Day. Hey, Hey, it feels weird taping on a different day.
How are yah? Yeah, I'm not a fan.
Oh by the way, Hi, I'm Tiffany.
Except y'all Mandy, and.
This is around ambition. Yeah, I don't feel like weird. I'm like, wait, it's not Tuesday. What's happening?
This is my I've been doing. My Sundays have been my I get my writing done day. It's the only day of the week when I can actually do anything. But today I was all messed up. I had back to back bridal showers this weekend. Really, yeah tis the season. Yeah, they just happened to be on the on the same weekend. So one yesterday in Brooklyn and one today. It's a lot of fun. But I did overdid it on the sham pain just a little bit, just a little bit.
I can't even I can't even overdo even like a sick. My body is so I don't drink at all so I can smell alcohol and be on the floor.
I just love a nice bubbly on a Sunday, okay, with a little little poached egg.
It was quite nice.
I came for my my my niece's first birthday and my dad was like, no alcohol beverages. I'm like, Daddy, it's a one year birthday party.
Listen, I've been to some lit one year old birthday party, so some some parents know how to party. There was there was there a bounty castle. What was the I feel like birthday parties are so wild.
She had it at our We have a zoo, a cute little zoo called Turtle Black Zoo, and like everything was animal themed, and then afterwards we took a little tour of the zoo.
Soo knewer, couldn't know that.
No, well, no, it's actually West Orange, which is like maybe like two towns over.
Okay, yeah, but it's really cute.
And I was like, oh, this is a cute little I mean, of course she cared nothing for it because you know, she's one, but yeah, yeah, it was. It was fun because I was like, oh, this is nice because sometimes people go really really super big for first birthdays. And I feel like, I mean, who knows when I have a baby, if like what I'm gonna do, But I feel like I'm gonna be like come to the house. We're cutting cake and there'll be some pizza.
It's a lot of pressure. It's not just like the financial like that it costs a lot of money to just throw a party. But then I've been to a first birthday party that felt more like a wet bridle shower where there were like.
Centerpieces and buffet and open bar.
And I've been to and then there's the ones where it's not just the party itself, but you have to they have first birthday photo.
Shoots now where no they don't. Yeah, no you haven't seen these.
I must have like half a dozen cards that I get in the mail from first birthday photo shoots.
Yeah.
You like you pay a photographer and you go to a studio and you put them in a ridiculous outfit and then they there's like the cake smash video where you actually like prepare it, like the photographer includes a cake in it and it's just photos of the baby like smashing the cake apart, and then just like sometimes crying or whatever. Yeah, it's the first like how does how much does this cost?
Dang?
Like my dad would just take some pictures on his camera, you know at the most, well.
Your dad, your dad's also a really good.
Time so okay, you know he had a nice camera, But I mean it's just it's and you know, it's you know, if that's your thing, that's totally fine, that's how you want to capture your child's But it just feels like everyone's doing it now and more like, you know, once that becomes the trend, then like you don't want to be that one. I guess it's like that pressure, that social pressure to have that fantastic first birthday cake, smash photo and all that names.
We'll just call her fancy girl. But one of my friends, when her son turned one, she had like a logo maid and it was like monograms on his cupcakes. It was now She's like, yeah, I might have one over now he's three now, but she's this is is this a logo? It was it's his first, middle and last initial. It was team two damn much. I was like, girl,
She's like, I look back at it now. Meanwhile, like he just turned three and like literally she's like, come to the house with cutting cake and there'll be some pizza. She's like, I've learned, I'll be on that point right now, which I thought was hilarious. But yes, a logo a logo.
It's hard enough keeping a tiny human alive. All the other extra stuff and like and then I mean, I don't know, I don't know if I'm ready for this, the whole like culture of mommyhood parenthood these days. You know, the playdates and you know, you get invited to their party, then you gotta invite them to your party and oh,
it's like keeping up with the parent Jones is. Yeah, I got a couple We got a question from someone actually who are not It wasn't even any question, it was just a response to you know, last week we had Ontasha Danielle who talked about her debt freedom story, you know, debt free by age thirty. She paid off eighty thousand dollars in debt, and one woman had written in and said that, you know, if you're a single parent is even harder and that you know, she feels
like a lot of which doesn't. I mean, I think there are some really good debt stories of families who got in out of debt. She she was just mentioning how she felt frustrated because she felt like a lot of advice was geared toward or a lot of success stories were also people who you know didn't have kids or you know, you know, earned a decent earned a decent income, and she was like, I don't feel like my situations represented.
We don't who know who talks about that though, Emma, I think Emma Johnson. She actually has a brand called Wealthy Single Mommy, where she she kind of like that's her, that's her things, Like, you're right that that's not typically represented, and she was like, no, like I was a single mom. I believe Emma has two kids and got a divorce and you know, just struggled financially and figured you know,
figured it out, you know, the hard way. And then since then she's like, I'm going to come back for all my single mom's sisters, and so you might want to look into that, because you're right, you know that that's often that's not often the story the success story that you hear, but they're out there, you know. Wealthy Single Mommy definitely. And she's dope, and she's irreverent and
she's hilarious. She actually has a book, but yeah, she's hilarious and she cuts and busses and I think she's just she's like super a super fun, off the cuff financial expert.
Yeah.
Her book is called The kick Ass Single Mommy. No, yeah, kick ass single mom. I think that's what the book is called. But there we had also on maybe we should do this, we should run this episode again. We had Aja McClanahan on the show a year or two ago. She was from Chicago and her and her husband have two young girls, and they had paid off an enormous amount of debt. I think it was, I don't know it was. It was tens of thousands of dollars of debt while you know, purchasing a house and all that
kind of stuff. So the stories are out there. But I see what you're saying with peel you. I was raised by a single mom. I know the struggle. Keep hanging in there. It's it's if it's hard enough on your own, obviously, it's a lot harder when you have a tiny human who doesn't care about your budget. Yeah, to take care of definitely. But thanks you for thanks for your email.
You know who inspired me a lot. So Kevin Matthews the second. He's one of our financial friends. He's a brown brown is like, we have a group of financial we have a group of financial folks. We have a Facebook group of financial folks, and we collectively kind of get together and talk about how we can serve our community better as it relates to financial education. And we call ourselves the Browns because everybody in the group is
some level of brown, like you know. And so he just had a baby, and literally, while his wife is upstairs in labor, he comes downstairs to do a quick video and says, Hey, my son's being born at this very moment, and I have decided that I want to make sure that by the time he retires, he will be a millionaire. And here's how I'm going to do it. I was like, ooh, tune in, and he had a wait.
While his wife's in labor upstairs. I mean, listen, I know, Kevin Cousin could be with your wife. We know you.
We know you didn't just decide labor.
So she hadn't quite starved, but she was at the hospital ready to get it.
Still, I would snack that phone out of his hand. It's nice, though, nice feeling, nice, nice thought.
In the room with her. But he had some really great advice. And his advice he showed this chart that I've seen before. I think we If you ever spoken to a financial advisor, they almost always show you the chart, which is it's a It's a chart that kind of shows the power of compounding interest where if you start investing early versus later, versus later versus later, how much you have to save. So here's how the chart works.
If so, this is what Kevin's doing, Like on average, the market does about eight percent you know, over I
don't know a thirty year span. So he said, if he sets aside starting now at birth, two thousand dollars a year for his son, So that's about one hundred something dollars a month, two thousand dollars a year for a son, he could literally stop contributing to that custodial account at age ten, he said, between ten and fifteen, and then by the time his son was ready to retire, that money will have grown too, about a little over
a million dollars. And I was like, what he just did a really quick It wasn't like some super in
depth lesson, but he was showing the chart. And I remember seeing that chart when I was twenty something and a financial advisor was trying to show me, like, if you start putting aside two thousand dollars a year now, the difference between if I waited five years or waited ten years that you actually have to put aside much more money longer in order to reach the same the same goal of a million dollars by the time you're
sixty five. That if you start when your child is like literally an infant, you don't have to put as much and you don't have to put as much for its long So I just thought that, you know, aside from the fact that he probably should have been upstairs, I just thought, like, you know what, it's just great that there are parents out there who are starting to think about that early. That if I can put aside some money now, then I can set up my child's
teacher and start building generational wealth. And you know it just things like know, a lot of people don't even know that there's something called the custodial account. I know parents like a Sandy from Yes I Am Cheap and Dominique Brown, who is another financial expert, they they actually have roth iras for their kids. And the way they do it because they both are entrepreneurs, so they quote unquote hire their kids and then their kids don't get
the income. Instead, their income goes into a retirement account that gets to grow tax deferred. No, well, yeah, it gets to grow now not even tax deferred, tax free, because the taxes are preyed beforehand. That's what a roth ira is. And it's just I love seeing parents really figuring out the system so that way their kids don't have to struggle financially.
Yeah, and there's there's five to nine plans, which with the tax reform, one of the benefits of that is that now you can use it for It's sad because in some in some in some cities it's like New York City, like public schools are difficult to get into, and then even then might could still cause tuition or money or whatever. But now with the tax reform, you can use your five two nine plan, which used to be just for college expenses, and actually use it for K through twelve expenses too.
So it's like, yep, yep, you can.
I think it's up to ten thousand or I forget now ten it's ten thousand dollars a year.
I think you.
Could put toward K through twelve tuition and fees. Although I still think it's crazy to pay for, you know, for school for your kid. But it's just a little Georgia me who just went to the school down street.
Yeah, exactly. I'm like, yeah, and I'm like maybe I'll feel definitely when I have kids.
But I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure.
You know, sure, man, What else happened this week?
The Fed? Oh, the Fed.
You guys probably read this headline, and if you're like me, it took you several years before you finally were like, what does that mean?
Excuse me?
The Fed, the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate this quarter, and they're planning on raising it every quarter this year.
That's what's predicted.
And I just thought, I thought that's worth mentioning, especially as you know, we were when we were buying our getting our house, getting that process underway, we were trying to get a mortgage, we were getting like, you know, pre approved for mortgages and comparing rates and stuff, and in the back of my mind, you know, I'm thinking, man, mortgage rates are going up, like not just day by day,
but hour by hour right now. And that was a big reason why I you know, it was it was a little bit of a nudge just to like, go ahead, lock in your mortgage rate now because rates are getting higher. And sure enough, the FED raised the Federal funds rate, and this is the baseline target interest rate that the
FED sets. So like if your if your you know, your credit card, for example, is tied to the federal funds rate, when the federal funds rate goes up, your credit card rate's probably going to go up a little bit. Mortgage rates also go up. Those are the negative things, so basically the cost of borrowing gets more expensive. On
the plus side, savings rates go up. So you may have noticed if you have like like me, I have that Ally and Capital one three sixty Marcus, all these online credit sorry online savings accounts over the last several months have been inching their rates up. It feels like once a month or something, just you'll get a little bit of a bump up. And that's also because the federal funds rate is getting higher, so they have their sort of passing on that higher rate return to customers,
which is a plus side. So there's like pros and cons to it, but it's just something to think about, especially if you're you know, you're thinking about getting a mortgage, if you're ready to get a home and you're looking for a mortgage, you know, it's just a little bit more of a reason to to to maybe to start comparing rates now before they go up even higher, because that is certainly where they are headed.
I'm just, yeah, they are Hey, I think that. Sometimes I'm like, oh, like, just how do people have? Like how does somebody get ahead? I just know so many people who are struggling financially. It's almost like you know that person that's like, but I am exercising and I am eating better and I'm not losing weight, you know, And I feel like that would find nasus zero Pepe.
There's so many people who I know they're like, but I do work, and I don't have cable, and I don't get my hair and I don't go out, and I say, you know, and it's like, but I'm still struggling. And it's hard because it's true that you can do all the right things and still have a hard time.
You know, absolutely, there's so many things that are there's so many circumstances in your life that aren't necessarily in your control that will that will you know that will and manifest themselves themselves in your life later as an adult, when you're earning things that you do, like where you live, who your parents are, what their socioeconomic status was, man, there was this there was this really amazing, amazing slash sad New York Times infographic.
I think it was up last week.
And you can see you can see basically was it was a It was a comparison of African American men and women, but mostly specifically men who grew up in a higher income household versus white men who grew up in a higher income household. And you saw the infographic, the dots representing both black and white men in higher
income households. You saw them move across the screen, and then you saw the black men dropping down, because that's the trend, like, even if black men are born into a higher income household, they're more likely to drop off until lower, like more likely to become poor later in life. And women there was no women, sorry, African American women versus versus white women in higher income households or wasn't much You didn't.
See that major drop off?
Yeah, just I mean, it's just one more reminder that, you know, it's hard to put your finger on what it is, but to me, that's just more proof that to be an African American men in this country, you're just born with a disadvantage.
It is.
It's sad and true, but you can't look at someone and just say, oh, you know, you can't look at someone who's struggling and just be like, oh, you must have done something wrong. You know, it's your fault. Yep, you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Yeah, in some cases that's true. But in a lot of cases, you know, it's just not sorry for being brown, like sorry for being black, sorry for being a man in this country.
Really, what I remember, it was never more poignant to me than when I started teaching in Newark, because I mean all my life i'd gone so like, you know, for the most part, I mean when we were really little, you know, we were probably like poverty level, but you know, I would say lower middle class and then middle class eventually and so and you know, I didn't realize just how how little resources other communities had until like I went from Westfield and that's where I mostly grew up,
and I started teaching in Newark, and I was just like, wait, like the three and four year olds, I remember being like, how do you function in this dysfunction? Like just walking down the street was like, I mean I would walk down the street and like my uniform was a nursing uniform, like where you had to wear scrubs because you're playing preschoolers. They wanted to do not to worry about your clothes.
So I'd walked down the street like during my lunch break in my scrubs, and men would proposition me and assume I was a prostitute in my scrubs and I'm like, wait what because where I work was the area was really just not a good area and just hearing gunshots and having to run inside with the kids. And I remember us playing at the park and one little boy said, miss Tiffany, Miss Tiffany, I got poked. And I was like, oh, oh, that's okay, you want to catchen boo boo. He said no, no,
I got poked by a needle. And I looked at him, like wait. My heart started racing. I'm like, well, maybe he doesn't know, maybe it's a stick. And then I remember his mom worked at the clinic, and like he just might know what it I need to look like.
And so he pulled me over and I looked at his little finger and the little spot of blood that came up was like a perfect circle that wasn't a scrape or a scratch, and sure enough he showed me that there's this needle on the ground, that this is where at night at the park, this is where folks shot up and someone had left their needle and this little boy got poked. I I wanted to like, I didn't even know what to do. We raced him back
to the school, called his mother, called the emergency. I didn't know what to do, so for like, I don't I mean, I don't know. I you know, he got tested right away, but he has to get tested for the next or he had to get tested for the next couple of years out of his life. But can you imagine, like you can't tell me that that's a fair start, you know, And so it's just it was too much. After ten years, I was like, okay, I can't do this, you know. It was like a total
on my spirit. But I had a choice not to be there anymore. And a lot of these kids don't have these choices not to be there. A lot of their parents don't have the choice not to be there. And from that that that economic disadvantage starts there. And how do you dig your way out, especially if the tools and resources are kept from you.
So's it's like the it's that instinct as a parent. You know, my mother moved us out of a bad neighborhood. You know, A big reason my parents got divorced was this tug of war between where we were going to grow up and my dad wanted us to keep as close to family, close to where he grew up and not the greatest areas. There's a lot of crime and poverty. And my mom was like, I don't you know, she didn't want that for us. We ended up moving to the suburbs, you know, and and good schools and all that.
But that that like desire to get out and find better opportunities for your kids elsewhere. I mean, it was not as extreme, obviously, we were not. We moved half an hour away and had a better life. We already live in this country and we could do that. But you have so many like these immigrants who are trying to come into America just because they just want to reach for something better, because you know, they they they they have it's not there by by no fault of
their own. They're in an environment that's not you know, conducive to success or health or good livelihood and it's I feel like it's just everyone should it's you know, it's idealistic, but everyone should have that should have that opportunity. And the sad truth is that is that they don't.
And I guess, you know, for someone who's thinking, you know, what can I do, it's you know, reach out in your own community and maybe reach out to someone who you know is struggling and be that helping him and for them.
Life the upside downs, the ins and out. Speaking of the ying and the yang, are you ready to brown break and brown boost?
Sure? I can boost the brown booze dead break.
I've actually gone to break. It's kind of lighthearted, but I did an IG story on it, and I think I've been extended here. So a friend of mine, i'll call her Georgia, she hit me up. She said, I thought you would get a giggle out of this message somebody sent me. So Georgia has a Facebook group for women, and I won't say specifically what, just in case like the person who did this to her listening, But I don't know, let's just say it's for facials or whatever.
And so Georgia posts, Hey, you know everybody's wanting more facials here's an app that I use that helps me save money, so I can so you guys can save and get more facial So the app is a referral link, because it's like there's like like apps like for example, like digit that I really like. They also sometimes offer a referral link. Well, they'll give you like five bucks
for every person that signs up from your link. Like again, this is Georgia's group, Georgia's business, not just the Facebook group, it's her business. So somebody in her group also posts their referral links and a few of them, and then she, being nice, hits the woman behind the scenes and says, hey, you know you can't post your referral link, you know, so I just want to let you know. And the woman said, oh, well, if I have to delete mine,
you should delete yours. Meanwhile, George's business Georgia's group, and Georgia says, mm, well what makes you say that? She was like, well, how come you can make money but I can't. She's like, well, we use the we use the money from the from the referrals to do the giveaways like when you guys win, Because Georgia does giveaways like when you guys win free money or or prizes
or whatever. That's where we get the money from. And the woman the you know, the group person who's like, oh, so as long as you're not benefiting personally, So ma'am, what was your intention? Can you imagine? So she first of all, I told Georgia you you you're too nice to me, because I mean, and maybe I was like that before too, But like what I guesse, she said, great, glad to hear you'll be using any personal game from
those referrals to go toward events and give away. Georgia can use that money to literally wipe the bottom of her shoe. It's her business. Do you ask the owner of McDonald's so when you sell these burgers, like, where's the money going? Oh? Okay? Well you know, because I don't. I would hate for you to benefit like you. It's my brown break is please stop going in other people's
businesses and try to reap where you do. Not so I just don't understand, like why that's such a huge concept, because there used to be women who used to literally fight me in the group and say, I don't understand why you you won't let so only you can make money here and I'm like, well, one, this group doesn't make me any money. Like this group, it costs I
pay people to run this group. And I was using my referral link money for that too, to like, just to like, and it wouldn't even cover most of the time, you know, especially when I first started. But it was just enough so I can pay some folks to be in here regularly, so that way I could keep the group open because I just couldn't manage it on my own. But even if I was using the referral money for something more, it's part of my overall business. Or people
not allowed to make money in business. It's like if you wouldn't go to McDonald's and set up your barbecue in the parking lot and say, well, McDonald's, you know what, it's smart to set up my barbecue here because one McDonald's has done the work and like building the space. Two McDonald's has clearly scoped out this location and knows that there's a lot of high traffic. You know, McDonald's people are already coming in for food, so it's a perfect location to take from where somebody has put the
work in. You would never do that, but you would do that to a small business one McDonalds wouldn't let you too. You would never dream of doing that, Like, and I don't know why people think that they can park in other people's small businesses and then reap the money. I know, girl, that this is a great place for you to upsell your credit, Like I know. I mean, I've built this brand like blood, sweat, tears, money, time, energy.
I just don't like. It blows my mind where people are literally upset that you won't let them solicit in your group. And I'm like, when you have literally your own Facebook page where you could post whatever you want, you don't have to post it, like see that old Tiffany used to feel really bad and try to explain myself. Now my block game is strong. Some of y'all in my inbox right now, like tivity, can I come back? I don't read it. I don't, I don't, I don't
look at my other inbox. So once you're blocked, like I don't know, girl, dead to me, like because you know better. When groups first came out, I could understand the confusion. But groups are old now, and you know it's like everyone literally has the same rule positivity in the group and don't solicit. Everyone has that rule unless it's a group specifically for like sharing, like your specific business.
And if you don't adhere to that, you know, like you know, maybe you're run into a nicer group member who will just mute you or just like give you a warning. I don't give warnings. I'm black. I'm like, oh oh you want to okay, oh oh ay black. Because the rules are posted every hour on the hour they're scheduled. Everybody's always like, we're all just black folks because we're all grown. Now we don't know and now you know.
If you don't know, now you know.
Now you know what about you? Are you going to boost a break?
I have to do a boost.
I have to acknowledge the March for Our Lives that's happening against gun violence all over the country today, yesterday and today. There's been protests, like organized protests all over the country to stop gun violence. And of course it was all incited by the Parkland shooting at Marjorie Stoneman High School or sorry Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School a
couple back in Valentine's Day in February. But just to see the kids' children, I mean, it's it's pretty it's sad, but it's also so uplifting to see these small humans who are so smart and so so what's the word when you can speak really well articulate? Thank you something that I'm not right now, I'm not articulate. There's one
little girl everyone was really touched by. You know. One of the things that came up after the Parkland shooting was, you know, the children, the teenagers who became sort of the face of that shooting just happened to be I think there was Emma Gonzales. I think it is Latina, but largely white. It's largely white high school, and there was a lot of people who, you know, a debate sort of opened up, you know that had this been a black high school, would it have a majority minority
high school, would it have been as much attention. Would
all these celebrities have been donating, you know. Obviously Black Lives Matter has been happening, you know for years now, been you know, trying to raise awareness about violence against African Americans, and then at this march there were some pretty noteworthy young long, young black kid black girl magic that was happening, and I think it was smart on the organizer's part to not to sort of make right I think this lack of conversation around gun violence and
violence against African Americans as well. So they had Martin Luther King's Martin Luther King the third, his granddaughter spoke and she's like nine years old.
And then there was a.
Little girl whose speech already went viral, a very short speech but very powerful.
I don't know who this girl is, she's magic.
Naomi Wadler, Yeah, gave a speech and basically saying that she read off the names of some African American girls, women who had been shot and murdered and said, you know, I'm here to represent these names, these voices of these people who haven't been heard or spoken about as much during all this conversation we've been having. And it was beautiful. You know, she had a huge standing ovation. So of
course my celebrity crushed. Limen wil MORENDA was out there, you know, he was performing, and it's it feels like we're living in this like the nineteen sixties and seventies all over again, all this these marches and these protests every day. But it's it's heartening to me to see, Yeah, the young people really leading the charge, and I think that they're making progress where a lot of the grown ups obviously haven't.
So yeah, I love that. Did you see those gel with the young man said he's like his speech was basically like no more. He was like, Yo, we're voting, so like many of us are voting in twenty eighteen. If you think that, you know that we're going to allow us to continue to think again.
That's beautiful.
I mean that's the fear, right, that's the fear that these people will be mobilized and organized. They've that's what they've always feared. The status quo is people in this status quol. The GOP is the youth, you know, because they know that their generation is dying out and you know, the minorities are gonna out number everybody by what twenty forty two, that's the estimated year it's happening. It's coming, and these kids are on the face of it now, and that's that's awesome.
Exactly, boost to them, exactly. Oh that was a good see. That was i' glad you went after me. Nice little boostems to my.
Ranting to keep it balanced.
Do we have a good question, yes, ma'am And you guys, if you want to send us a question, you know you can go to brand Ambition podcast dot com drop us a note there I have to ask us anything tab You can also email us at brand Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com to get in touch and thanks so much.
I found a couple of good questions.
Let's se if you need to do a couple this week, let's do two anonymous ones a mysterious. This question is from Anonymous number one. Anonymous number one says, I recently found out that surprise, I'm pregnant. My husband and I just bought a home in the Bay Area, which was no small mortgage, I imagine so, but we are otherwise very financially secure in our mid thirties. We have good salaries and careers, no credit card debt, a little bit of student loan debt, no car debt. But a baby
was never part of our life or financial plans. However, since we're taking a sharp left turn in doing this, I need some help. What are the top things I should be doing to say for this kid starting now?
Oh?
Well, are you doing any spec Well, we just talked about Kevin Matthews.
Yeah, opening up, Uh, you can start saving like, well, he in order to have a custodial account your actually you have to have a Social Security number.
So he's okay.
You know, honestly, I would like, I'm gonna pull myself out because I'm like, I don't have kids, but I would do what I would normally do with any major change that's going to affect my finances. I would start living at the new rate now, So I might You might want to ask any friends of yours that have, you know, that just had babies, like babies that are under one years old, and to kind of get a gauge of like what the cost kind of looks like month a month on average, and start setting that aside.
So if they tell you, well, honestly, girl, I spend two thousand dollars a month on my baby. That's just how much it costs. That's what I'm been spending, then I would start setting aside two thousand plus a month because you're gonna have to spend it, you know, when the baby comes. So get used to living at that level now, and then you'll have a nice little, nice little, you know, bucket of savings. That's probably my best advice.
Yeah, I've I've talked to financial planners about this question secretly. So I am a I'm a planner.
Header No, I.
Don't have a kid, but I, like you also think what can I do now so that I'm ready by the time I have a kid, I'll have some savings, YadA YadA. I mean I was saving from my wedding and like five years before I had a wedding, just because you know, and saving for a down payment years like those things. It's great. The fact that you're even looking ahead is a big difference. There's people who can look ahead and plan ahead and there's people who live
in the present. And it really it's you've already sort of got that one element in your favor, the fact that you're thinking ahead, which.
Is really good.
So for me, it's not so much about, you know, a baby fund, but it's what Tiffany said, it's it's it's actually learning to live on the new reduced budget that will happen once you have a kid. So think about the cost if you have to put your kid into daycare when a part of your budget is going toward I mean, diapers alone cost hundreds of dollars, food
for your child, those types of expenses, you can. A financial planner once told me that he advises couples but when they get first get pregnant or find out that they're pregnant, to go ahead and start living on one income and see if they can make it work.
I like that.
Yeah, And we've been living on we've been we've been doing the one income thing. This is this is ourt in the last few months. I mean, we've It's not that we were saving. It was the first time we actually said, Okay, we're just gonna do this, We're going to live off this one income and save the other. We were kind of saving about the same before, but it was like you give a little and I give
a little. It's just much easier this way. But we know we have that income going toward savings and then but my whole thing is is not just can we live off one income if we were to have a baby, but you know, could we live off one income if one if something were to happen to one of us. That's important to me. And that's one thing that you could do now is maybe practice living on that one income and see if you can make it worker, at least at least drastically reduce it and then put that
money aside in savings. And I mean other than that, there's you know, that's that's that's a lot more than a.
Lot of people.
A lot of people are able to do anyway, in terms of planning for a kid. I think that will put you ahead. And then once the once the baby Anonymous is born, then you would you know, you can set up a castodo ira. You can open up a five two nine plan. My friends have five two nine plans that actually run the birthday times or baptisms. They'll send the link around and you can you can contribute
to their five to nine plan. It's almost like, I don't know, putting money in a savings account for their kid. You can just you know, credit card, debit whatever and put money in it.
That's nice.
It's actually a nice little way to give a present. And then you have eighteen years to build that up.
Yeah, the sooner you start, the better. But no, I think there's isn't that book isn't a book by Elizabeth Warren called one what was it called the Two Income Myths or something like that.
Yeah, Lizzie Warren wrote personal finance books. I still find that really funny. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Yes she did. She had a she moonlighted us. She used to be a bankruptcy professor, a bankruptcy law professor. I think that's where it came from. And then she wrote about Yeah, a couple of books on debt. I didn't know there was a two income book though, or sorry, what was it?
One income?
You know, it's called something where she basically talks about like the myth that really you're supposed to be living off one income. It's called like the the something. So just look up Elizabeth Warren two income. I think it's called the two income myth something to that effect. But I remember a friend of mine read end said it
was really good. So yeah, you might want to look into that about like, because I just think what that advice Nandy gave you about trying to live off one income is really great advice.
Thank you very question Anonymous. All right, we have a we have an in congratulations on your baby. Yeah, it's exciting. We have another anonymous question. This is also she's also find she just spent out she's pregnant, which is exciting too, but unrelated to her pregnancy, she says, I'm thirty years old, married, one year old, and also pregnant. My husband and I are blessed to have a thriving business together. We just moved into a new home and we're in the process
of selling our last home. The only debt we have is our mortgage, my husband's car loan, and some credit card debt. My question is, is there a suggested method for closing credit accounts once they've been paid off when you have so many or should you just keep them all open? It feels weird to have so many credit card accounts open, and I feel like I should cancel them. Most of these cards are store cards like Victoria's Secret and Taylor Macy's Best Buy. Do these cards factor differently?
Good cool questions?
So here's the factors that I would write down. One, whether it's a store card or regular card, because store cards definitely should get canceled before regular cards. But then two, another factor is how long have I had the card? Because you're wanting if you're going to close a card, you're going to want to close cards that are that are newer versus older, because I believe is it leng is length of credit history? Is that fifteen percent or ten percent of your credit score.
It's ten or fifteen, I forget I think might be fifteen, and then the mix of your credit is ten, he gets the fifteen percent one.
Yeah, so length of credit history. So you're wanting to close, you're going to close, You're wanting to close the newer cards. But to me, the most important factor in closing cards is how will it affect your your utilization rate? That's thirty percent of your score. So what that means is that So let's just say I've got two cards and one of them is maxed out, so I have one
hundred both of them have one hundred dollars limits. One has one hundred dollars limit and one hundred dollars balance, and the other I'm not using at all, zero limit but one hundred dollars I mean zero balance, but one hundred dollars limit. So one maxed out, one not used at all. So, as it is, right now, your your utilization, which is thirty percent of your score, is an average of your credit cards. Right so you've got a maxed
out card and a not used card. So right now you are utilizing fifty percent of your available credit on your credit card. So fifty percent is already high. You really don't want to go over thirty percent utilization. Really, you want to be in like the ten to fifteen percent range. But thirty percent is a max max math. If you close the unused card and you go from two cards to one card, now, all of a sudden, you went from a fifty percent utilization to one hundred
percent utilization, and you are definitely taking your score. And so if you're going to close cards, I always tell people because they get so excited. They're like, I paid up a card, I want to close them, you know. I'm like, okay, well, let's do the math. Let in all your cards, write down all of your balances, write down all of your limits, and do the math. If I close this card, what's my utilization? Okay, it's still ten percent. If I close the next one, what will
my utilization be? Okay, twenty percent. So you might want to stop right there until you pay off more and more of your cards.
And so, yeah, you know, I used to use credit Karma. On credit Karma, they have a simulator tool. I'm pretty sure they still do. They'll tell you what will happen if you open a new card or close a card.
I'm quite sure.
I like that, which is really handy, and she does. She does write a little bit more about her account. She says, most of them have been paid off. She just recently did a balance transfer, so a lot of the debts were paid off, and now she has these two newer cards that she opened up for the balance
transfer offer. You know, a balance transfer is when you open up a new credit card that has an intro zero percent APR period and you use it to transfer all the debts from other cards onto it and then paid off that you have one card with one monthly payment. And then she's thinking, you know, I'll close off these once these balanced transfer cards are paid off, then I can close those off. Those are my newer cards. I mean,
I think that she's thinking about it smart. I mean, those those store credit cards, they don't necessarily hurt your credit any more than a you know, a Chase reserve card would hurt your credit like a normal credit card. But they may be the only thing is they may be temptation for you. I would say, just put them in the back of the closet. I don't think any of those cards have an annual fee. Victoria's secret and tailor Macy's best. But I don't think they carry a fee.
Put them at back of the closet. I mean, they're not they're not hurting anything. It does seem like a lot when you're looking at both you and your husband's credit cards put together. But certainly if they're if they're going to be tempting you, you want to, you know, get rid of them. Maybe do that, you know, do what Tiffany said, you know, do the mass dewer utilization rate is see if credit card MAK can help you, you know, stimulate what your score might be if you
do close those cards. If it's not the biggest hit, and you can immediately, you know, flood your credit history with positive information from all your you know, you're paying off your debts obviously with these balanced transfers, you're making on time payments. Eventually you will come back from that, you know, closed credit card account ding. That will happen, especially if you know you just moved into a new home.
You already have your mortgage. It's not like you need you're about to take out a new mortgage and you need to have the best credit score right now. I don't think that you know, it's it's really, it's a personal preference. And if it's going to make you sleep easier at night having these cards closed, and you don't necessarily you're not applying for any new credit right now, and it doesn't matter. If your score goes down, you know a little bit, then you know, go ahead and
take the plunge. But if you just want to do the most logical thing for your score and keep that score as high as possible, then you know, keep the cards in a dark corner and and don't charge them up and keep them open.
Mm hmm, thank you very question.
It was a good question. And oh, anonymous, you don't have to be anonymous. That was an easy, breezy one.
You never know. Some people are shy, that's true.
Some people are like my cousin list of this, you don't even know my business.
Sometimes sometimes I want to be anonymous, not gonna lie. And one one really last quick question someone asked, actually, because on a previous show I had mentioned in an APP that I love using called level Money to manage my money. It actually was acquired by Capital one through sixty. It was an awesome app. She's like, I looked it up recently and I couldn't find it is. It's still available to download. Sadly, it's not available anymore. These apps
come and go so quickly. It's like as soon as I like one, they just shut them down because I guess they don't make a lot of money. You know, they're they're obviously when you're your customer base, you're trying to help them save money. They're not paying for the app anyway. Yeah, Level Money sadly does not exist anymore, and she wanted to know if we recommend any other apps for budgeting.
She says she's tried.
Mint and she's not a fan. I sadly, Level I'm just as side as you are. Level was my money app and sense Level I. I have downloaded Personal Capital, which is very similar to Mint. It just has an interface that I'm not following my budget as like as closely as I was in the past, like every single transaction. What I like Personal Capital for now is just to get like a bird's eye view of where my money is going. You know, Oh, I spent you know, twenty
percent of my budget on restaurants last month. That's a lot, Like I need to cut back that type of information. Yeah, but I miss I miss Level.
Yeah, You're right. These apps do kind of coming go And I'm not a lie. I'm just good old fashioned Excel. But yeah, I know so a lot of people. I feel like people either love it or love it or hate it. But you know what, how about this? I would love the BA listeners if you're using like a budgeting app that you absolutely love. I've heard good things. You don't've heard good things about you?
You need you need a budget? Yeah, yeah, I've.
Heard good that. I haven't used it to be fair, but I can honestly say I've heard good things. People say good things about them, so you might want to check them out. Why nab you need a budget?
That one costs, I believe, and there's a feat so it's not a very large fee, but it's an actual it's it's it's really good if you're trying to pay down a lot of debt and that's why you're budgeting, because they think they do a zero sum budget method. You know, every dollar in your account goes toward a purpose.
Kind of thing. I like that.
That's what I use.
Yeah, you need a budget that's that's a good one.
Yeah, And then if you have like BA Listeners, definitely hit us up on Facebook, Brown Ambition, Twitter, The BA podcast. Are we the BA podcast on Twitter?
At the BA podcast?
Yep, the B a podcast, you know, but like would love you know, because people ask all the time. So if you're using a budgeting app that you absolutely live for, certainly tweet us or Facebook us. We'd love to share it.
All right, Ready for some wins.
I am and my wind who child, I've been holding this. I've been waiting. This is for Wakanda. So it's official. Black Panther is officially the highest grossing superhero superhero movie in the United States of all time.
An I mean, like.
Right, I mean that's I mean, I don't even know what to say, highest grocery in US history. Free, black on black on black. I feel like President Obama has Remember when you won ever it was like my president is black. My land Bow was too. I'm like, my movie it's black. Yes, I mean, it's I don't even know what to say because it wasn't even like a kind of black movie. It wasn't even like, oh my god, there's a black superhero. But the rest of the movie is no. No, this movie is it could not have
gotten a blacker. This movie is the Lemonade of like like like Beyonce's album Lemonade that was super and black and black. This movie is Michael Basin Black.
Okay.
I had something to say, which is, can y'all go? Can you just stop going to see it? Because I want to see it again, but it's always sold out. We tried to go again Friday, I was like, na, bra couldn't even get a seat.
Really, I just love that, and I don't.
Like what it shows is that, like you know, the BS about like, oh, there's no money when you cater to us, or not even just cater to us, because we're not the only one who saw it. It was it was just a good movie. I mean when they broke down the statistics of like the people that went to see it, well, you know, of course we came out in like record number, but we weren't the largest group of people that went to see the movie. It's
just a good movie. And I just hope that this starts to signal to Hollywood, because you know, nobody listens to any but money these days. So I hope that the financial ramifications of having a movie like this will help to shift, you know, the type of things that are developed in the future. But yeah, this is just awesome. Honestly. Oh sure, I just want to see you again. I mean, I just want to see the I just want to see everyone again. So Challa, I want to see you again,
even even kill Manger. We can hang, we can Hay, I'm gonna come see you guys.
Well, you know, I don't think Kill Marker is going to be the next movie spoiler alert. That was Yeah, it was amazing. And I heard Ava du Varney is directing another DC comics like Superhero movie, So it's it's all happening, man. I mean, I hope it continues. I hope it's not just a moment. I hope it's more than that. I hope it's a movement. I'm super excited too.
So my win really quick.
I wanted to do a win for Lena Waith, who is killing it on all levels and was just is gracing the cover of Vanity Fair magazine this month, which I don't know, who's the last black queer woman you remember seeing on the cover of a magazine Never I could think of nobody ever, So I just I think it means a lot to so many people what she represents it. But the photos that were captured of her and her and her girlfriend in their apartment in La just living their lives. It was a different kind of
photo shoot, you know, it wasn't the glamorous thing. And all she's doing to represent black screenwriters in Hollywood is just fantastic. So that's what I mean, man, turning around, reaching beyond your circle. She's reaching behind her and pulling people up and making sure they get the opportunities, the chances. You know that that she it took a long time for her to get. I think that's just beautiful and I wish her all the success and all the badass magazine covers she can get.
Yeah, honestly, it's just such a good time to be to be brown. I mean, well, well it's good and bad, but I mean the bad part has always been here, so there's just an extra little boost to be brown right now. And so yeah, I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling good. Well, go ahead and enjoy the rest of your weekend, and we'll see you guys next week.
Yeah, we shat, and by then I'll have been back from my romantic Jamaican vacation.
Are you going to Jamaica?
Yes, I told Tuoperman I said, before we start this renovation, I feel like I'm going to need a little bit of R and R because the renovations on the house. I'm sure it's a new frontier. And so I found really a really great deal on Orbits. It's like five star all inclusive. I was able to book our flights because we used the Chase card Chase Venture, so I
was able. We had enough points, so our flights were I just used our points to fly and it was like forty five percent off or fifty percent off whatever the hotel normally is. So it was like five hundred bucks apiece for five fifty apiece for the hotel for Friday to Monday. And so I'm really excited because, you know, for five hundred and fifty bucks we get to enjoy paradise for a little bit.
Sounds yeah.
I'm told I'll take lots of pics so everybody can be like, damn it, I.
Hate you fpulous.
Next episode, we will have this Art steel on who I spoke with a state attorney.
Extraordinary.
She's gonna come on and answer a lot of good questions about life insurance. How to plan for this is a big thing. How to plan to give to past generational wealth on to your children and your children's children. That is her message and that is what we will be talking about in next week's show.
Yay Art, who Can't Wait?
All right? How Fun? And Jamaica Come on? All right?
Bye bye