Ep. 126 — Saving Our Parents From Themselves

And he was like, come to the house tomorrow. Your sister tried to explain it to me, but she wasn't clear. You're a business woman, I'm sure you'll make it better. I'm like, oh my god, yes, And you know when you get summoned, do you have to count? So when I came, the living room was all set up for like a guest. I was like, who's coming. He's like, you sit right here. He's liked, wait, let me wake your mother. She told me. She told me to wait. When you got here, I said, oh, what's happening? Like

usually this kind of thing doesn't end well. It usually like we need you to cut your hair, or where's my grandchild? Or how come you're not married? So it was a weird, you know, but it was really pleasant and I was like, oh wait, I'm not in trouble for the first time. So first they made them maybe show them how to get the robin hood app there from me while I look at my mother like, ma'am, you've never bought like a whiff of a stock and she says like, I want to try it. I'm like,

oh my god. So I didn't know that they didn't have online banking, so we had to go back five steps just to get to the one step. After an hour and a half, they were both up and running on Robinhood and then they're like, wait before you leave, we heard that there's GPS available on your phone. I'm like, who are you people? So another thirty minutes later, I had to teach them. I had to download ways on their phone and teach them how to how do you

use it? And I thought, you know what, this is a good time because my mom, you know, is wanting to retire and my dad had My dad is a is a c what was a c PA and a CFO, and so he had a whole financial plan set aside for them. But my mom actually wants to retire a year earlier and she's pretty determined. So because of that, they work on the same financial page. And so she was like, come and like, you know, help daddy, like understand that I don't want to go back to work.

And so I talked to them about it. Today. I talked to them, I'm about state planning. And honestly it was great, Like it was at the end and they were all excited and giddy and they're like, I feel like we had like a great technology lesson. I was like, Oh, while you're feeling happy, you know, I spoke to an state planner. I'm a state attorney and I'd love for her to come by so we can talk about long term healthcare. We could talk about your insurance, we could

talk about you know, your will and updating it. And my dad said okay, and I said also too. You know, mommy has a new retirement expert that she's working with as far as her financis. He's a CFP financial advisor, but he specializes in a baby boomer is transitioning into retirement. And I was like, Daddy, you really, I really want you to come to the next meeting. And he said, okay, I'm available on you know, Monday, Tuesday. Meanwhile, you're available

Sunday to Sunday you're retired. But he wasn't.

to the financial planner. And so I feel really good because my dad is in his seventies, you know, and it just makes me concern that there will still says Tiffany age six belongs to uncle Tony, should we pass away.

with my dad because he's got this. I think, like a lot of people who grew up in like high poverty areas. You know, he grew up in Atlanta, there is just like this total distrust of the government and of financial institutions. And this is the man who I witnessed go to a bank. He stood in line for fifteen minutes outside of a bank on a Saturday to deposit some cash that he had gotten from a job. He deposited the cash and then he left and went to ATM and took out some money.

piggy bang. His whole four one k is like basically just stuffed in corners of the I'm like, what if the house burns down? But he doesn't care, you know he And it's so frustrating to me because now I'm I feel like I'm more aware now and I need to be doing more to help him. But like he almost needs like a financial psychologist, like to undo all the wiring and the thought process around money. And it

was the same way with his taxes. He's thinking, well, if I wait till the last minute, Uncle Sam won't get my money. I'm like, Dad, you're not going to owe any money because I know what you made last You're gonna get a refund.

I said, no way. I'm like, Mommy, like, when you're opening up a new if you just go to like just say Bank of America or Wells Spargo and you're opening up a checking account, they're gonna want your sold security numbers. The government is keeping track of how your money is moving. I was like, it's just a new bank account, Like that's normal. She was like, are you certain. I'm like, ah, pretty sure. And I was thinking to myself, Oh, one day I'm gonna be old like this. I'm like,

I'm old like this now. I tell Supergirl, Girl Supergirl, help me with this TV put on. I've already become them.

you don't what if your parents don't have much? I said, then you especially need to have this conversation with them, especially especially so it's just something that you know, you know that if you if you guys are, if you have older parents, you definitely want to sit down with them at least start to have the conversation. It's not you're not going to fix it all in one conversation, but you definitely want to sit down and start to open up the doors, especially if you have brown parents.

You know, money and talking to your kids about money is typically not part of our cultural norms, but you want to start to make it normal.

thinking about doing? What the house? You know, so many parents or a lot of older people may feel like they should have everything figured out, and they may be doing something that's not actually in their best financial interests, but they may not realize it until someone asks them or they bring it up. And like, you know, like one small thing you may find just leads to so many other, you know, larger things like I'll give you another dad example, and I love my dad, but he's

he's the best example of this. He recently had decided he was going to do like he does a new career shift. He's just like a rolling stone, you know, it's always worked for him. Just have different Like he's

just a hustler. He's always been a hustler. My dad's always had at least three to four different hustles happening at a given time, and recently he was going to change his hustle and he wanted to go into business as a home inspector because of the time he was working in construction, and all the guys that, you know, all the guys on the job, were talking about how much more money home inspectors make, how it's easy money.

You just go to a house and open a few doors and you pocket like, you know, a few hundred bucks. And he thought this was like a golden ticket. And he started looking online apparently all this research on these for profit colleges, these for profit trade schools that have you know, certificates and home inspection or whatever, and they're like thousands of dollars. But he didn't tell me that.

I just happened to ask him about something about his construction business, like you know, just trying to small talk, and then he led me into this whole conversation and he was getting ready to sign up for one of these like trade schools, to pay to pay for a course that he didn't really need to get certified as an inspector. And then I did my own research, and I'm like, Dad, here's what it really takes to become a home inspector, and it's a whole different thing than

what you thought it was. And please, dear God, don't spend any money on the internet without asking me first, because you are a high high fraud risk. My friend.

taken advantage of as they get older. Yeah, and you don't you know, you don't want that because a lot of times, you know, your parents get lonely, and so I try to make my way, you know, call them and check in on them, and so that way they know that if they do have questions. I'm just so glad that you know, my mom like she just because I wouldn't have known. She just was like, let me

call my daughter. She's the financial person, you know. So but you know, she could have done this on her own and been taken advantage of and so.

they make lucrative backbacks off of. And that's that's the whole reason why this new Department of Labor rule was, you know, Obama, the Obama administration was trying to pass this new Department of Labor rule called the Fiduciary Rule, which was gonna make it so that any financial planner working with people to help them plan for retirement would

have to work in their best interests. And it was going to stop It was supposedly going to stop financial planners from doing exactly that, like taking retirees uh investments, their their nest eggs and investing them into funds that directly,

you know, provided revenue to the financial planner. And then of course Trump came into power, and now who knows where this law even, I don't even know if it's even passed yet, but it's yeah, it's they're you know, they have a lot of funds and these scammers they know it. Not just scammers. But that reminds me of Tanya. Tanya Rapely, she's the mythab Finance. She has a new

book coming out. I was talking to her about coming on the show soon, but then I saw on Twitter recently she tweeted that her mom, you know has it, has a house that's nearly paid off and some real estate investor had offered her a certain amount of money for the house, and her mom came to Tanya and asked her if she thought it was a good deal, and Tanya's like, no, get your own appraisal. And the helm appraised for twice what the guy was asking for twice.

But they're sniffing around. They're like, oh, yes, these old people don't know what they're sitting on the market is up. Let me see if I can get a sucker. And it's scary.

easily send money from bank to bank through zell. What's happening though, is people are realizing so some people are using zel to transfer payments to like an online ticket seller if you're trying to buy you know, concert tickets or you're trying to buy something off Craigslist and you want to send money to whoever. And what's happening is

some people are getting their money stolen by fraudsters. So you think you're giving money for something, and yet you're never getting what you paid for, and the person disappears, and then they want to call their bank and say I did this through zell am I covered. You're actually not protected if you're the one initiating the transaction, like if you're the one sending money through Zell, to the bad person, to the hacker, to the fraudster, whoever you're

in that trend, that fraud is not covered. The only one that is covered is if like a fraudster hacks their way into your account through Zell or whatever and takes your money that way, and it's caused all this like confusion and uproar. So I just wanted to let everyone know. If you're using Zel, think of it like you're giving a twenty dollars bill, like actual cash money

to someone. You wouldn't send that money put in an envelope, stick it in the mail, and send it to a random person, but you would hand it to a person that you know, like personally, Like if I knew Tiffany, Hey, there's twenty bucks for the dinner that you know we

split last night, I would do that. You never want to use Zel to send it to someone who you don't know, so an online seller or I don't know, even even like a bill, like if someone's trying to charge you for some service like a moving company or something, don't use Zel because you won't be covered. You won't be covered if they end up being a fraudster. Again, the only thing that you're covered for is like if someone hacks into your count through zell.

lead removal class. It's three hours and because we don't have that much honestly, it's just some chemical thing that you painted on paint on the lead, covered with plastic and then peel it off. And so instead of because he's with paint, yeah, it's in the paint because of the age of the house, like it's been painted over, like you know, certain parts of the would have been painted over over and over again, and during certain periods in history, like you know, the seventies or sixties or

the forties or whatever. Because the house was built in nineteen twenty, lead paint was fine and it leads through the paint on top, and so there are certain areas of the house where that's happened. So we're going to remove it. And people were charging we're trying to charge upwards of thirty thousand dollars and.

And I was just like, you know what. And then we actually had some really great contractors come by and or like lead abatement folks come by and they were like, honestly, it's not even that much. You guys could do this yourself. There's literally a class of a couple of hundred bucks, and it'll be cheaper, and it's good for you to learn, if you guys, if your husband is trying to be

you know, like do more and more houses. So so that's what we just decided that it'll be way cheaper to just for him to learn and to to do it ourselves. It will cost us maybe like a few hundred bucks. And because it's not that we don't have that much. It's like, you know, a few windowsills and

some baseboard. So it just needs to be the chemicals just need to be painted on, sat there for twenty four hours and then literally peeled off and like saying it and then just repainted with whatever paint that we want. So because we've been dragging, not dragging our feet, but I am not looking forward to actually working with like the actual contractor if it's going to be like this, because I'm like, what we're not we haven't made any movement.

What's happening? Yeah? Oh man, I know, but you know what, I'm like, you know what, Hey, we waited six months just to close, so you know what. At this point, I'm just happy that we have a house.

There's this I feel like that's the HGTV, like I know, syndrome, syndrome or like, yeah, this whole movement of people trying to do themselves, like no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna sometimes it's worth the money. It was only thirty five dollars to have him add one more outlet. I think he really just wanted to figure out how to do it.

want to die? No, we're not letting. He actually does have a friend n Chico. He's like, oh, Chico could do that. I'm like, no, resetting the floor, fine, painting, okay, you know stuff like that, even like patching some walls. Great, But I told him, like, we're not having somebody ran to rewire our house where we have to live and worry about if a fire starts inside the in the wall,

you know. So yeah, I mean it's an interesting journey, and I feel like it'll be much faster next time we get a house, like when we get like our next property. But this is definitely a learning curve that's like where I'm so out of my element because I don't I don't know anything, and I feel like I feel open to being taking advantage of. But thankfully we have like you know, like our mentors. But it still

still feels like, oh my gosh. Every time we meet with the professional, everyone else has, everyone has a new story to tell, you know, like, oh, you know, what you need to do is you're corporator, your operator, it's in the infiltrator and you're like, I don't know. Well, I mean that leads it perfectly into brown break. Brown breaks. What you're gonna do boost or break? Well, clearly you know I'm breaking because I just did a brown break song.

I'm learning, which is good, but I just need a break from those words, like literally every like after working hard on the Budginisa and the Academy and everything else, and then Superman comes home from work and then you know, we have dinner or whatever, and then he wants to talk about the house. I'm like, honestly, I don't care. I'm like, whatever you decide, I don't even care anymore. He's like tired. I'm like, yes, I'm tired. I'm tired every week. And it's like we lived there, but we

don't live there. So I'm just taking a little bit of a brown break from those three words abatement, lead, and asbestos.

like cut me open and remove them. And that was like four weeks recovery three of I mean six official, but really like three or four weeks. I was like back to normal. And then I was like, yeah, I'm good, and she's like, you know, I wanted you to go for this thing, this ink test where they like squirt ink in you to see if your tubes are open. And she's like, yay, So good news is your tubes are open. Bad news is we see another fiboid. I was like, you've got to be kidding me, gosh, yeah,

and she was like yeah. And then there's some scar tissue from when we removed some of these fribordes from before, and I was like, oh, she's like, so you have to have another surgery. I looked at her like are you insane? What does that even mean? But thankfully this surgery was like really non invasive. It was a one day recovery, like literally twenty four hours, and if you could even call it that, I was home and like

ready to go, and so it was. And so I just got cleared from her and she said, you are ready to go, tiffany clean bill of health, you and superan kid, go go go. And I was like, we're coming from your like you're older, you're older obgyn. So yes, we are clear to ready to try. I mean, you never know. And so the thing is, so I'm thirty eight. So she said she wants us to try naturally for six months and then if no baby, then then we want to try. And then she said, then we'll try

fertility options, so we shall see. You know, I never it's crazy about having kids. You never think. You just think like, well, of course I'm going to be able to have kids, like that's what women do. So this has just opened my eyes to what's you know, how hard it can be or it's just it doesn't necessarily mean that you're able or yeah, I mean like my sister got pregnant on her wedding night, literally and then she's got pregnant again right after that, and then my

mom had trouble. She said, I didn't know because my mom has five kids, said I know she's super fertile, and she was like, uh no, it took me a couple of years before your sister, your first sister came And I thought, oh, I didn't know, so you just never know. But yeah, so that was just the update that I can try. So I appreciate your love and your your baby dust sprinkling in the air. You guys always send me great encouragement. So yes, please say an

extra prayer for super baby. Prayerfully, and we'll be on the way by the end of this year.

I'm talking about women especially, Yes, and then you do everything right and then by you know, naturally you're in your thirties when you start thinking about having kids, or your late thirties or early forties, and then oh, yeah, you can't really have it all because there's this thing called biology and she just fucks with you sometimes. Yeah,

and it's not fair. It's so frustrating. So I'm really just glad that you're sharing your story because I know that you're not the only one out there who's going through that. And it's not even about career, and you know, I'm not trying to at all shame people. It's not about career or even being ambitious. Sometimes sometimes your body

just you know, it just is your body. You don't have all the working elements that you thought you had until you finally start to try, or you just don't meet the right person exactly.

been to every doctor and nothing's wrong with us. And I was like, why, I didn't know. You never know, you know, Like I said, I thought that they were like, oh, you know, they're not trying to have no kids. They're in a different country every other month. They live it up. And no, He's like, we do, and they cannot figure out, like why she doesn't have fibroids. She doesn't, her tubes are open, she's got enough eggs, his sperm is strong, like you know, and so you just, yeah, there's no

rhyme or reason. Sometimes I mean, sometimes you know and sometimes you don't. And I mean I know somebody who was like she literally like had like one ovary and it was halfway working, and she's got two kids. And so yeah, I mean that the part that's hard because in every other aspect of my life, I know that if I put in the work, I can get what I want. You know, like how hard are you willing

to work for Tiffany? And this is one of those things that, yes, there is some work for me to put in, Like I went vegan, I got these surgeries. You know, I'm eating better, you know, but past that, I can't do anything else, you know. So it's frustrating because there's no there's nothing, you know, like, no matter how much work I put in, there's still the possibility that I just I'm just not able for whatever reason, you know. So I mean I'm still like, I still

have time. So I honestly don't feel hopeful. I don't feel like hopeless. I know some people like I guess it's the beginning of my journey. So it's still really early. Like I really just started, you know, this journey in January, So it's still really early for me. So I'm still feeling like, yeah, it's happening, but you never know if it doesn't. I mean, thankfully, you know, Superman and I have the means if we want to adopt which He's

totally open to we can. He's just been awesome, like, well, whatever you want, babe, Like you know he would want at least he would love of two more kids. I'm like, wow, we'll see. Look we don't get these twins the first

time around. I don't know, but we'll see. I'm open to it though, because I feel like I'm in a space now where you know, there there's more to life than than business and growth and finances and you know, and I just seeing how my parents get older, their joy they get from the fact that they have us kids.

you know, we say it all the time. Women earn eighty cents a dollar when you break it down by minority, it's even less to white men. And where that conversation usually leads is to advice for women on how they what they should be doing to earn more money, or how they should be negotiating better in the workplace, and

what the women can do. And I'm kind of and I'm kind of low key sick of this conversation because I feel like it unfairly puts the pressure on the woman to get herself an equal pay, like get herself equal pay on the job. And my position has been for a long time that the employer itself or whoever it is, like, the person who's managing the project has the budget, whether you're a freelancer, a full time whoever,

that they are thinking about. Am I paying people fairly and looking at this person's resume comparing it to someone similar on our staff, why is it that he or

she is earning more or less. I don't think that there's enough pressure on management to make that those types of calls, and I wish that there was more Earlier today, I saw this the headline that you know the crown that was one of the more more recent like public kind of embarrassing things where they found We found out that that show The Crown on Netflix, the main actress, Clairefoy, who plays Queen Elizabeth, was paid significantly less than her male co star, who is like a supporting actor and

is not in you know, she's in basically every single scene and has been nominated for awards in YadA YadA. So it came out that she made like hundreds of thousands of dollars less than him, even though they're on

the same show and she does way more. And then today this has been like weeks later, they announced that she's going to receive two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in back pay after all the controversy to basically like make her even with what I don't know if it's basically to make her even with this guy, right, So for me, that shows like it's not her fault that she was making less, you know, it's why did that company or Netflix or whoever, why did they decide

they were the ones who decided that you deserve less than this guy? Like why weren't there Why wasn't there more discussion around them? And I just feel like so often we are almost victim shaming not that you know, victim. I don't want to throw with a word victim around, but like shaming the woman for not doing more, you know, go into an interview and talk tough and read these

tips on how to negotiate. And I'm taking some of the blame here because I've written some of those articles and it's helpful to know and understand understand what makes what makes a good negotiation. But I, and especially in my role as a manager, I take it upon my damn self to make sure that I'm paying people equally.

And I just did I do. I manage a lot of freelancers, for example, like a lot of freelance writers, and one of the recent one of the things I do every month is take a look at because I do pay my top tier writers more than the others. And I realized this month one of the writers who I constantly go too because she's super reliable, is not in the highest pay grade. And I'm not waiting for

her to ask me to give her more money. While I know a lot of people would do that, I'm like, well, it makes no sense why she is making less than these other top tier people. She deserves to be in this in this in this group. And hell, like if I, if I bump her into this group, maybe she'll want to write more for us. And of course I you know, I just did it and I sent her an email saying, hey, by the way, I gave you a pay pay raise, congrats, you know, because I could do it. And it's not

like I don't have the money to not do it that. Yeah, it's just it's just you have to take the time and think about that. So that's my my my break for putting too much of the onus on women too to uh to earn more. And you know, like studies show that you can be you're judged more harshly as a woman if you're like a tough negotiator, you know, so damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sometimes, well, let's move on to some questions. What's your and you

guys please send us your questions. You can hit us up at bron Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com to send us a question directly or leave us go to our website Brian Ambition podcast dot com and ask us a question on the site as well. The meilbox this week was a little thin, you guys, And I'm just kind of sad for me. Love our questions. Hold on, I accidentally minimize the box.

the trademark to the budgetiese. No, but it's okay for those of you listening, I have it back, okay, because I was like, I was not going to say it obviously until I had it back, because so I was like, oh, I'm good. So I didn't. It was a mistake. I thought trademarks lasted ten years, and they do, but you have to like renew it after the first five and then it last ten. But I didn't know that and all my stuff, like I don't know where they were

sending the mail to. It wasn't until like a bunch of lawyers kept calling me asking me like, hey, would you like to something like get back to the budget needs to trademark. I'm like, what are you talking about? I owned the trademarkets. I only been back years and I looked. I was like, oh, maybe I don't so this was this happened last year because it takes about I want to say, six to twelve months for the whole process, so I had to reapply. I actually used

legal Zoom and it was super easy. I had to reapply and I got it back. But I was like, oh MG, can you.

four to one K until after the first year. I researched and I found out I could invest in a regular IRA, but my maximum contribution each year would just be six thousand dollars versus eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars in a four to one K. I'm currently making forty nine thousand dollars a year. What do you recommend as the best step to maximize my retirement investment while I wait out this year? I don't even know you make

forty nine thousand dollars a year. I don't even think that you would realistically be able to get to eighteen thousand, five hundred based on that salary. Unless you're living at home and you have no expenses, I think that you'll be fine just investing in a regular IRA or even you don't mention it or not, but I'm hoping this means that you have a savings account emergency savings fun on the side. If you don't, I would say focus

on building that up your first year. If anything, you're only making forty nine thousand dollars a year, so it may take you a little bit of time just to get to you know, the recommended like three to six months worth of savings on the side, and then once the year is up, then you're you know, you're kind of ready and you can start contributing to that, to that four one K.

in that way. You know, I have an account to invest for wealth, and I have a portfolio to invest for retirement, and both of those things are useful and good. Absolutely maybe knowing stuff.

Peruvian cousins died of a brain aneurysm at age fifteen. Wow, in twenty seventeen. I definitely didn't know how much. I didn't know much about that either. Didn't the budget Lisa's husband survive one? Yes, he well he didn't. It didn't burst, but he had one. Thanks for getting the word out.

Ba oh, thank you Emmy. Yeah, that last episode with Sharon Eperson sharing how she survived her brain andurism, which is honestly very It's not common to survive and then to survive and to go back to the same kind of like mental capacity that you had before. It's like fifteen percent of people survived and then another fifteen percent of those people actually are the same. So that was an awesome episode and thank you. So if you guys you know, want us to shout you out on the

end of our next Brandabision episode. Head over to Instagram and say something on one of our posts. You never know we might see you.