It's time for the b a q a a to b a q a. Woild you say the b a q eight with mandad be a q to be a qa A. Hey, manra, how you doing?
I'm doing amazing. I'm here to be a passenger princess from todays y a q a.
You know, you know every Friday we do be a q a where we answer your question. But the caveat is we're not your lawyer, your doctor, your financial advisor, which is two really cute brown internet cousins who know a thing up to about money, career, entrepreneurship and beyond. But you are going to take this advice for the entertainment value it's made for and the smallest grain of salt. And if you feel like suing someone, look in the mirror and pick yourself. Okay, all right, man, we have
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Okay, we have a question today Miss Tiffany from Tara on Instagram, who says I'm currently in over my head making less than what I owe. I'm in the corner now to where I am a pinky link away from pulling from my TSP. I currently have twenty three thousand dollars and I'm thinking of pulling ten thousand dollars to cover some debt. It's the only solution I can think of that will help. I hope to input ten percent or more back into my TSP once I am backstable.
Is this a bad decision that will hurt me in the long run?
I know, because you're just for one, Tara. I want you to just because that back against the wall feeling is really a terrible feeling.
And I can say to know very well we both do we have Girl.
You know I took all my money on my with harmit well one, I had not really heard of TSP before, And you're like, girl, know what that is? To keep tell the people what the TSP is.
Yeah, TSP thrift savings plan because my husband has one.
So if you're a federal employee, you have a thrift savings plan which is your basically it's a four oh one K. So you choose what your investments are and then how much of your paycheck gets deposited into the TSP, and if you're lucky, you get some kind of I think the pension is also kind of run through there, like the potential pension that you can get paid out later, but it operates very closely to like a four to one K. And I remember back when we were renovating
the house, my husband did do a loan. I'm wondering if she's talking about a loan or withdrawal, okay, because those are different and the implications for the impact to you are different. Yes, So where to begin?
So I'll certificate, like one, ideally, taking money out of your any sort of retirement plan is not the idea. You know only because it is your younger self job to look after your older self, and God willing, we all get older and you want to make sure that your older self has access to income because it's not likely that you'd be able to support yourself, So you're kind of like supporting yourself for yourself now, but also
for yourself older. So all that said, I'm not judging because child, when the rubber hit the road, your girl went to her four H three B. That's the four to one K for anybody who works for like nonprofits and stuff. I went straight. I had thirty thousand dollars in there. I took every stitch out, you know, because that's why I thought my back was against the wall. So I'm telling you from a place of been there, done that, kind of wish I hadn't, but I didn't
feel like I had a choice. So one, I want to make sure that, Like doctor Green, my therapist would say, is it true? Is it the only truth available? So let's explore is it true? Is it true that, yes, your back is kind of against the wall, you're struggling financially. It's sounds like, I mean, who would know better this is true? Is it the only truth available? Is taking money out of this TSP the only way? Maybe not?
I would ask to yourself, like have you look in I don't know if you have a mortgage or rent Like one of my sisters was just telling me about this rental assistant program that she had signed up for in not me telling her business or whatever we're here now, that she had signed up for during the pandemic, and they hit her back and said, girl, you want us to make your rent for the next two or three months.
She was like, I mean, if you want. So there was like, you know and so that program because you know, so many people were out of work because of COVID and she was one of them. So there are have you explored rental or mortgage assistance programs. There's a great organization called not Knack Up? Oh? What is it called the NFC let me, don't give me the lion.
N fcn FCC.
Yes, CC dot org g. It's a nonprofit that helps with I think it's like the National Foundation of Credit Counseling and so they are a national foundation, Yeah, credit counseling. What I like about it is that you can get connected with a credit counselor. That's probably my best bet, best bet certified. They have over twelve hundred certified credit counselors. They served thirty five million people since two thousand and six. They're trusted and their nonprofit and they will find someone
in your area. And I believe counseling is on a sliding scale, meaning you could pay as little as zero dollars and upwards. They just have a bunch of partners and resources. So I would reach there for someone to kind of look at my finances to say are there other ways? Have you reached out to your creditors to say, hey, I'm having a hard time. Is there a way to lower my monthly expenses? Here? And then, last, but not least, there is a great website called find help. I just
found it. Wow, that's fine, I just found it. It's called findhelp dot dot org. So you can find free or reduced cost resources like food, housing, financial assistance, healthcare, and more. If you go to find help dot org, you put in your zip code and it will literally help you to find whatever assistance that you might need. So I would exhaust those things first, because even if you take the money out and you put it in
there is right now the market is on fire. I don't know how you have your money invested this year. The market is on fire. You're going to miss out on that growth that your older self might need later. So I would start with the NFCC dot org to get a credit counselor to look at my finances to see what I can do. They will help walk you through, like you know, talking to debt collectors and things like that.
And if you're really in dire strates as far as like yourself personally, I would go to find help dot org to see what other assistance is available to me. And if your back is super duper duper against the wall, then yes, you have the option to take the money out of your retirement account. I just want that to be the last option because it's not the only truth available just yet.
I want to add also, that's about half of your you know your balance right now, ten thousand of twenty three thousand. And if it's a traditional I keep wanting to say four to one k. But if it's traditional versus a ROTH, then you'll have to pay taxes on what you withdraw. So the ten thousand dollars could end up being like seven eight I don't know how much, like what your tax rate would be, which means you have to take more than that to cover your taxes.
So if you want ten thousand dollars, you have to like think ahead to how much do I need to withdraw so that after taxes I have that ten thousand dollars. And if that ten thousand dollars is not going to like wipe your slate clean, I would definitely say, like just continue, like try to find some options like talk to like get a credit counselor get with a credit counselor the NFCC is a great bet. But look at some ways that you can manage your debt so it's
a little bit more manageable. Whether it's consolidation, if it's credit card, we don't know anything about the types of debt that you have. If it's a credit card debt, maybe you can qualify for a balanced transfer to get yourself some wiggle room. And then from there it's like, okay, so what additional sources of income can we add if there's any like if there's any potential for more, whether it's at work or like additional income from outside of work.
But I get it, like when you're when your head is on fire, you just need a bucket of water. You don't have time to think about the what ifs and all that. And it's so difficult in a situation like that because it's just it's like a ringing in your ears. It's so loud, and it's hard to see what the options are.
Somebody, do you think she should work with? Somebody meaning like tell like a bestie, a sister, a cousin, because sometimes when they can help to see to your point, Mandy, we said, your head is on fire, it's like what do I do? What I do? And it's like your best friend, I could see, well, it's actually not your head. It's just a little part of your hair, and I can help extinguish it alongside of you. Even that they should connect with someone to maybe walk through this process with them.
Yeah, someone that you trust and someone that you're saying, Hey, I'm not asking you to fix this for me, but I'm just asking for you to help me look at this even a therapist. Therapists don't are not obviously they're not a financial planner, but there are times in my therapy sessions where she's like, what are you worried about? Okay, so read me the numbers and I just read them and just kind of like saying it out loud can help.
But that can be Yeah, like you said, a sister or a friend, a neighbor, whoever you feel is trustworthy and just saying it out loud, and I mean maybe even writing this question was a bit therapeutic for you. But if you can avoid if I would say, like, it's only worth it. I mean at the end of the day, will it will you die?
No?
Will you have a chance to put more into your TSP? Yes, I don't know how old you are, how much time you have, but it's not the end of the world. But if you don't get to the heart of like how you've gotten into this situation and if you're not able to wipe out like everything with that ten K
that you're going to withdraw, like is it worth? The cost benefit for me is a little off because there's just the potential that it's not going to get you out of the hole and you're just going to end up in the hole again, like in another It'll buy you some time, but it won't actually get to the root of helping you.
The rip got to get to the rip. So, Mandy, have you ever gone to find help? It's like really awesome. So I'm in here now. I put in my zip code it says in Newark, New Jersey. There are two thousand, eight hundred and thirty two programs. And the programs are broken down by food, housing, goods, transit, health, money care, education, work, and legal. And it's amazing. And then when you kind of like hover over, it's like you need help paying
for school. You need preschool help. You need screening and exams. You need skills and training. I'm legal. You need medication, representation and interpretation. You need adoption post adoption girl for adoption and foster care loan. There are thirteen resources here. This is a really amazing free site. Find help out this. Yeah, like type in like your's IT code, that's what comes up at corporation.
It's like, really already I'm here at two thousand and something. Yeah, clothes for work, retirement benefits, yeah, benefits.
Close for work. I mean, people don't realize what all the resource that are out there. Help pay for food, you need meals, nutrition education is on here and new like help pay for bus passes? Wow, help pay for a car, He'll pay for gas?
Yeah, oh hell yeah.
Yeah. There's just they have a sober Living thing, substance abuse counseling, drug testing, detox And what I love is they'll tell you how many like resources. So for drug testing, there's seven resources for outpatient treatment, there's forty nine money. Help pay for childcare? There teen resources. Help pay for food. They're twenty three in Newark. This is just Newark Financial aid and loans twenty nine resources supplies for school too, So this is pretty amazing.
And so yeah, I've never heard of that.
Yeah, I already know who taught me. Instagram taught me. This is this guy that I followed. He I heard get his name, but he posts like all these kind of places where you could find free resources. And I was like, oh, fine, help, let me put that in my back pocket, because it's just a you know, you don't have to be in dire straits, you might just want help. And what an awesome like organizational tool for wherever you live. And so there are just so many
resources out there. That's why I said, like, you know, like so candidly, I had a hard time moving and so like if you're looking at my background, this is the first time I'm taping in like my office at my at the condo, and I had a really hard time. Even though my stuff was here, I was still sleeping like on the couch because my bed was here, and and like my house, you know, where I was living. I just could figure out why. And you know, doctor Green reminded me of Tiffany. This is not oh I
have a new condo. I just I just moved out of my parents' house. Isn't it so exciting. She's like, you're not moving as a result of that, you don't have to pretend like you should be so happy that you're leaving this house that you built with Jarell. And she said, why don't you ask a friend if they
could stay over with you? And I kind of felt like, I'm not a baby, you know, like I'm grown like girl, and she was like that, sometimes we need additional assistants, you know, sometimes we need like someone to like stand in the gap for us. And so my sister Lisa, you know, came. Yesterday was the first Yesterday day before Yesterday was the first day I spent the night here. And it made all the difference to have someone here, because if I was here, honest I was looking around.
I said, if I was here by myself, I'd be like, eh, I'm going back home. I'm going back home and go to sleep on a couch because it just felt like all too much. But having Lisa here was like having a piece of home here in the house with me. You know, Lisa is the baby going to stay with me for a couple of weeks. And so I kind of get like, you know, feeling not so It's not the living alone park, because I've lived alone many times.
It's just more so like the transition that I need help with, and so we all need help, you know, and asking someone to stand in the gap with you sometimes just to witness and bear witness. They don't need to solve it, they don't need to whatever, sometimes just to hear the numbers, to open that piece of mail, you know, to sit with you. And so I just wanted to get in the habit of asking for help.
And I love that this site is here. Maybe you ask one of your girlfriends, can you look at the site with me, you know, and like, look at what resources are available? Can you sit with me when I talk to the credit counselor you know, whatever that is. I just hope that you guys have at least one person in your life that you can reach out to to say, like, I don't want to go through this by myself, because we're not meant to We're really not.
Meant to receive that. It may take you a minute to like let the what she's saying, what you're saying to you, like sink in for the listen, But yeah, it's a it's a much needed reminder and something that I need to remind myself of we all do all the time. Thank you.
Before we jump off, I wanted to do something fun. What if like I would love to like read some listener confessions about some of the crazy money choices or business choices they made totally anonymous. I would love that, you know, like a new little segment, you know, like to maybe like test out like just whatever your your your b A confessions. It could be like I stole toilet toilet tissue, I worked for three years. We're not
gonna read your name. We're not gonna you know, or like child, you know, it could be something serious where my husband does not know, you know, I ran up the credit card bill at Vegas, or yes, I want we want, I want the tea. Maybe we should call it b A T so financial t you know, so I would just I don't know. I saw someone had posted something on like ID where they were reading excepting I said, you know what, I would love that because to your poor Mandy, sometimes just saying the thing out.
Loud is like yeah, so honestly send us d m us.
We'll never read your name, you know, no, and obviously you don't want to be like on Tuesday on First Street in Georgia on dinner. Like, if we want you to keep it bag, just send us some of your te that you need to get off your chest and we will read it. And we won't We're not gonna offer advice. We're just here to read it and key key with you. Like I know you did not steal total the tissue from your job for three years girl,
how much you say you know? Like, so send us some dat so we can all key key and giggle and help you release. Okay, you know. Sliding our DMS go to brannabis and podcast dot com click contact us sliding our DMS on ig. Like I said, we will never ever ever share your name or anything. And if it is just say, this is b A T. This is not like A We ask you to send us questions, but this is just T. We're going to read it.
We're not giving advice. We're just going to read and maybe have a little common or two, a little side I little, a little giggle, but we're not here. We're not giving advice for B A T. It's just some fun to add, you know.
Yeah, I love that. Like we're like a like a priest.
Yes, we'll have to figure out good name. Maybe it's B a T or B A confession. I don't know, we're gonna figure out what we're gonna call it.
But okay, someone's gotta be in charge of remembering that you just said this, because.
You're in between the two of us. It's already forgotten.
Between two of Somebody write it down.
I would be like, why don't we have all these things in the DM.
Oh, that's right, these are our confessions. Okay, yeah, we'll try. We'll see if you guys never hear about it again, then you know, maybe time. It's truly up to y'all. If you d ms, we'll remember, okay, when y'all had said.
What the hell are these? Oh?
Yeah, it's up to y'all.
Do you want this to happen or now?
All right, y'allky Sam, don't forget to leave us a review, tele a friend to tell a friend, share the show, and we'll see y'all next time. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, three times a week. Bye bye,