¶ Intro / Opening
Hey, ba fam, we are five years into making this podcast that we love so much called Brown Ambition, and we could not do it without you. We've gone from me and Tiffany sneaking around my old office building trying to find places to record, and thanks to you, guys, we now have one hundred thousand downloads per month for this little show called Brown Ambition. We would love to ask y'all for a small favor as fans of the show. Tiffany, what are we looking for?
Here's what we'd love from you, guys.
We already have over a thousand reviews and a five star rating on iTunes, but you know it's better than one thousand reviews two thousand reviews. If you get head on over to iTunes, go to our Brown Ambition page, scroll on down to the bottom, subscribe and leave us a five star rating and review.
So subscribe, rate review. Not too much to ask, right easyps. We love you guys, and thank you so much for making Brown Ambition what it is. The last five years have been amazing and it's all things to you.
Hey.
Hey, Hey, we're back, We're black, We're Brown Ambition.
Hey mansa just hands Hey, Happy Monday Recording on this beautiful September Monday. Listen, as you were doing the intro, I was just like kicking myself in the face, which I can't physically do, but you know, not literally. I can't believe when I was designing Brown Ambition Store and brandambisionstore dot com that I did not put that on one of our new T shirts.
How does it go? We're back, We're black.
Shirts.
I'm doing it. We have T shirts.
Not only do we have T shirts, s Tiffany, and thank you for for for asking about our flag, because five years into the show, we finally have some merchandise for you guys to rock your Brown Ambition pride everywhere in Quarantine on your zoom calls in line six feet away from each other at Trader Joe's Rocket.
We have T shirts.
We got onesies for the babies out there, Brand Ambish and babies, got tote bags and the T shirts. I'm pretty proud. Oh, I'm trying to do my part for nature, so they're recycled. I will spare you the details on the terrible pollution that clothes create. But anyway, check out our store, Brownibision store dot com and pick up some swag and then you've got to share. We need pictures, pictures of y'all swag of.
Course, hashtag brownhimbisions BA swag. That's what you should do.
Hashtag BA swag or just hashtag Brown Ambition and tag us on Instagram, at Brown Ambition Podcast, on Facebook wherever. We're all over the place, at Mandy Money at the Budgetista, y'all know where to find us.
I'm really really excited. Yeah, So what's the store adjust again, Brown Ambition store dot com. So easy to remember, so easy to remember.
I will prepare you all though, because I was a little surprised by this is my first time setting up a swag store, and I mean shocking because it took me five years to do that. But anyway, I did it. Okay, listen, but and I used print full just full disclosure, and you can connect that through a site called shopify. So I know that you guys, especially those of you who checked that our episode with Sandy Smith where we were
talking about side hustles. So one of the common side hustles these days is drop shipping, which is essentially when you create you know, you can put your logo or create a custom design for a product, but then instead of ordering a huge, you know, stock of that product and keeping it in your basement until it's sold, you can use a drop shipping company to hold the product for you and do all of the hard work of printing or manufacturing the products and then shipping them out
to your customers. So we use print full. And I was really surprised because, you know, with ambition, I mean, let's let's just be real here, our audience is mostly women of color, like probably more than eighty percent of our audience women of color, and we I was surprised that I wasn't able to get a more diverse lineup of models on the print full website. And I was so surprised that I was like, am I just missing the right button? Like is there a button or some setting?
And you know, it's not like super easy to navigate. So I went to customer support and I live chatted a very nice gentleman and he said, you know, that's actually not an option, but if you'd like to go to our feature request form and he said, submit every request for this to be a future that's added. And I went to the future request and it's one of those things where you can upvote features that like, if you see someone else's requested a feature that you really want,
you can upvote it. So here's what I need y'all to do. I'm going to post a link in our show notes, and you need to click that link and up vote my request for printfual to have more inclusive models, because there is no reason we should not be able to to have a group of beautiful women of color repping our brand, because that is what Brown Ambition is all about. And I was genuinely surprised, and the guy on customer service was like, I think there might be
a few other requests like this. There were maybe two and they each had like four votes, So this is where we can make some kind of difference. I'm genuinely shocked that I even have to, but you know what this is, what is like you think in twenty twenty, these things, You know you shouldn't have to ask for these types of things, but listen, we do, and I think I think Brown Ambition Nation can help create some change.
So go to my show notes, go to our show notes and click our link to our future request, and please please please upvote it.
Up vote, up vote.
M hmm, let's shame them in our up vote, and I like that we're doing that, like use their own process, and then if we don't get a response, then we can take it to Twitter. So don't go you know, if we don't need y'all to like you, just drag them on Twitter.
Just yes, you know, Twitter, it's my go to girl. Like I was like, why did I someone remember we told a young woman to like to go to Twitter? She's like, girl, it worked.
Yeah out Like me, I mean remember my washing machine saga, my dishwasher saga eighteen nineteen.
I was like, tag me, girl, we gonna go back and forth and be like disgusted in open court.
And they were like, how can we help you?
I was like, I thought, so right, well, let's see, I would like to give them. I think giving them a chance to do the right thing first and foremost, because it's not like they don't have diverse models.
They do.
It's just that you know that you can't quite you can't like select, it was just luck of the draw. So then I couldn't even pick like women. You know, it was like I think there was like a guy, like different guys, different women, different hairstyles whatever. But you know,
so they just need more customization. I think of the models, but it's got to be hard, you know, to their defense, it's got to be hard to do that in a way where you know, you wouldn't have the opposite happening, like brands being like, mmm, like we just want only white people to buy our products, which I can't imagine why because you're really luting lots of money that way exactly. But uh, anyhow, what the hell else is going? Oh my god, the world's ending.
Yes, but I was.
Having because we are focusing on the listeners and we basically have a mail bag episode Mailbag.
All about you guys. So we've had Gusts the past couple of weeks and they were two of my favorite shows, kind of back to back, but we had just freight saying from minority mind.
How I feel about that? So Le's not.
Even I'd never heard of him, and it was actually really embarrassing from.
It was my favorite.
But yeah, no, And if you hear the salivation through the through the mic.
I don't, like I said, it's not just free himself physically.
It's just like, oh, I just love other financial educators and he's one that hasn't been in the brown mix as much as like, cause we know basically everyone and we're super cool and friends with everyone. So to find a new one, someone who really focuses on education is so good. But yeah, no, I'm excited for the mail bag.
Have you.
I don't know, like, does the baby watch like Elmo and like Sesame Streetya?
He really loves Elma.
I don't know if I can say he watches it, but he's delighted by it about twenty seconds.
Cause you know, there's like I when I seach preschool, we would watch it in the morning as the kids that were coming in, and they would be thing.
It'd be like, Elmo has mail, Elmo has mail, Elmo has.
Mail, And I feel like, this is what's happening right now that Ba has mail?
Are you sending me things? Oh?
No, I was just I was hitting the save button. I think my computer makes fun clicking noise back. Wait, but is this a new setting that I just take a screen shop? I'm just trying to save? But okay, whatever, Yes, BA has mail.
BA has mail.
BA has mail? So do we ever?
We have email? We have Instagram messages. I dug through them all and tried to get a nice little group of them, But that does not mean that we're never gonna take y'all's questions again. In fact, we were trying to come up with even more efficient ways for y'all to get your questions on the show. In the meantime, though, hit us up Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com, Old School, or holler at me on Instagram. We are
at Brown Ambition Podcast on ig Yes we are. Before we get to the mail bag, can we just do a quick, quick, quick? I know there's so much. I mean, the news is just trying us. And I've been thinking so much about doctor Eimani's advice room last week, which was like limit yourself to fifteen minutes of news a day and just read it on your like news app and then stop, because I've turned into that, Like I just constantly am asking Google to tell me the news, like, hey, Google, what's the news?
Even if it.
Hasn't changed, something about it just comforts me. But this weekend it was all about RBG. Yeah, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to ever hold a Supreme Court seat and such a champion of equal rights for women in her story is just so powerful and she's gone on. I know, I just want to take I mean, I'm power else if you're out there, you know at one of her memorials are all happening all over the country. I get people are stressed because, you know, this was
the fear all along. We were all just praying for RBG to survive, you know, Trump's term, so that he wouldn't have an opportunity to replace her with someone even more conservative. And you know, right before the election she passes away. So I don't it's it's sad, but it's also just a reminder one of the things that I was sort of surprised by. I guess it was a reminder, but also it's like I didn't realize, I mean, it makes sense so we can decide how many justices sit
on the Supreme Court. And I follow bon Dair Jones, who's a very exciting congressional candidate. He's he's running for office in the district we live in New York, and he's you know, he's a he's a black man, and you know, he's he's very he's just awesome.
He's a progressive.
All that he was posting on the GRAM and kind of talking about how like, you know, this could be a case for increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, like if the Republicans pushed through their own nominee for the Supreme Court, even though that seems like, I mean, I want to believe it's unlikely.
But like let's say it happens.
Yeah, you know what we could do if Biden wins is like ask for more justices. And part of me feels like this is a level of like widespread conversation and households that just wasn't happening before, like the economic like the what do you call it, civic government level of conversation we're having, like people need to understand, we need to go back to basics, like here are the
three branches of the government. Here's how they work. And I think it all comes back to how important it is for people to vote for their elected officials in Congress. President great, but like Congress even more important when it comes to like making laws and deciding how things are structured, like the judicial branch. So that's my little Civics lesson for the day, and dot dot dot, I'm just gonna leave it there.
Isn't there there's a movie based upon her life, right, what's the movie? Called Netflix.
I don't remember what it's called, but yeah, it has the same ath. I was just remembering, what's the actress's name she was in She was in that thing and that movie with that guy.
Oh yeah, the thing, the movie the guy Got It.
I haven't watched the I haven't watched the film. But there was also a documentary. It was like the Year of RBG was a couple of years ago, and there was a documentary and then the movie. I downloaded her audiobook, her memoir or her biography more like from audible, and it's good because it's not quite like a traditional memoir.
She's reading speeches and she's reading like dissenting because she was famous for her her dissenting opinions, like writing really you know, eloquent justifications for why she wasn't, you know, voting against something or not voting ruling against something. But yeah, so I recommend her her audiobook if you're wanting to do you know, wanting to like bask in the glory of her story, but also voting helps vote, it does.
Please vote, and don't just vote for president and come back, come back, come back and vote in the midterms.
Because that really means the most because here's the thing.
Your local government is what controls your local life. So you want to make sure that you're really voting for like what's going to actually happen in your town. That not to say, obviously the presidency doesn't have a huge effect on your life, but you know who sits on your you know, education board, the mayor, your assembly woman, those things are super important as well.
Yeah, one percent, you know what I mean. Not to brag, but I emailed my Parks and rec Department today to tell them one of the swings at the local playground was busted. They replaced it and sent me a picture within a few hours. So you know, government working for the people. Yes, beautiful. It's just little things like that, you know, make a difference. But I do feel like, I mean, I'm going to beat this into Rio's head.
We'll not beat it into but I'm going to make sure that he understands it's real when it comes to like you're like Congress, your elected officials, your localft officials, they really really matter. And so many of them have just been serving in this office for decades, years and years and years and getting re elected and getting reelected and getting reelected because nobody knows any different, and like, no one really knows who they are in the first place.
And yet they're the ones who are going to be deciding whether or not Trump is able to appoint a new Supreme Court justice to take Rbg's place. Like they're the ones who supported Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court. They are the ones who decide if legislation around immigration, you know, ultimately gets past Like yeah, the President can ultimately veto it, but then it can get kicked back to Congress and then they need what a two thirds
majority and they can override it. So it really really matters. And I just hope that this momentum and education, this moment that we're at, you know, continues for people.
Yeah, I agree too. Youp oh my.
God, what's going to happen to the Affordable Care Act?
Oh my gosh. People are saying it's a done deal.
Honestly, I just I was talking to my sister about it, and it's so important that you look towards yourself. You are the superhero you're waiting for. You're going to have to save yourself. We need to get you know, Like, honestly, all the stuff that Mandy and I have been talking about, which I love your comments when you guys reply like, oh my gosh.
You know I'm saving more, I'm investing more. I'm you know.
And Mandy, I just sent Helen of my mentee Eacy just signed up with Helen because because she was telling me about a financial advisor who was like, yeah, he's only gonna charge two percent, and he also wants this fee and that Field was like, yeah, no, you know. I was like, here are three of my faves, Helen being one of them, Angelie who's my financial planner, my certified financial planner, and there's another woman named Amy Irving
whoeverally like as well. And so I was like, you know, because you want to interview more than one interview three She loved Helen and I was like, yeah, rightfully so, because Helen is dope.
But basically, you have to be your own superhero. I mean you have to.
There's some things that are beyond your control, but the things that are within your control stocking up, making sure you have enough savings, making sure you're investing for the future, taking care of you and your family, because it's just I don't know what else we could do. It's scary times, honestly, and if you don't, if you're waiting on something to save you, it's not coming. You are going to have to save you. You are going to have to look inward.
And we're going to have to look inward as a community to build things up for ourselves, to create safe spaces for ourselves, to create opportunities to make income, to support our families, for ourselves. So that's why we're here. That's what Brown Ambition is really all about. It's like, you know that the ambition part is like growth, it's success. It's living the life that you're wanting to live, and us trying to provide examples and encouragement and support and
suggestions on your way on that journey. So yeah, you got to lean into Brown Ambition now more than ever.
So what you're saying is we should pool our resources Brown Ambition Nation and buy land and then create a community called Brown Ambition. We be Brown Ambition Topia. Did you hear about that.
Georgia, Yes, I en Georgia, I do. I'm trying.
The number nineteen is coming to mind. Is that nineteen people or nineteen thout acres or whatever, But a lot of people decided to buy lots of land and they're planning on building what like a No. Eight, like basically the Waconda of Georgia. Sounds magical. Yeah, that sound magical. Mean whether or not that goes anywhere, that concept, I was just I was explaining to my little brother because he was thinking, you know, he owns his own condo and something.
Whatever, society whoever.
He had gotten this impression that like owning real estate or being a landlord was like something bad or had like a negative connotation to it. And I was like, listen, that is that is what we need. Property is everything. Property is what was stolen from our ancestors. Property is what's so hard to attain today. And if you've got it, we've got to hold on to it and make sure
that others who look like us can achieve it. And that's why I love that story out of Georgia, that community, you know, whatever they decide to put there, at the end of the day, black people own it. Black wealth is being created. I love that a beautiful thing.
Okay, are you ready for questions?
I'm ready to dump out my mail bag. And before we do that, let's take a quick quick.
Break and we are back.
Let me take up that mail bag shake.
Chic does the things on the internet rattle and shake.
I thought that's true.
Our mail gage would be oh just all over the place.
Yep.
So once again we're a brownibisionpodcast at gmail dot com or at Brianabission podcast on IG.
Yes, and remember that we are your financial friends, not your financial guru, not your financial planner, not your financial advisor, which is financial friends that are just talking amongst each other. And this is not meant to be substitute for advice from your personal financial advisor.
Oh thank you for reading that fine print so well said.
In other words, to your grandma, not us.
Yeah, financial gurus, not your your financial girlfriends, not your gurus.
Kay.
And shout out to the brown Ambison listener who sent me like like probably a few thousand words in this email and literally had gone back and she listens. She started listening to episode thirty eight in May, and now she has caught up. She has listened to two hundred episodes. I am overwhelmed on her behalf. That is amazing.
I'm going to go.
I just I read the email. It was so so long, but she literally had quoted you Tiffany saying that she was like, you need to put this on your shirts. We are your financial gurus or sorry, your financial girlfriends, not your gurus. And I thought that was really sweet. So thanks for listening.
Yeah, thank you.
All right, so this to listen our first question. We have quite a few on investing, which was great to see. So this comes from Instagram user. Her name is b She says, hey girl, hey, al I bank used to
¶ Interest is super low on savings right now, should I take some of my savings out of the bank and put it into investments?
offer its customers great interest rates for savings and now it's down to zero point one percent. Okay, that's not entirely true. I think as of this recording, it's what zero point six percent? But any who get your point is down low? What is your perspective on taking some money from savings and putting it towards stocks? Maybe Apple or the Tesla's stock split, or an ETN what's an etend?
She part with EF Oh, okay, thanks, that's like I was really ready to just learn a new acronym that I did not know, an easyf to instrure my money is working for me. Yep, that's absolutely true. The FED and the FED actually announced last week. This is Mandy answering the question. The FED announced what last week at their most recent meeting that they well they didn't announce it, but the chair of the FED did say probably interest rates will be where they are now, which is very
close to zero through twenty twenty three. No, yeah, a long time, a long time of low savings.
Right, I'm not here for a long time. I'm here for a good time, okay, Drake, No, yeah, So I can tackle this a little bit. Of course, we could jump in tag team. So here's the thing.
First things.
First, people look at savings, it's like this wasted money. No, it's called risk management. So I would keep because what the FED is saying is we think things are gonna be bad for a while. Don't look at the The stock market is crazy. The stock market is a two year old. It doesn't know what's happening. It just goes up and based upon people's wins. It's really the economy you're wanting to look at. And nobody is studying their
economy more closely than the Fed. And then the Fed is saying we're keeping interest rates to the slow is because they are trying to minimize some of some damage they seek coming. So what that means is I would hunker down, keep six months of your emergency savings. So I call it your noodle budget or if you had to eat ramen noodle budget, if you had to get rid of all the extra, how much would your life costs you a month? Multiply that time six keep it
in savings. It's not about making money off that savings. It's about if I lose my job, I have six months to one cut out all the excess and to live for six months while I try to figure out what to do. So don't think about that money as wasted money. It's your insurance policy. So put that up. Do you have excess?
Awesome? Then I totally agree. Now here's the thing.
If you are not already invested in stocks, if you are not willing to do the research. I'm not talking about like you know, the husband research, which you know my hubby does too, like heard about app but we should get some that'sy research. If you're not willing to do like the research research, Honestly, what I would choose is a total market index fund. There is Vanguard has a has one that kind like in the last I don't know. I think it's like maybe twenty years or
something like that. So for turn like, don't quote me. I think it's anywhere from fifteen to twenty percent. It's actually most index funds are. Well, let's explain what an index fund is, Mandy right. So an index fund is a fund that mirrors a market. So a market is like the S and P five hundred, the Dow Jones, a NASDAC. So an index fund, it's meant to mirror the market to do if the market goes up, you go up. The market goes down, you go down, and
the market always goes up over time. It might go up and down on its way there, but over the last hundred years, the market has always gone up. The last hundred years about ten percent, but really the last thirty years seventy eight percent on average.
So an index fund just does what the market does.
So it doesn't require you to know how to pick a stock, because an index fund is going to be kind of like a basket of different investments, so you don't have to pick individual ones.
You could just follow the market.
So I would choose a total market index fund normally, I would say in ETF, which is a basket that you can trade like stocks, like a basket of investments you can trade like a stock because typically ets are passively managed, meaning like an algorithm picks the stocks for you, and it keeps the expense the feed, which is called the expense ratio.
It keeps that fee low.
But there's actually a passively managed mutual total market fund. Now, mutual funds are usually not passively managed. They're typically actively managed, meaning there's a human being that's making the choices and therefore the fees the expense ratio is higher. But Vanguard's Total Market Index fund is actually passively managed, which is not typical, which means fees are really low. So I would look, I think it's like VT. Let me get what it's the Vanguard Vanguard.
I'm going to be stacks. What is it vtv BT, SAX, So I have to say v stocks even though the S comes after.
So I would put my money there.
Or if not Vanguard, I think Fidality has a total market fund, and I think Charles Schwab has a total market fund. Basically, I would just invest in the market. If you're not out here studying stocks where you can you know, feel like, okay, I'm really studying like p eBay shields and all this other stocky stuff. If you're not going to do that. I would just put my money in an index fund because the money is going to grow. The stock market always goes up. But know
that it's a long term investment. You're not, you know, looking to make money like tomorrow. Yeah, one hundred percent. I would just say, like, your savings is for money that you might need tomorrow. If you want to put money in the market, you've got to get really comfortable with potentially seeing that money go up and down because it's a long term investment. So just make sure that where you're putting your money aligns with your long your
goals in the life or the short term. And did when Tiffany mentioned the specific index fund, I was like, just to remind y'all wet to hear the angel girlfriends not your gurus. So you have to make the best choice for you and do your own research. But you know, in general, yeah, index funds make sense and they're a great way to invest. The only difference, like the main difference, like Tiffany said, between an ETF and an index fund, is that you can trade an ETF all the time.
You can trade it like a stock basically, so if you want to, if you want to you know, be trading an ETF, then we're trading you know, your index fund or trading a fund of funds. Then ETF is the way to go. But if you just want to set it and forget it, an index fund, a.
Mutual fund is like the way to go.
But just make sure, like ideally it's passively managed because the closer, the more human being has to touch it, the more they're going to charge you. So if it's passively managed, like like like we mentioned the VT the fe stacks, then you know you're you're an expense ratio, your fee is going to be much lower. So and I just say, like to me, I have a five year ruld. Do I need this money for five years? Then don't put it into the market. One.
That's a good one. All right, Let's take another one. This comes from Instagram listener. Her name's Nikia. She says, the ladies, I have a short question. Would you recommend a pre tax for a one k or a wroth
¶ Should I have a Pre Tax 401k, or a Roth 401k? Is it a good idea to have both?
for a one k? Do you think it's a good idea to have both?
Thanks?
I'm glad I found your podcast and I share it with everyone.
Oh, thank you.
Tell a friend to telefriend, Yes, classic pre wroth for a one K or a regular four oh one K.
Yeah, what do you think to Well, this is what I say.
One if I had a four to one K that had a match, girl, get your money. So a match is when like your company says, you put in money, and I put in some money too. Sometimes they match directly, like you know, you put in two percent, I put in two percent, and sometimes it's like if you put in up to six percent, I put in three percent. Either way, the rule typically is you put in money, I put in money. So if your company has a match, get your match money, because basically it's free money once
you meet your match. Then mosey on over to Roth Ira Land and right now, Mandy, isn't it six thousand dollars the max for byways? Right now?
If you're under fifty, I think it's sixty. Well that's an IRA.
Yeah, So she's talking about just the distinction with a four oh one K that's provided through your employer, and that limit is higher. So right now for a pre tax four one K and a ROID right, yeah, it's like nineteen thousand or something like that. But the key difference is that pre tax obviously your money goes in, you get to you earn, you don't pay taxes on anything until you take it out in retirement. And with the wroth four to one K, you're paying taxes upfront.
And usually they say they expert people say wroth makes sense if you think you'll be in a higher tax bracket later on. And so I definitely had a wroth when I was early in my career because I was in a lower tax bracket because I wasn't making lack no money, and it made sense for me to pay taxes upfront because you know my taxes will be a lot lower.
You know. Of course, you can't predict the future.
Who knows, But I did have a wroth before, and then I've shifted to a pre pre tax four one K as i've as I've started to earn more my career.
I both to have a mix. I think that you should have your phone K money up to the match because here's the thing about a wroth is that that once you get to one hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars as a single person, you cannot contribute to a roth anymore. So that opportunity to have money that you can take out tax free later because you paid taxes.
The way retirement accounts work is that you either pay taxes now and then take out tax free later, or you pay taxes later and you put your money in tax free now. And so it's nice to have a mix in retirement, to have some money that's taxed and you know, and then some money that's that's not tax
because you already paid it. So I like, for because roths are six thousand dollars is a lot of money, but it's not if you could take advantage of a wroth, take advantage after you've met your match to your form and one K. So I would four one K up to match right up to the match, then hit up wroth up to that six thousand. If you're under fifty, then to a four to one K to continue contributing.
This is just like what my financial certified financial planner suggested for us, like to have money on both sides of the tax equation.
So that's what I would suggest, honest.
It's to kind of seesaw back back and forth because to Manny's point, you know, with a wroth, you know that's money you get to pull out tax free. Leader you don't know what you're your taxes are going to be uh later, but you get to pull them out later, and having a mix of different type of tax money is really going to be helpful in retirement.
So I like the I like the seesaw. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ultimately, though, Nikiya, I would say, if you have access to a four oh one K, don't hemmin haw too much, Like you should do some research, but at least put something somewhere. Yes, you can't go wrong by putting money away in your four O one K. Just don't want you to be holding on to funds because you're not
sure you want to pick the exact right account. There's pros and cons to each of them which you can research, and you may even have access to free financial advice through your employer and you're four to one K provider. But the point is just start saving and you're roth or you're a regular for one K, whichever one you think fits your needs right now, it is.
Take another one.
So this one, this one hit home for me because we've actually is I could use this as kind of a like a proxy for a lot of different questions we've gotten from people recently, and this is someone excuse me from Instagram. Her name is We'll keep her anonymous. She says, I'm loving your podcast, but I need some help because I feel lost. I'm forty one years old
¶ I'm 41 years old and I've never invested, where should I start?
and I've never invested, and I'd love to start. I work as a childcare provider in my home, my husband works outside of the home. Where should I start? So in her forties feeling like she's too late to start investing and want some INSFO.
So I'm not sure if it's investing for retirement, because what I would suggest is if you invest for retirement looking at a target date fund, or if you're like, oh no, no, we've got retirement money set aside, that you're just like I just want to invest for investing sake, then an index fund that we meant that we mentioned
prior to that. Those are my two suggestions because I like those because those are like kind of like algorithm generated, so you don't know how, you don't have to know how to pick specific things, because to your point, that's one of the reasons why a lot of women in particular are like I don't in bet so it's like, well, let the algorithm choose the stocks, the bonds, and the investment vehicles for you you just choose where you know
what algorithm you're gonna use. Are you gonna use a target date fund, which says, here's the target date for your retirement, and we're going to you're gonna put your money in every month, and we're going to rebalance your portfolio, meaning put some money towards get less and less aggressive the closer you get to your target date, your retirement date. So you're gonna do that for retirement, you know, which is super easy, or you're investing for wealth, great, choose
an index fund. Follow the market. The market always goes up over time. You've got more than twenty years before you quote unquote officially retire on the books, you know, although you might retire early. So following the market means in twenty years the market will well, it would be crazy for it not to be up just because it's always gone up. So that's what obviously suggests target date fund or or an index fund. If you're just starting out and you don't know or really want to.
Do the research.
Yeah, I mean she mentions that she's a childcare provider working from home. So if you're you know, if you've got an at home business, you can look into a step IRA, which we can put a link to explain. This is basically the you know entrepreneur's version of a
four wa yep. And I would also say, you know, you don't tell us much about your financial picture, and it's really hard to give investment advice when we don't know if you have debt, if your husband, if he works outside the home, does he have access to a four oh one K through his employer? Has he been contributing? Does he get a match? Because you know, you definitely want to take advantage of any match, you know, first and foremost. But I just want to address you know,
you're forty one years old. You still got a lot of years ahead of you, so it's not it's not too late, it's just you know, day one or one day.
You know you have the same expression. I like that they want to one day.
That's my favorite quote these days, but it's so applicable to everything. So I think this is your day one. The fact that you've asked this question, hopefully you're listening to the show right now. I'll ping you on Insta and like, you know, we answered your question. You know you're listening. You're starting to educate yourself. Let's just you know, you can do it. It's not really they want us to believe they I don't know who the day is with
the society, capitalism. They want us to believe it's too hard for us, that it's too hard for us to figure out. That's just not true. You can absolutely do it. You just got to start. So and I'm forty one, well just about.
Like I turned forty one in a couple of weeks, and honestly I just started like setting aside for retirement like two years ago because I was so focused on the business. I reinvested everything back in after draining my retirement account. So I mean, it's better to start. I'm not even stressed about it. I'm just like, okay, I've starting is better than that starting. So you are not alone. There are a lot of people who are like I
have done anything. But let this be the last week that you say that, you know, find a super easy index fund. You can just google best index funds and be like, you know what, you know, I'm going to put my money in this mutual fund fifty bucks every every month. I'm going to find a mutual fund that's passively managed and just put my money in there every month.
It follows this market. Okay, that's it.
And then you know, as you get more acclimated to that, then you can expand beyond that.
Absolutely, And if you know, a lot of times people don't invest because they don't have anything left over to invest, and you know that's and she didn't mention that, but we definitely get questions like that where it's like, how am I supposed to invest anything?
I'm living paycheck to paycheck.
You know, the uncomfortable truth is that you've got to try to increase your income so that you do have something to invest, you know, do whatever you can. You know, whether it's you know, picking up a side gig or asking for a raise or moving to a more lucrative field, it's going to take some effort to increase your income so that you have something set aside. And if there's
and that's that's definitely the answer. If you've done everything else, if you've cut your expenses, if you've paid off your debt, and it still doesn't feel like you have extra, it's all about increasing your income in some way or another. And there are you know, ways you can do that, and it just takes it takes extra work. It takes some hustle and some grind, but that is that's that's how it gets done.
Yeah, all right, how many?
Let's take another one for sure? Ooh, there was a question from someone who uses euros, so I don't know where they're from, but I was excited to see some euros. We'll just pretend they're dollars for this example's sake, though, I don't think that it matters whether they're euros or I don't think the currency matters, all right. Instagram Clara from IG says she is in credit card debt over to wait over twelve hundred and twenty four dollars across
¶ I have lots of credit card debt, and a big lump sum of money coming in from a freelance job. How I should I use that money to pay my debt down?
two cars. The first card has one thousand, the second has over two hundred. She says, I'm currently waiting on one thousand dollars from a job I've done recently. I've got about eight hundred dollars in my savings account, which won't even cover my monthly expenses. My question is the following.
Should I wait till I get the thousand dollars to clear the larger card because it has higher interest, or should I split that thousand dollars I'm going to get and put eight hundred on the first card and then use two hundred for the other. I have a freelance job. That's keeping me afloat. But knowing I have this much debt is unsettling during this time. Once I pay it off, I can save a lot more.
What what's her name? Clara?
So Clara, you know how like when you're in school, you do like the fire drill, and you practice, you pull like the fire. You know, they're like, okay, fire alarm. You walk out, You're like, oh, practice.
Uh, this is not a drill. I'm nodding. I'm Clara. Yes, she knows right, So this is not a drill.
The the economy's on fire, meaning that the reason why change, right, We are literally saving because the savings is the water.
The economy's on fire. So if you instead say, you know what, I'm going to use this water for, you know, to like fill my pool, then it's like, eh, no, Clara, I want you to not only keep the eight hundred dollars in your savings account, I want you to add that thousand to your savings account, because right now, Claaria, the fact that eight hundred is not enough to cover your monthly bills.
Lets me know that you don't have one month.
Worth of expenses, let alone the six months, which is what I really ideally recommend. I don't want you, especially as a freelancer. It could go either way, Claire. I want you to stack as much money as you can. The debt can wait. You know what can't groceries, You know it can't rent. I want you to have somebody stacked away because this is not a drill. Someone pulled the fire alarm because the economy is actually on fire. So don't use excess money toward paying down debt if
you don't have enough of your savings saved up. And once you have enough saving saved up, then yes, you can get you can get aggressive with debt.
Yes, love it if you've got. She doesn't mention her credit or not. You know, there's some things you could do to reduce the cost of your debt. If you have a really good credit score, you could potentially look at getting a zero percent interest balance transfer credit card just to like transfer those cards over so you're not you know, having that high interest or cruing. There's also, you know, you could ptentually look at like a debt
consolidation loan to pay off those credit cards. But I totally agree with Tiffany, And it may sound like scary, especially because you know, you think you're like, you're a law abiding citizen probably and you know you want to do the right thing, and it seemed wrong to not pay back your your creditors. But that is like the world we live in now. You've really got to put your life best on first, like Tiffany said, and put that money away and look at it not as if
you're not paying the credit debt. Look at it as if this is what's going to protect you from having to go back into credit debt in the future. And when you're on the you know you're on the right, on the border, you know, of being in real financial insecurity right now, I think I think Tiffany is totally right you should.
And you know, me and many are like, we're like, so we don't like that. So me and Mandy, you's just like, pay the debt down. But so for us to be like save that means a lot because we are both so anti debt, but not in times like this.
It's like, no, put that water toward the fire. You don't need to pull right now.
I mean, stop racking up the debt for sure, but I wouldn't you know. And also twelve hundred dollars you can pay that off with, you know, just work on your freelance and come increasing that trying to get that savings built up as fast as you can, and then you can start tackling that debt.
In the meantime.
If you've got strong credit, look into your options to park that debt, pay up those credit cards another way, and then it won't reduce it, won't you erase the debt. It'll make it more affordable for you to have the debt, and then you can pay it off slowly. Okay, let's take one last question. This one's really interesting and I can't wait to hear Tiffany's response. This comes from ig user, who goes by the name Gina. Gina says, I have
a question for Tiffany. I was reading in the New York Post where they talked about New Jersey's governor, who's Democrat, potentially raising taxes on millionaires living in the state. Do you think this is positive? How has your outlook on liberal fiscal policies changed since becoming more affluent with the success of your business. Do you believe the governor is doing the right thing. In the article, they cite that millionaires make up three percent of the population but contribute
forty percent of the taxes. Many millionaires are fleeing the state. I'm really curious to know your thoughts on the issue. Honestly fascinating.
Yeah, it is because I mean, obviously, the liberal part of me is like, well, it's only fair if you make more, I mean, you should pay more. I'm not hurting, you know, like I'm doing really well and this year I think I'll crossover for the first time. The seven figure mark is take home, not as like the business that will cross over the eight figure mark, which would push me over the seven figure mark. So but I'm not gonna lie. I just paid my taxes because you
know the extension. When I tell you I paid it on the last day of the extension, it was several hundred thousand dollars. I was like, geez and Rice, it is so because it's not just state tax, it's also federal tax. Like my tax rate right now is I think forty one percent or a little over forty percent,
which is incredibly high. So it just so I actually was just talking with my certified financial planner Angelie, my CFO Shanta, my big accountain Carlos, about what are some ways to restructure the business that maybe you know, we can what can we do to all set and so they're just giving me some ideas. But ultimately, I'm going to pay more in taxes than the average person because I make a lot of money. So I don't think
it's unfair. I mean, I think it's it is fair because preschool teacher Tiffany should not be paying a higher tax rate than business millionaire baby billionaire Tiffany.
She just shouldn't.
But I could I can see because it's I can I can see that it's only going to get better over here as far as the business is concerned. We have some things on them on the horizon that are just going to push us to the next level, which means that personally, I'll take home more.
I don't know that i'd moved from Jersey.
My whole family is here, but I honestly don't know, because that's what I literally asked Angelie.
I said, what can I do? Girl? I just paid I just wrote like a three hundred thousand I check and I don't know I need to move.
Literature headquarters to Florida, I know, and Tiffany can live.
In I know. But I think that the millionaire taxes on you personally, that's really the issue.
It's not so much to business. Business tax are actually historically low.
Right now, Well, you just get you a house in Florida.
I know.
So I mean tax evasion for the wealthy.
But I will just say that I think it's fair. But of course no one wants to pay more taxes. But I mean, ultimately I think it's fair and the increase is not significant, you know, like I'm looking at. I mean, it's significant, I guess, as you know, compoundingly so, but not so much that you know, it would cause me to flee.
So I don't know.
I mean, like I said, I think it's it's not a bad thing. It's a fair thing, but it's I mean, no one likes to pay taxes, but it's certainly something that it's a good problem to have because I'm blessed because honestly, not that many years ago, I was like what am I going to eat today?
Where am I going to find food?
So I'm not going to complain about paying taxes to make sure the state that I live in is kept up because I'm in a really blessed position.
Yeah.
Absolutely, and I think in your position. You know, That's why I think it's important we need more black millionaires, because you do you know that stat three percent of millionaires contribute forty percent of tax revenue for the state. If that's if that's true, I'm quoting her, quoting the paper. But anyway, if that's true, then I mean there's more skin in the game for millionaires. And they are often the ones who are influencing policy because they have so
much influence. They're often in places positions of power. They run big companies, They contribute to causes that are important to different states. They fund football fields and you know, fund schools and things like that, and they are the ones who have the ears of legislators. And the more black millionaires we have, the more black millionaires will have in those, you know, rooms where things happen, and be able to speak to causes that are important to them,
be able to say, hey, you want this donation. I don't know if this is the legal or not. You want this donation, maybe you should, you know, write a letter to to Kentucky's governor and ask for justice for Breonna Taylor. You know, those types of things can happen when there's more people of color with wealth. So that's
that's just that's my hot take right now. But the whole issue of you know, taxing wealthy people, I mean, there's just so many fascinating layers to it, and I think very much so if you are wealthy, you have got to care about people besides your own bottom line. You've got to care about your community. You've got to should be you should be proud to contribute to your community.
I mean, taxes pay for police, they pay for teachers, they pay for public works, they pay for you know, like today, when I went and told my Parks and rec Department to replace a broken swing at the playground near our house, that's tax dollars, you know, that are paying for that person to go out there and replace a swing set.
And you know, I think people should think about that.
There's this real sense of like individualism happening right now in the country. People cannot look past their own bottom line, and that is what's really truly, truly hurting us. And that's a very progressive point of view. And I get that, and we've all and I think This is a This is another reminder that it's not just the president who
makes calls. It's your local elected officials. You know who, who's your governor, who your state legislators who are making these calls about how your money is taxed at the state and local level that is not happening at the federal level. So you've got to be got to be an active citizen. And god, I just wish if people just people just have to they just we have got to just learn how to empathize and how to carry out people besides ourselves.
That is why, because I'm like, how much money do you need? I mean for me, I mean, it's it's nice to make money, but it's not for me. It's a tool to be able to provide security for myself,
my family, like my loved ones, you know. So I mean, like if you were to see I live super simply, like I like, Anjelie always teach tease me my financial planner, and I'm always like, oh my gosh, Anuleie like I'll see like a house on like realtor dot com, and I'm like, who's living in this three billion dollar house? How can they afford it? She's like Tifany, you can afford it. I'm like, no way, because my house was really modest, you know, like we paid one eighty for it,
we put one eighty into it, but really modest. And she's like, Tiffany one day she told me the other day, which really blew my mind.
I still can't see it.
She's like, Tiffany, I've worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people the trajectory that you're on, that you and your husband will be worth between fifty to one hundred million dollars in the next ten years.
And I was like, oh me. She was like, yes, I can't. I can't.
I still can't wrap my mind around and see it, because for me, it's never really been about the money. It's been about what how can I provide security? So much was taken from me from the last recession. I'm just glad to have a house. I'm glad to have a house that someone can't take. I'm happy that my husband, who grew up in apartments his whole life, he said he wanted to live in a house and own a house before he was forty, we were able to make
that happen. I'm happy that my bonus daughter Supergirl is able to grow up in a house. I'm happy that I have plenty of rooms, that my sister can stay with me while she's building her business, that my niece and my nephew who live down the street come over and play, and there's plenty of room. I just I don't know it's enough for me like that. I want to make more so I can do more, not necessarily so I can have more. And I know that's not common, but it's new for me having this level of money.
I grew up like.
I would say, look, I guess as a kid like poor for sure, but by the time high school maybe middle class. I guess you could say, like my parents had, you know, a nice house, but that was also new for them too.
So for us, we grew up really simply.
I didn't get the Jordans and any sort of design or anything. We paid for school out of pocket with student loans as well, And so this is more than I ever thought was possible. So I'm just grateful every step of the way. And I think to myself, well, the more that I'm able to make, the more that I'm able to serve and help. I have some philanthropy things under my belt that I can't wait to roll out soon. So yeah, I just I mean a million. I should pay more. I mean, I mean, what do
you know? What I mean, like, what who's going to pay? If not people who are wealthy, is the preschool teacher supposed to pay? That's ridiculous. So yeah, I'm not leaving Jersey anytime soon. My whole family lives here and I love living close to them now, which is so crazy because teenage Tiffany would have been like girl run, But you know, when you're grown, you realize the value of living close to your parents and your family.
I mean the preschool teacher.
Yeah, I mean if if if every like someone has like who's going to teach your children? You know you need to We need these people. If anything, the pandemic pandemic has taught us that our educators or need to be way more value than they are. But yeah, so thanks for your perspective on that. And I think I read something recently that was like money doesn't make you different, money makes you more of what you already are. And
thankfully Tiffany was already a good person. Don't forget that that's on the way up, all right, well, let's take one more quick bake and bake one more quick break and be back with our brown Boost Brown Break, and we're back. And by the way, you can get a T shirt that says be your own Brown Boost.
Oh no, I'm a mess. I should know this, but you should.
Probably go to Brian misstore dot com. Just me, Hey, get yourself some swag.
I love that that awesome like phrase look at too clever.
I don't even remember if I made that up or if a listener, I don't know, but thank y'all for if you have more ideas for T shirt logos, are saying, hit us up. Brindabishon podcast at gmail dot com. We're just I mean, I'm just making it up.
Right now, brindibishonstore dot com. I'm going right now, fabulous.
All right, Well, let me do a quick brown Boost because babe upstairs really wants me and I miss him. Oh my goodness, it's been a few hours, so brown Boost. I finally finally hired a babysitter. My neighbor's daughter has been coming as of this morning to help more like a mother's helper type thing. So and honestly, I was like, I need someone here on the days when it's just being my husband, because his mother has been coming on the days when he has to go to work in
the city. But like, listen, like guys are stupid, Like they're great, they can do a lot of things, but man, I just need someone to help him, help him so that I can work. And so far, so good. And that was a huge, huge step for me, just like mentally welcoming someone else into the house who's not a blood relative. But we've gotten to know our neighbors. That's
been a real blessing of this pandemic. It just feels like the couple of blocks, you know, around us, we've just become this really nice little community and helping each other out. And I've gotten to know my neighbors really well, and I'm excited because she's like a college student and she's interested in early childhood education and she's really good with kids and anyway, and it's helping me out and it feels good to be a working mom with a little.
Bit of help.
So brown boost for myself finally getting over the mental hurdle of asking for help and hiring some help with the baby. I'm proud of you, well, you know, what boost up yourself? I was my own brown boost. I need that shirt.
You know what.
I'm going to boost up myself too, because so the book you guys, I don't know if you guys know, but I'm writing this adult book. It's literally like adulting, the finance book you need for like your adulting life.
Right when you said adult book, I started thinking like adult movie. The tax accountants that come to my office.
No, because I've been trying to crack the code on how do regular everyday people get good with their buddy? Like you know, like how does the mechanic, the teacher, the or the engineer, the doctor, the NBA player, Like how do you get good with your money? And so for the last like three years, I've been perfecting something called financial wholeness, which is these ten steps that you should accomplish in order to get good with your money. It starts with budgeting and ends with the state planning.
But it's like, how does the twenty year old, the forty year old, the fifty year old, the sixty year old do all ten of those things? And so I finally I put it in a book, and I mean, I work hard, but I'm not gonna lie I don't know that I've ever worked this hard. Maybe once when I first started the Literature Academy or the Literature Challenge, and it almost killed me. But there are a handful of times I can't remember working this hard in this book.
It is so much work.
I don't know that I'm gonna write another one, but I'm just really excited about it. I finally submitted the final manuscript, because what happens is you kind of like write this draft and it gets edited about the editor that she sends it back to you, and then you edit it some more, and so I submitted, like it's not the final, final, final, it has to go to copy editing and some other two weeks, but it is, I would probably say a good seventy five percent of the way they are.
But it's a full manuscript.
And I could weep with joy when I tell you, Mandy, I have been working anywhere on the low end three hours a day upwards. One day I worked eight straight hours on the book, and I just it's a level of work that I just do not want to do anymore.
I'm just so I could weep the opposite of passive income. Yes it is. When they told me like this, we have a manuscript. I was like okay.
So they were like, well, we won't bother you for another couple of weeks because the copy editor is going to go over it and then you send it back to you and you know, like get whatever tweets you want to make.
But it's done.
And I'm really proud of myself because I pushed myself to the next level. Like I said, I work hard, but this was another level of work which I do not encourage because I have not I'm like, my husband's like, what do you look like? Okay, I wouldn't know because you live in your office. So I am going to spend actual time with him over the next couple of weeks.
And you're gonna need more books. No, I don't want to. I won't be as hard.
As the first one. But you're gonna do more.
I don't want any honestly, I don't.
They're addicting You're gonna do more, but it'll be fine because you get a ghostwriter.
It'll be great. No.
See, the the the self published books are easy because you know you set your own timeline.
These books that are.
Owed to the publisher, girl, they don't play with you, they're like, give me the book or I will come to your house and snatch it from your cold dead hands after strangling you. And so you get emails like that, you're like, I mean they're really nice, but it's just there. The deadlines are what are It's like, what's really overwhelming? So I just say all that to say that, like, it's done. I cannot wait for you know, it comes out next year April. I cannot wait for you guys
to read it. I think it's going to change so many lives. It is my best book to date. And I usually am part of myself because I think, like everything I do is only okay. I'm like, I give yourself a C, but for this book, I give myself a solid B plus, which is.
Like really good because I never think I do a good job. So bron Boosts. We're bron boosting up, boost up yourself again. Book book, book book.
The budget needs to publishing outfit in print needs to happen.
Yeah, no, girl, I'm tired.
You will feel it's no I'm serious. They they say it's like having a baby. When you write a book, it's like you'll forget all the pain for your next one. And you'll do it again.
We all see we go.
Well, I'm excited for you.
Congrats.
Get good with your money by tippany Alija. Yes, all right, well, thanks y'all for another fabulous week at brand Ambition. Yes, it's been awesome five years and one week anniversary.
Yes, and I like the I like the mail bag. We should do it more often mailbag m hmm.
All right, y'all, thanks so much for your questions, Thank you for listening. Don't forget to leave us a review and a star rating on iTunes. Hopefully it's five stars, but you know, up to you, up to you, and then head over to brannambitiononstore dot com and pick up your swag and get something for your friend and your mother and your husband and everybody, everybody