then even when you choose the type of account, it's like how much do you contribute and how I can contribute to reduce how much I'm going to pay in taxes. But I don't want to contribute so much that I don't have enough money to pay my bills, right So they have helped me figure that out. And honestly, I'm skipping right over anything I might say because your personal situation

with your finances. That is so you know, it's so unique to you, and I don't know enough about you to tell you like which account makes the most sense, but I highly highly suggest a CPA financial planner duo or at least if you're gonna choose between the two of them, I would say a CPA. They can help you make the best decision taxes wise. But in terms of types of accounts, a solo for one K is one option. You have the sep I RA self employed what does that stand for self employed something sep ira?

You could open any of those at like any you know, major brokerage firm. In terms of how much to be putting aside for retirement, I love that you've already ticked the box of your three month emergency fund. You know, you don't mention if you have family or what your you know what your personal life is like. But I would say if you are a parent, or if anyone relies on you financially, I might say I would encourage you to increase that from three months maybe six months,

and focus on that for now. But if you're happy with three months, you feel comfortable with that, And also as a contractor. I feel like our finances can sometimes be a bit more well, you know, depending on what type of work you're getting, if it's consistent or if you kind of have to you have lulls, and the kind of work that you're getting or the economy can

impact what kind of work you're getting. You might want to have more than three months saved, but let's say you're really happy with three months, then I feel like, you know, segueing the money that you were putting into that savings account and putting it into retirement makes a

lot of sense. You've been doing so well to pay down your credit card debt, so I don't feel like if you continue saving on the side as well as paining in your credit card debt, you know, you would be jeopardizing your ability to pay down that debt or like getting yourself off track. Now you have to get serious with yourself or not serious, honest with yourself about

how you're feeling about that debt. The way that you talk about I am tired of carrying this with me, Like it sounds like you would like to start aggressively just attacking that credit card debt now right now. Your credit card debt, I don't know what the interest is. But let's say you don't have a zero percent interest promotional balance transfer card and you have a regular you have this like sixty you have eleven thousand dollars on a regular credit card or a couple of different credit cards,

and the aprs are double digits twenty percent plus. Honestly, financially, if you look at the math, you're spending a lot of money on interest, and it's very unlikely that if you were to invest that money for your retirement that you would ever make as much of a return in the market as you will by saving twenty plus percent

on your credit card debt. So what I'm trying to say is, right now, aggressively paint on your credit card debt is actually pretty responsible and smart, like mathematically and fiscally, like it's the most expensive debt that you have. I would say, keep aggressively paying that down and then once it's gone, then you can, you know, shift over to retirement savings. And it sounds like mentally, you're there at this time and you want to get rid of this debt.

I personally just paid off a twenty thousand dollars credit card, a twenty thousand dollars balance transfer that I had done a couple of years ago when I started my business. I didn't have to keep that credit debt, but I wanted to give myself more cash flow. I wanted to be able to have more money in the bank because I was launching my own business and I have kids and a family and a mortgage and all that. But dang, when I tell you, it felt damn good to finally

be like, Okay, got enough cash flow. I'm paying this credit card off, and I was. I feel so much lighter and you know, happier even just having it, you know, gone. So I can see how like, if you are feeling heavy and burdened by this that you want to release it and get it paid off. I'm all about that,

you know. So I just want to acknowledge that. And I want to say, if you want to knock out that eleven k and focus on that and then you'll get to retirement later, go for it, because you are saving money, especially if you are, you know, paying off credit cards that are recruing interest rapidly. Okay, all right, Bianca, thank you so much for your question. Thank you for making us a part of your commute, and I'm going to take a quick break and be right back with

question number two from listener Chelsea. All right, ba fam, I am back to answer more of your questions on this week's be a QA. This question comes from listener Chelsea. Chelsea says, hey, ladies, I am twenty six years old and currently working in my first full time Big Girl career JOm. I'm working on transitioning to another job now. I have good credit for my age, and I make good money, but I'm always working a bigger bag. I have my own small business and very few bills. But

I want to hear from you, ladies. What would you tell your twenty something self, knowing everything that you know now, I am very I'm a very proactive person, so I am working on getting into personal finance more and planning for the future. I love your show and I appreciate your advice. You know, Chelsea, this question came at a really good time for me because I was just sitting the other day in my car on the way to

pick up dinner or something for the family. I sometimes give myself little errands just so I can go be alone in the car. Anyone out there also do that? Even if I sit in the driveway for like an extra ten minutes when I get back, like that is precious quiet time for me. But I was reflecting on my drive and I was thinking about my three b's, the book, deal, the Beyonce, the baby, and I really, yes, I'm proud of myself that I accomplished those things this year.

But I looked back and I was like, you know who accomplished that, Baby Mandy when she was twenty four and opened her first four oh one K and started to invest. She's the one I can thank for the ability that I have had to build this life for myself, and she's the hero of my story. I'm getting to enjoy the fruits of baby Mandy's labor. And as I was thinking about that, God, it made me want to just like reach back in time and give her such

a big hug because she worked so hard. I'm still working hard right and in another twenty years, ten years, I might be looking back and saying, ooh, thirty six year old Mandy. She was my queen. She did it

all for me. But I will always have a soft spot in my soft spot in my heart for the baby Mandy of my early twenties because when there are so many reasons, distractions of opportunities to go a different way, to follow the social media pressure to put on a big show, go on vacations, you know, show off that you're doing well and you got no kids and you're having fun, and try to keep up with you know,

the joneses. At that age, Baby Mandy made a different decision and decided I'm going to keep lifestyle inflation out of my picture. And lifestyle inflation, as I've said, lifestyle creep another word for it, that is like the silent killer of wealth. I promise you so many people could be genuinely debt free, wealthy well into like early like twenties and thirties if they just could beat down lifestyle inflation. So if I could go back, I would say, this

is the best thing that you did, baby girl. Like the fact that when you ten x your net worth and you ten xt your income by quitting jobs and learning how to be a badass negotiator and getting those big raises as you jump from job to job and move through your career, you didn't let the extra earnings drive you to start spending more in places that didn't

really like they weren't a huge value to you. And by that, I mean I wasn't going out and upgrading my apartment to get the better you know, the better location, the luxury unit with the washer dryer. That living in New York City, that's kind of like a status symbol, like, oh, you have a washer dryer in your building or in your unit. Like, first of all, what do you live Jersey? Because that's not happening in Manhattan. But unless you got real, real, real,

real big money. But you you want to improve your lifestyle. You want to go out more for drinks after work, You want to you want to go on those vacations, you know, you want to go to the Hampton's like you see and TV and sex and the city you know, in the summertime and escape the city and all of that. And you want to be able to do the big New Year's Eve celebrations and all the things that you you know, think about when you associate with New York and what you do here and being in your twenties

and all of that. But I really got quiet with myself in my twenties and I was like, I value financial freedom. I never want to go back to that fear and anxiety that I felt after I moved to New York and I got let go for my very first job. I was laid off like three months after I joined back in twenty ten, and I never wanted to feel like that again. And I said, I value feeling safe. I value feeling free to make decisions that I want to make, not because I'm desperate to find

a job to keep my lifestyle. And that is what I would tell any twenty something today is start to get really clear on what you value, why you are making the choices you're making today financially, and how that's going to get closer to the goals that you value. So for me, I was like, yes, it's nice to go out. And don't get me wrong, I had hell of fun in my twenties. I had a big ass wedding that I paid for cash, thirty thousand dollars wedding

in Savannah, Georgia that I have no regrets about. But I was only able to save up for that wedding and I didn't want to take on debt for that wedding. By making some serious lifestyle choices to enable me, like as I was increasing my income, my husband and I moved in with his family for I think we lasted about eight months. It was, you know, did what I could with my in laws, my future in laws. But we were able to save and set aside cash for that wedding so that he wouldn't be taking on a

lot of debt. And that's not the choice that a lot of people make when they finally get to you know, at the time I was making I had just gotten a new job and was making over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and I chose to live like a broke like like I did, like I wasn't, you know what I mean? And I did it for a time so I could give myself something that I valued, you know later. So looking back on baby Mandy in her twenties, I would say, that's the smartest thing that

she did. So get clear on your values, Chelsea. What do you where do you want to see yourself in ten years? And what financial choices can you you make now to get yourself there. So for me, it was about keeping my debt low and setting early habits to invest. And I didn't focus on how much I was setting aside. I just focused on or how sorry. I didn't focus on how much I was like making in the market.

I just focused on setting a goal of I'm going to be contributing ten percent automatically, and I'm going to increase that by one percent each year, and I'm going to continue this habit. And the beautiful thing about just focusing on the habit of investing and just automating it and forgetting it is that as you earn more, like you're talking about, I'm working on a bigger bag right now, as the bag gets bigger, the cut that you're taking for your investments is going to get bigger right along

with it. And as you grow, you know, get older, time goes on, those investments will grow, you know, in shallah, hopefully most of the time, they will grow. Right. So, if you can just get clear on your values and set the habits of saving and investing now, I mean, you're already going to be so so far ahead of

your peers and really stick with those values. And remember, like when you start looking and getting tugged in other directions and people are trying to get you to do this bottomless brunch and take this vacation, like if it's not true to you and your goals, like get really secure and strong in saying no and setting that boundary and letting your friends be a part of your life, be a part of your life in other ways that are of value to you. You know. For me, I

like to take vacations. I like to travel with my friends, but I was going to keep it small and I was going to go with friends who wanted to vacation at my level, you know, who weren't going to pressure me into like spending extra for first class this, or you know, the luxury villa versus the smaller bed and breakfast, you know what I mean. So I think that that's also really important is making sure that the people you

surround yourself with respect your values. They don't have to have the same values or want the same things you want, but they need to respect you and where you're coming from. What I also love about you, Chelsea, you personified brown ambition. You got your first full time, big, big girl career job that you said, but you also have your small your own small business on the side, having your own source of independent income. Oh baby, Mandy did this in

her twenties, and I love her for it. She started Brown Ambition and you know obviously went on to do other creative endeavors that I'm doing now in my thirties. But just starting something in your twenties and not thinking

about I need to maybecome a millionaire. I need to have this business, you know, get I need to become a unicorn billionaire, you know, billion dollar business, something like that, but just starting something like there's no way you're going to be able to enjoy the fruits of any labor if you never do the labor first, right, And sometimes some of us get psyched out by the goal that's seeming too large, like if I start a business, it has to be perfect, it has to bring in millions,

you know, But and then you let that psych yourself out and you never start it. But just starting to plant the seed of some kind of entrepreneurship in your in your early twenties, to bring an additional income for yourself that's going to give you professional resilience, meaning your big girl job it doesn't love you back. I learned that very early in my twenties. The job does not

love you back. So having your own source of find like financial your own source of income, so that you can protect yourself on top of having savings, having another source of income that's not tied to your nine to five makes you so much more resilient, So I think

that that's excellent. I would definitely, you know, give my baby Mandy in her twenties, a huge, huge round of applause for always kind of staying independent and having something of her own, even as I gave my all to my employer, saving a little bit for myself as well.

And I love that you're doing that too. But you's not like you're an amazing shape, Chelsea, and I'm so damn proud of you, and I can't wait, like right now, if I were you, I would just like be have a shit eating grin on my face at all times because I know for a fact, Chelsea, and you need to know this too, that in another ten years, when you're my age thirty six, you are gonna be like

doing it. You're going to be living the life that you're dreaming of right now, and you can be like me in whatever version of your life you want to be in. But reflecting back and saying thank you so much, twenty six year old Chelsea for making those choices, because now I am thriving and I am loving my life exactly as I wanted to. And I wish that for so so many of us out there. Right, So you

got time on your side, good for you. Girl. Listen, if you're listening to this show and you're thirty six, forty six, fifty six, and you're like, damn it, I wish I was Chelsea. Now you still got time. Age ain't nothing but a number. But you asked Chelsea about something I tell my twenty something self, you know. But the trick here is that no matter what age you are, like, start telling yourself these lessons now and in another ten years we all have you know, we do never know

how much time we're going to get. We hope we have lots of time, right, and I do believe that it's never too late to start making changes and start changing your approach to money and to your career and your finances so that you can thrive and start a new you know, a new chapter for yourself. So I hope that this was helpful, Chelsea, and thanks for giving me a chance to reflect. And you know, pat baby

Mandy on the shoulder for doing the damn thing. And I hope in another ten years I'll be just as proud of who I am now, for making the decisions that I am now that are going to help me continue thriving in my forties and beyond. All Right, that's going to wrap up the BAQA for this week, y'all. I am Bandy witchrif Santo's aka Mandy Money. I can't wait to have Tiffany back with me, but thanks for riding with me solo this week again. Send us your questions.

You can hit us up at Brandambisson podcast at gmail dot com or slide into our dms on ig at Brand Ambisson Podcast and please, please please leave us review on iTunes or where are you listening to what do they call it now? Apple podcasts that I just age myself? Whatever, where you listening to your podcast right now? Leave us a review. Let us know how you're loving this show so that other people can find it and we can continue slaying in these streets. Okay, y'all, all right, see

y'all next week. IBA fan