Ep. 170 — When Paying Off Your Mortgage Doesn't Make Sense

and one concentrated area. So it's when I say beautiful, Mandy, it looks like a like a wonderland. And so yeah, it was just it was exactly what I needed. No emails, no, you know, work conversations. I mean, Superman and I went on several dates. It was just really nice.

I've literally gotten to a point where I have like hired a candidate, like given them an offer letter, they've signed, and then you know what happens after that point is a background check happens like that's what companies do with the stage. Once you've signed the offer letter, then there's like the asterisk of you know, ending the background check and they will check your damn resume and your LinkedIn

profile versus records. And you know, we had to rescind an offer to some candidate who lied on her resume about completing a master's degree which had nothing to do with a job that she applied for. It was like crazy, Ugh, she put it on LinkedIn and she put it. It would have been one thing if she for you know, put it on LinkedIn, but she put it also on the actual application form for the job, and for that reason she had to. She didn't get the.

It's just this human instinct. But you have to check it when it comes to your professional your professional credentials, especially on you know, platforms like LinkedIn or in a hundred percent on applications, because like, one, why set people up for disappointment when they find out who you really are? And two it's just it's gonna it's just so embarrassing and it's going to blacklist you forever from that company. If you let that happen.

was a house of worship. I can't remember what Middle Eastern country, but it was the equivalent of that, you know, in that country, and it didn't get the same amount of obviously like press, but I remember people were like devastated because it was like an extremely important house of worship that is is purposely destroyed, you know, and people were like standing outside like just beside themselves, and it's

just a shame that. I mean not to take away from what happened in Notre Dame, but I'm just saying that there, you know, there are or civilizations, and there are people whose history is destroyed on a regular basis, and in the world, you know, turns a blind eye.

Notre Dame. Like anyway, just thoughts and prayers with the fireman who went into that blazing church and somehow managed to rescue it, and like that was amazing. Yeah, I'm sure that, I'm sure they will they will rebuild. It will probably take a long time.

what can I do better? And so I am firing my current financial planner.

I'll tell you what's been very helpful. I actually created this document where Jerrell and I sat down, Oh Superman well whatever y'all know his name probably Superman and I sat down and kind of talked about like, well one I said, I think it'll be important for our current financial planner or our new financial planner to know where we stand, because they always ask the same questions. You know, how much you make? How about this? How much you

haven't saved things? What about retirement? So I put all of that down in this dock, and then I put like underneath it, like so current situation, and then I have our goals, like, you know, within the next five years, we would like to be financially independent. We'd like to make one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, like as a household passively, you know, because we make that more now, but we work for that so passively our

money yielding that what we have to do. We'd like to maximize because I set aside money for all my nieces and nephews and my godson. But I'd like to be more strategic with like so we have a whole list of things, and not that a financial advisor. It might be a mix of people that will help. But I wanted to get out like what our goals were, long term and short term, and it's been so helpful.

I put in a Google doc and then I posted and this is just I'm sharing this with you all BA listeners, because if you're looking for a financial advisor, I would suggest figuring out first well, first creating a document or where do you stand? And then what your goals are long term, short term or otherwise. And then what I did is I put in a Google doc and with Google Docs you can share, share, create a

link to share. So I posted on like these financial Facebook groups I'm a part of and said, hey, looking for a financial planner. I wanted a fee own So financial planners you want to explain Many like the difference between like fee and like someone who gets paid based upon your portfolio.

Other financial advisors may tie their pay to the type of investments that they point you toward, where they're getting a kickback or a fee attached to the investments that they push you toward. Oh dang, didn't put my phone on silent rookie mistake. Or they're getting a bit of the fee from the investment they point you toward. Or they're taking a percentage this is very common, a percentage of the returns they help you earn by giving you investment advice, which is pretty common.

want to pay a flat fee. And quite honestly, I'm sick and tired of handing my money over because I'm like all these fees on fees on fees on fees, Like I'd much rather say, hey, planner, you know whatever you charged me two hundred dollars safe to sit down me for this hour. Here's some questions that I have. I'm gonna put my I'm going to open up, say like a Vanguard account or account, I don't know whatever, you know, one of these accounts, but you can manage

your own money. Let's just say Banguard. Like I said, I'm going to open up a Vanguard account. I'm thinking of a total stock market fund, which is Vanguard has this account where they the fund mirrors the S and P five hundred, so that as a very well known US market, the top five hundred companies in the United States, right, and so well top meaning like earning and so you know, you're their fund will basically invest your money into like those companies. And so it's an index fund, so literally

like an indexes. You know, it's like a list of like I'm not talking to you obviously, Mandy, but those listening and an index fund and indexes like if you're looking at the index of the back of the book, a list of like like you know, maybe like I don't know words inside that book. So an index fund is a kind of like a list of all of

these companies. And so I might ask my planner, you know, is this a good idea to put my money in an index fund to mirror the market, because typically the stock market goes up over time, although there's ups and downs, there's ups and downs on its way up. How you know what percentage of my money should I put there? Should I put my money also in a total market bond fund, which is a little bit safer, you know as much, but you also don't have to pretend you

to lose as much. Just these kind of questions, and you know, you might be like, what's the bond? What's the stock exactly? So I really just want someone who I can ask questions of, take my own money and based upon, you know, the responses and the information that I get, make decisions with like my money, and not feel like I'm just handing my money over because I feel like that's what I've been doing. And I'm not gonna pretend like, you know, some of my financial planners

have not made me money. I mean, it's not that Frank hasn't made me any money, but I honestly don't know what's going on, you know what I mean? Mandy, I'm like, so what are we doing? He doesn't answer when I text, or I'm like, are we supposed to have calls? Isn't it what I paid this flat fee for and if I look like I looked at my portfolio for twenty eighteen and I made I mean, I made a decent return. I think maybe like ten or

twelve percent something like that. So it's not like I'm losing money, but I don't, like did I?

lot of times the index fund wins out. So you have to find people who add value beyond the returns and don't believe them if they say they can, Oh, I can do double what the S and P did last you're like, no, that's bullshit. And you know, ask people what they can give you beyond just the regular return that anyone would expect, because you have to keep those realistic expectations and people who won't like oversell you.

with that, you know. Yeah, So I'm just excited about interviewing. So I literally I think I posted and like I said, I created the doc and I sent everybody the same message. It was like fifteen maybe fifteen people that reached out to me, and I was like, hey, thank you so much for reaching out. You know, I've created a document to help give you a clear understanding of where my husband and I are and where we'd like to be

you know, please review. And in the dock it was clear, like, you know, how I wanted to work with the person, like I would like to pay hourly. I don't want. I want to manage my own money, so that way people could eliminate themselves. And of the fifteen, I would

say there's probably five people that are viable. Some people eliminated themselves because they're like, oh, I don't do fee only or I only, you can only pay me yearly, and I'm like, nah, that yearly is I want to pay you hourly because if you suck, I've only paid for one hour, you know. So I'm excited though, because I feel like this is like the next frontier. I've got a dope accountant and CFO and so I just want to kind of like a personal CFO of my life.

So I'm excited, and I'll keep you guys abreast of, like, you know, how the interviews go and who I end up choosing. And even if I don't choose someone in their dope, you know, I plant I can obviously share some of the amazing people that I was able to connect with, because that's another desire of mine, is to kind of like create a list of dope financial experts because people ask me all the time, like what do you suggest for this, and I can be like, well,

I interviewed her, she was great. Wasn't a fit for me because I needed more business assistants, but she might be a fit for you.

I don't want to do the mc hammer syndrome. I want that, you know, like I you know, I make right moves now, so ten years from now, I can be like Ooho, even if the budgets is not popping, you know, I'm still good financially.

way that I can be released from the loan. I'm asking because my son starts college in the fall and I might need to get a loan for him, and I'm also planning and purchasing a home at the end of the year. Signed, what should I do?

can't undo it. So what steps can she take now to you know, reach her financial goals while also being tied to this the student loan. Does she mention if it's federal or I'm assuming it, Well, it might be, it could be federal, but probably more likely is it private?

to get you off of it. But if she needed you to co sign in the first place, or she or he, it may be that they're not financially I don't know stable enough to qualify for a different loan, but that's that's the only avenue I can think of.

a good idea. If you are refinancing if you have a federal loan, because then you lose like kind of

federal loan protections. But we're assuming this is private because they needed a co signer, But the bar is gonna need basic credit history, stable employment, and really enough income to prove enough income, like many said, to cover the monthly payments, because the purpose of having a co signer from someone who's lending is I don't know that you can afford it, but between you and your friend, you can afford it. And so if your friend is gone,

I don't know if you can afford it. So basically your friend would have to kind of prove, hey, I can afford it now, and I don't necessarily need this co signer, So refinancing or consolidating with another loan, those are kind of your only two options. But if you're listening and someone is kind of asking you to co sign honestly, it's just not because just like you know, what should I do?

because you already owe somebody else fifty thousand dollars. So it's just keeping all of that in mind before co signing. It's just it's rarely, rarely ever a good idea.

and even you know, if you're I don't know. I feel like at this point in time, with the way the cost of college is, if you're having to take out a private loan to fund your education on top of the federal loans, is all that debt worth the degree? And like taking a look at the cost of that college and is there are there any scholarships he could or he or she could apply for any grants, any aid or are there any other avenues of financing that tuition for this year? You know, without you you needed

to co sign. If she's looking to do it this false. I'm assuming they've they're you know, like a like a high school senior and they're going to school for the first time. There's still time to look for a more affordable school. You know. Think about what you're setting your kid up for post graduation in four more years. How much debt they will have?

actually came from one of my family members. I went and visited some family over the weekend, and of course, after I destroyed them and I mean destroyed them in yacht sie several times, one of my family members asked me, you know, because they're about to get a windfall from their employer, and they wanted to know because they just took out a mortgage a couple of years ago, and they wanted to know, should I take this windfall and apply it to my mortgage debt, because you know, I've

always been debt free. The mortgage was the only dead I have right now. Cars paid off. You know, this is someone in their in their in their late twenties. Cars paid off, no car note, no student debt, just a mortgage. Should I take the windfall and paid off? And it's a significant sum. So no, it's not from our reader inbox. But that was the question. Good question the way that I oh.

And I said, take a look at your four oh one k take you know, log into your He never logged into his retirement plan at work. Log in and tell me what your annualized rate of return was for twenty for the last year, like year to date, how much have you earned on your investment. It was something like thirteen percent twelve or thirteen points.

your retirement fund. With the you know, with a mid year kind of windfall like that, it's not like you can your market to max out your four to one K, But I said, what you could do is open up a ROTH individual retirement account. So Roth's IRA. Max that out. Do you think it's sixty five hundred for the year something like that?

or Vanguard or whatever. There's a million options. But you know, rushing to pay off the mortgage even though it's debt, and this is something that I thought about too, Even though it's debt, you have to think about, Okay, well, what's the value of the home, what's your equity. It's not like it's debt that's like a credit card debt that has no value for you.

tiffany your student loan indust rate. This is before you know, on the fullestness that y'all are paying now, my student loan interest rate was like three percent. I was like, Tiffany, you are losing three percent, you know, to student loans, right, but and looking at your retirement account, you're gaining ten twelve percent, so you can pay off the student loans, so you can stop losing three. But then you missed

out on the opportunity to gain ten. And what I ended up doing, anyway, is I just started paying student loans the minimum and I put the money toward my business instead, because I realized that that my return on investment from the Bunjanista was even better than my retirement account. And I grew my six figure a year business, my low six figure business, to a multiphole seven figure of your business. So and then last year I had more than enough to say, hey, I have a lump sum.

My student loan debt was like fifty three thousand dollars. I have a lump sum to pay the student loan debt. But that was like seven years in the making, you know, So it wasn't it just it made more sense to use that money to make money than to use that money to pay off debt, because debt free is not wealth. Wealth can make you debt free.

poach people. And often when you're poaching people, it's sort of like when they say it's a seller's market or buyer's market when it comes to housing right now, I feel like it's a buyer's market. So it's an employees market where you have people like me who are looking to find really talented people, but you already have jobs. So there's there's it's driving up the cost of labor, so people you're needing to pay people a lot more than usual because you need to like lure them away

from jobs that they may be happy at. You know, then may be like yeah, fine with and you know a lot of people have gotten jobs in the last couple of years, so it's not like they've been there very long. So it's just a struggle. And one of the things that you know, it's just it's just part of you know, what it is hiring, And in spite of it, I've still managed to put together a really strong team. But you know, as any manager, like the recruitment never ends. I feel like I'm always trying to

fill one role for whatever reason. But one thing, like a piece of advice I would give from my experience hiring the past few years, is like, if you are in a job, if you're in the job interview process and you're toward the end so either you're about to get an offer, or you've gotten an offer, or you're

in the final interview round. At that point, if you decide to withdraw from the the you know, you decide to turn down the offer or withdraw yourself from the interview process, send a note to the hiring manager personally. And I say this because I've had candidates who I've invested a lot of time myself in and pushed for and they've turned around and withdrawn or turned out an offer.

But just send an email to the random recruiter who they emailed, like maybe in the beginning of the process, maybe even not if I was the first person to reach out to them. And as much as I know I'm not supposed to be offended, it really like kind of pisses me off. It makes me feel disrespected that they wouldn't take the time to send a personal note,

you know, thinking me for the time or whatever. And also I'm still hiring right, so if in the future this person you know, wanted to be employed or wanted to to follow back up about another position, like, don't you want to leave the interview process in the best possible with the best possible you know, tone and like leaving the right taste on someone's mouth afterward, you know. So that's that's my advice. I do the same thing

in return. I make sure you know, I was on vacation on Friday and I called two candidates to turn to tell them personally that that we were not moving forward with their applications or you know, for the jobs, because I wanted to give them the treatment that I that I, you know, prize and respect from candidates in return. So that's just my that's my break and my advice. If you are like, it's smart, you know, if you have a job right now, and if people are reaching

out to you. I get emails personally from recruiters all the time. So and so was hiring this. You know, are you interested if you take those calls, if you entertain those offers just because you're trying to see what else is out there and see how much money someone might be able to pay you, but you have no intention of taking the job. Think about what might happen if you let it go very far and then bow

out of that. You know, at the very end, when someone's invested time, When you think about that, your reputation and your reputation professionally. And also I'm not saying it's not smart to do that. I'm not an idiot. Like, the only way I was able to catch up and actually earn what you know, a market salary because I was hired at the bottom of the recession, when people when the rates were so low for people doing what I was doing, the only way I could catch up

with my peers was to job hop. Stand it. It's smart, but you have to do it in a respectful way. Yeah, you're not burning those bridges because they're all comment over. Yes, one hundred percent. Yes, and especially in a small world like personal finance, journalism.

forty fifty bucks. But still you think about like I might have three engagements in a week, and I'm like, well, unless I'm re wearing the same thing over and over and after a while, you know, I have maybe like ten fifteen staple dresses, which sounds like a lot until you say you've done fifteen things whether it's TV or whatever in a month, and then you're like, well, what do I wear next month? So I decided to try it. I have to say that my first crop was already awesome.

I picked four dresses I'm doing like the Unlimited, and three of them were a hit. I was like, wow, three of them fit well. One was I didn't realize it was a split. I needed to read the directions, like, like the description a little more. I was like, ooh, this is too sezy for the sake for the stage. But it was still cute, so I had to say, I'm really pleased, and yeah, I like it. I love the packaging that it comes in. It's super easy to use,

and yeah, I really want to buy less clothes. I just want to be able to wear it, be cute and then send it back. So rent the one way. I know I'm late, but whatever, I'm just getting a boost because you know, I had not tried it yet.

what the front desk. Girl uses fout the runway. She's like girl all the time, and I was like, oh, well whatever, So yeah, that's my, that's my, that's napist. So I know it's time to say goodbye to all our family. B r own Ambition. I'm so glad to have you back to It's great to be back, honestly.