¶ Intro / Opening
Mandra, Do you know what I need? I need to walk in these streets in my BA swag. You know what I'm really looking forward to? First of all, be your own Brown Boost. What an awesome phrase. I cannot wait to wear that on my chest like Superman. And what I'm really excited for, though, is I am a sweatshirt and like hoodie girl. So the classic Brown Ambition logo sweatshirt has my name.
All over it. But where can I go? Where can I find it?
I was hoping you would ask Young Tiffany. Tiffany, get your Brown Ambition swag at Brown Ambitionstore dot com. Five years in the game, we finally have merch for you guys. So get your Brown Ambition hoodie, your Brown Ambition crew neck tea, get a onesie for your littles. We got toddler teas. Oh my goodness, there's something for everyone. Be your own Brown Boost T shirt for sure. We have a Brown Ambition mug, which my family is most excited about.
I had to do the fifteen out size for my big sister because she drinks coffee Like nobody's business.
Oh, you know on the budget needs to write any special offer.
Oh I'm also very glad you asked that question, Tiffany. Yes, with Brown Ambition fifteen, that's promo code Brown Ambition fifteen all one word, you can get fifteen percent off your order at Brown ambitionstore dot com.
I can't wait to see y'all in these BA streets repping ba bam with your BA swag.
Hey, hey, hey we're back. We're black, We're black. I did that for for Rio, Sirio.
Hey weo.
Hey managine that was for real. Yes, that was thank you.
I'll let him know. I'll let him know. Oh my god. I was thinking we should do like a like a star spangled banner version of our intro because I feel I just am so excited for the election, and I like, my dad was giving me live updates from the Atlanta polls today.
Okay, how.
Well, I'm really impressed by Atlanta because they let you vote so early. We can't vote early in New York until the week before the general election. But yeah, so he he said. It was a long line. I think he was there for four hours or so, and he was sending me video updates. And I will say everyone
was like socially distanced. I saw a lot of masks and it just made me feel so good because I've been stressed out the last week and a half because I guess I took for granted that everyone feels this real urge to vote and exercise their right to cast their ballot for elected officials, because like, I'm not gonna lie, Like I guess there's a lot of you know, my family in Atlanta, a lot of my dad's family. They I can't blame them, right, They don't trust government, they
don't trust politicians. They say, no matter what we do, nothing changes. Black bodies are still being murdered by people and you know, wearing uniforms and it's completely sanctioned and nothing ever changes, and like and I and I get it, but I just thought, because I've I've seen my cousins go to like protests and talk about what's happening with
Black Lives Matter and all that. But I started to get the sense that they weren't like registered, And I might have gone a little extra, but I feel really, I felt really compelled to do what I could to try to get them to at least register. And the deadline was the was the first week of October. And I might have gone a little overboard, but I was like texting and then I the good thing is that
anyone can do this. You can go to your state's Board of Election site, and Georgia has a cool site where you can like check to see if you're registered, and you just need your date of birth and it'll tell you. It'll tell you actually are you registered, and the status if you've if you've mailed in a ballot request.
I saw. I love that.
Yeah. And my aunt, you know, she's older, she's disabled, her husband's disabled. So she was and she was like kind of offhanded, saying that she had mailed in her request for a mail in or not mailed in. Sorry. She submitted her request for a mail in ballot in September and hadn't gotten her ballot yet, and it's just like the smallest bit of information. She was thinking she had to go to like the her local like I don't know whatever local government office to check on her ballot.
And I was like, let me just go on the internet really quick, give me your date of birth, let me check for you. And I could see that they had received it. I don't know why, but they received it a whole entire month after she had sent it and they had finally issued it this past week. Okay, so it's her, It's on its way to her. And then I could check my dad and I could see that even though he requested a mail in ballot, they said they had received it, but they hadn't sent his
to him or he hadn't received it. So he was like, look, I'm just going to go stand in this line.
Good.
I sat. He did, Yeah, And I don't know that I've been I was trying to, Like, I was thinking, I'm just going to post for every single state what the deadlines are. And I'm like, that's I can't do it. But but if there's anybody, if if there's still time, if there's still time to at least get people in your life registered. You know, that's like the one if we could have just gotten one friend to vote who didn't vote in the last election, I think we would
be an entirely, entirely different different worlds. So I'm just like, ah, please vote, Please be cynical after November fourth, yeah, remember third, just be cynical the next day if you want to, but please vote, please please please vote.
Well, I, like I said, I got my mail in dall let's see filled it out yesterday, so me and Superman too. Tomorrow I'm gonna find I don't want to put in the mailbox. I'm gonna like, here where I live, there are those boxes specifically for ballots. I'm going to find one of those and take it in tomorrow so I can loosaw. The day of the Supermom, super Girl's mom came over. She's like, oh, you know, I didn't get my in the mail and but I believe here in Jersey we can actually go and pick one up.
So she said she's going to do that as well.
So it's just and then my sisters they still register at my parents, So theirs came in because when I went to visit my parents this weekend, I saw it and I was like, okay, so you know, I picked up my sisters and the ones who lived near me and dropped it off to them.
So I'm not gonna lie.
I feel anxious but hopeful. I guess those are the two emotions I feel about the upcoming election. I'm not gonna take it because we you know, we were all feeling so smug last time, like and I was like, wait, what, so I don't you know I still feel anxious and I'm just brace on.
I showed up in a pants suit to vote for Hillary, pants suit and pearls, and I look at that photo and I'm like, I just look, if only she knew I know, only that poor man, you were brilliant.
But yeah, speaking of shady lately, I don't know if you know, but this is just random, but not kind of random.
I have been getting like some people.
I don't know, this is a new thing, but people will have been like, hey, we want you to be on our podcast or we want you to interview you, and then they send me a release form that basically says I own your life in perpetuity. One of the release firm literally said something about to be able to use it on any platform known to man in the universe.
I was like, the universe stout, you don't own it's a song.
I just I don't know if that's a thing.
People don't read the fine print anymore.
Yeah, but it's been really crazy.
I was like, what, I'm just coming on to talk about budgeting?
I don't so I've had to go in and say no.
Because one time I signed a contract I was doing like a conference, like one of these online conferences.
I didn't think anything of it.
I was like, okay, the brand is sizeable enough and signed in, did the webinar or whatever the conference and it was great then, and I want to say six months like eight months later, I was someone sent me a screenshot was like, oh, I didn't know that you do spokesperson work whatever for this brand.
I said, I don't.
They're like, oh, your pictures in an ad and I was like, because I used their service and I.
Was like, hmmm, I didn't. I didn't sanction that.
So when I wrote them the service, yes, I wrote them and I was like, hey, because I know some people pretty high up, because they've been trying to recruit me to do different things. I said, hey, I'm seeing this ad. It makes me uncomfortable.
You know, I don't. I don't know what what what is this?
This is not you know, I know we did like a you know, a conference together, but this is not what I agreed to.
And they're like, oh, no, worries, we can take it down. I said okay, And then either the CEO or somebody came and.
It was like, actually, when you signed you know, the release, you did agree to this girl, when I tell you, I was ready to flip over the table. I guess he realized, you know what, I don't want to smoke, because within moments he wrote back, was like, but you know, will gladly take it down and blah blah blah. So
at tu he probably was right. I probably didn't fully read the release, but bruh, you don't want me to drag your service from six ways from Sunday because I was fixing to be like, oh, not what we gonna do? First of all, want I'm leaving the service too. I will let everyone know you are the literal worst. So I guess he thought about it because, literally, like I said, within ten minutes he wrote back and said, but we'll take it down, and they since paid me.
To work with them.
But yeah, I just just putting that out there for all you creators and things like that.
Make sure you read your contracts.
Lately, typically the release will say something like, hey, we can use your picture as it relates to this one thing, but lately they've been really really crazy. When this one said anything in the universe, I'm like, who wrote this wit?
It literally said that, yes, that just covers like if there's life on Mars and they want to put a billboard up. I was like, the universe, they're gonna be watching your ads on the Tesla cabs to the movie.
Oh my gosh. So yeah. I mean well, like I said, it was literally like, hey be on my podcast.
I'm like, well, why don't we need to give you Why do I need to give you ownership of my of my likeness forever and ever and ever on Mars as well. So, just being min Fi, I just thought that was like randomly like this a little business funny, but not so funny because you want to make sure you read carefully, if you don't understand to ask questions, you know, if you can't afford an attorney.
So yeah, there's that. So I just hat to share that.
Oh well, that's I mean. It reminds me of like when you see stars in Hollywood kind of get bigger and then a studio that they worked with like ten years before the movie never got released. All of a sudden, it'll be on like straight to video or be released in theaters. They're trying to capitalize. So yeah, read that vibe right y'all. M h, what else, what's going on? I've recruited my mother to help me hire a nanny, okay, which actually, you know, my mom's retired and I'm like, hmm,
you got some free time. Let me tell you how little time I have. It's like, I really really need childcare. And we've been like, you know, we've been cobbling in together between mother in law and between a neighbor's daughter in the neighborhood, who's sweet. But you know, to have someone who you can consistently rely on the hours you need them anyhow, So thanks shout out to my mama, and if y'all have any tips on vetting a childcare and a childcare worker in a pandemic, like I'm it
has to happen. I just can't keep telling myself like this, this really needs to happen. This tiny human is like a tiny hurricane, really really really cute hurricane. But yeah, it's it's next level now.
Yeah, I mean, well, I'll have to say as far as like on the teacher, and you're definitely gonna like see if someone has like first aid, like you know, a certification things like that, you know. Yeah, and it also too like one thing that when I was a teacher was that we we would have to get a fingerprinted.
So that's always like a nice like added level.
Well like care dot com has a background check and then you can do additional ones. I think, well, the thing is my mom. I'm gonna I hope that she's gonna do like virtual interviews because for me, I just want them to be fun, like I just want them to have a fun personality and to cause I you know, I try and coach whoever is hanging out with the baby. It's like, you need to be silly, af you need to put on a show. You are a theater production
and you need a new play every ninety seconds. Okay, that is the challenge and that's why it's so exhausting. But you just have to have just be as funny as possible. I just wanted to know that he's up there having fun and not bored. I don't know why that, you know, matters to me so much. But you know, anyone who's out there trying to vet daycare or whatever going into this flu season, just bless you. I'm right there with you.
Yeah, it's hard to vet, like just team members in general. Like I was like, we want to I want to do some rebranding and it's hard. Like I'm like for both the budget Neista just colors and font and in literature Academy and to find like it's so crazy, so many people like brand strategies websites are coming soon.
I'm like, uh, what this is.
Where you get to show and so I'm like, we're so busy doing other people's websits. We uh we'll get back to our.
That's literally what it is.
So I'm just like, ugh, so I've been looking yet because I want to, like I want to like, I want to like, you know, revitalize the colors and fonts and to have like a clear brand message.
And so you go on You're like, oh.
Yeah, this must be Bunjanisa because I recognize this font in color combination and I have not had that in a while. I mean, we've been managing with that, but I'm like, come on now, Tiffany, it's time. I used to be really conscious about it when I first started the business, and then it kind of just fell off. So if any y'all know somebody's shoe, I don't even know, Like, y'all just be doing the most.
We have a person for our logo. Tip you want me to give you out.
Yeah, No, that would be great honestly, because I know it's great. No, No, that's right.
I would love because I just because it's not so much. I don't need logo creation because we have good logos. It's just color and font. I want to you know what else a brand it's not a brand kit. What are those things called? Like, it's like a brand meet guide, brand brand guide. So when someone is creating something, let's just say I was going to build a new website, I can say here's my brand.
Guide, like the front guide. Yeah, yes, my style guide.
Yeah.
So so like for example, like when the book the book cover for my book coming out next year, they are like working on the cover and they were asking me that I have a style guide and I was like no, but I like these thoughts, you know, So it would have been nice, you know, to have some cohesive thing to say this is you know, this is what I I typically lean towards.
So yeah, I will hook you up. That's exactly what our are. I don't even know what to call him.
He's actually my husband's good friend from college and he designed logos for banks and he is the mastermind behind our and I love Brown logo and fond and he even like, I remember when he was our most recent logo, we kind of refreshed for the merch and brandimisionstore dot com hashtag, used promo code, brand ambission fifteen and fifty percent off your career anyway, So he he even was like, look, I tried to find some styles that were made people
of color. Fir sorry, font fonts that were made but designed by people of color, Like who thinks about was the person who designed this font black or white? Who were they? But he's, yeah, he's super thoughtful like that, and yeah, shout out to Wan Lee if he's listening.
No, yeah, no, I'm for sure because yeah, some of the things that have come in, I'm like, uh, where's their sight? I can't tell what you do. I can't tell that's good or not, you know, So yeah, that's awesome.
Okay, Well, now you got me thinking about twenty twenty one because you told me. I know we can't talk about on the show, but you got me excited about something happening in twenty twenty one. I feel like I need to force myself to look past November to what there is to look forward to next year. I don't know if big vacations are happening, but my one goal is I'm going to see my big sister, Like I really need to get some sister time. She has not seen her nephew in a year, and I'm trying to
fit figure out. I don't know if I want to like throw the baby in the car. I don't know what to do. Bars So she's in Wisconsin. It's a good I don't even know. I'm not going to Wisconsin. I done told her, I'm like, you need to move. I want to go to Wisconsin. I think it's like seventeen hours listen, but we can't make it thirty minutes in the car without him freaking out. And I have to listen to the Elmo song for every one of those thirty minutes. Okay, there's no way I will literally die.
I'd rather just take the risk and you know, fly. But yeah, it's it's nonsense. Finally I had to see my little brother, have seen my parents recently. But she's just work, you know. Unfortunately, she works for one of these companies that has such a limited PTO offering that her vacation is just it's really hard for them to take time off. So, but I'm gonna try and plan something so that we can see each other in twenty twenty one.
That's yeah. Now, more than ever you realize how just how important family is.
Amen, sis a friend? Alright, Well, anything else happened in the news or should we take a quick break and come back fus? Question I think is question. I'm excited for today's questions. I spent a lot of time combing through the inbox yesterday and DMS and email and all that jazz, and I found a couple husband themed ones that I think we want to answer. So come back for the tea, y'all. Okay, guys, we are back to answer your questions again. You can hit us up on Instagram.
We are at Brannanmbisson podcast on the Gram send us a DM. We're also old school email brand Ambition podcast at gmail dot com dot com. So, as promised, I found a couple questions that each feature a problematic husband. So or I guess you know what I don't. Yeah, I'm gonna say partner husband whatever, a partner? All right, So let's read our first question. This actually has to do with a couple who's looking to buy a home.
All right, and she wants to remain anonymous. She says, my partner and I are aiming to move from New York City to California to be closer to family next year. We like to buy our first home there with a goal of living there for good. My partner is all about using YouTube to learn about home buying. I, on the other hand, read my share of articles in but
I'm seeking more guidance. Here's some background on us. I'm in my thirties and make fifty five K. My partner's in his forties and makes one hundred K. Likely we cannot continue working remotely at our current jobs. He's got about one hundred k in cash savings and is starting to invest, and I have forty k across my savings and investment acco. So here's my question. Besides an agent
¶ My husband are looking to be first time homebuyers and we have some different ideas about how to get educated, is there a such thing as a home buying adviser?
and a mortgage broker, is there someone who can advise us on buying a home? Is a financial advisor? Appropriate? Is a first time home buyer advisor? A thing? For whomever you suggest? Is there a way to check their background to avoid scammers? My partner is convinced there are home buying loopholes no one is telling him about. We both agree that if we pay for advice, we'd at
least learn lessons tailored for our situation. Looking forward, looking to fellow Brown Ambition, Brown Ambition is for a place to start researching. Okay, is there such thing as a first time home buyer advisor, Tiffany.
Not technically bud.
There are some amazing first time home buyer courses. When I first bought my condo when I was in my twenties, I took one at my local bank, and it was a great place to start to learn about the process. But even though they're a little bit of a pain in the behind. NAKA NACA. What does NACA stand for? Yeah, so NAKA is Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.
Here's why.
So in the DreamCatcher, I've never heard of NACA before. I'm not affiliated with them in anyway. So I had in the DreamCatcher group and a friend of mine went through the NAKA process. So NACA educates you on the process. Then they helped you get get the lowest interest rate possible and help you with like help you with a doubt.
I don't think helping with the down payment. It's mostly interest that they help you with.
The people have been able to get interests like under two percent, sometimes even lower.
It's an amazing There is.
No better program for buying as it relates to your interests than NAKA that I have found. And there have been thousands of thousands of dream Catchers in my Facebook group because it's about five hundred thousand women in that group, and I've been watching them posts about NACA for like the last three years. So the critique of NACA is that you really have to be on them because it's a nonprofit organization, so it really works. You know, are not getting paid a ton of money, so sometimes it
takes them a while to get back to you. But the more organized you are, the better there they are to help you. So I would look at NAKA as well because you'll be able to get potent so especially even now, an even better interest rate and learn the process along the way. So yeah, that's where I would start. Is first time home Buyer class. There's so many of them that are free. Just google, like sometimes the United Ways have them, many local banks have them. Now that
things are digital, you could still look. You could just google free first time home Buyer class and see what's available. But when you're ready to make the move. I definitely would look at NAKA Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. It's an awesome nonprofit that helps folks purchase homes.
Yeah, and I think so, I mean her, it's almost like they're an analysis paralysis, Like they've done so much research and honestly YouTube articles whichever way you like to like, whatever form of learning works for you. I mean, this is like a very like Mars and Venus situation, were like guys are visual, right and women will take time to read. So it makes sense that he's into YouTube
when you're reading, and that's fine. He seems like a little suspicious of the whole home buying business, so he thinks that there's loopholes that could kind of trap you guys. I mean, I want to like assuage a bit of your fears because thanks to the two thousand and eight housing crisis, which is weird to think, you know, a financial crisis that people are still trying to recover from.
But in the Dodd Frank Act that came after it, there are so many regulations in the mortgage lending industry right now where banks, you know, it's it's quite difficult for banks to do what they were doing before, which is get home buyers to take on mortgages that they could never afford, Like people out your head, like two houses, and they couldn't afford even half of one of those
two mortgages. So yeah, and so you can you can sort of trust that there are regulations in place to be very transparent, like you're going to get your lone estimate from any lender that you shop with, it's going to have all the fees outlined. And yes, you can have a real estate agent. You don't necessarily need a mortgage broker, but a mortgage broker can help and match you to different They basically have access to lenders and
can help you find loan offers. Or you can shop on your own using an online marketplace and I'll plug lending trees and so obviously I work there. But there's other ones too where you can shop and compare mortgages. But as long as you guys shop and compare and get the best deal on your mortgage, you know, don't make it more complicated than it is. And it sounds like you guys are going for like you know, first time home buyers, you know, you aren't like getting a
jumbo mortgage. You're not like doing some kind of weird type of loan that's not a conventional loan. I mean, it should be pretty transparent. And as someone who went through this process a couple of years ago, the only thing that I stressed out about was is this a good decision? Like is it a good decision to buy a home? Does it make financial sense? I did actually call my financial advisor because or my financial planner, Helen,
because I just wanted to. I did want to just listen to someone else who was very smart and who I trusted kind of talk it through with me. What are the different factors, like what are home values looking like in the area we're buying in, what are the schools, like, how have home values risen over or fallen over the past decade? And Helen did talk me through it, and for me, I decided to call our financial planner for that reason, just to have someone who I trusted give
me specific advice. And that's definitely something that is lacking from like online articles and YouTube videos is that they don't know you personally, which is why it's hard to answer questions here too. So I'm I'm a fan of like if you need it for your own peace of mind and just to have and for me too. It wasn't just about peace of mind. It was about my husband and I really were not on the same page about how much we wanted to borrow and where we
wanted to buy and all that kind of stuff. And once again, my financial planner kind of became our couple's therapist and helped us. Yeah, just helped be like a I don't know, like a board, a sounding board, an objective you know, source in the middle of us trying to help us work through and like speak both of
our languages. So I think, so you won't find like a first time home by our advisor that's not like a name, I don't think, but a financial planner who will just charge you like an hourly rate to have a conversation that could be helpful to you guys.
Yeah, no, that is.
And then honestly, to my this is not always typical. But my mortgage broker, David was amazing. He I never knew anybody who was like really passionate about mortgages, but he was, and I used to ask him. To this day, I have not gotten a mortgage from David. But I've sent send other people to him. It's just because in the house that we bought, we ended up paying for cash, as y'all know, and then when I thought I was going to do the cash reply cash out reply or reply cash out.
We ended up not doing it. But I was working with David.
But so sometimes, you know, you can get mortgage brokers can answer a lot of the questions. And I also had an amazing realtor that answered a lot of my I mean, I was one of those people who was like, but what about but what about?
But what about?
Because Samandy's point, they got to know me and knew what I needed. So you know, that's somebody else to bring into the mix, a realtor that you really like. Don't sign any exclusivity with anyone.
I didn't.
I was like in the beginning, I did, and then I learned my lessons, was like no, until I was like, you know, I really do actually want to work with you and a mortgage broker, one that you find really helpful and willing to answer a ton of questions because you're going to have them, and rightfully.
So yeah, absolutely, And remember the sellers pay, They usually pay the buyer's agent's fee, So you know, if that's something that you're worried about, you feel like you're stuck with this person, like you know that fee is usually covered by the seller. Okay, well, hope that was helpful and you and your partner figure things out. Okay, let's go to another question. This is another couple who's having differences of opinion about what to do with their emergency fund.
Oh do I know this so well? Okay. Our next question comes from we'll call her Unus. Unis says, my husband and I have recently saved six months of expenses for emergency fund. Good for y'all. He thinks we should get a financial advisor to invest this money to where we have access to it in a couple of business
dates if needed. I, however, prefer to keep the money in our bank account and a high interest checking account at one percent, which is at a credit union, so we don't have to ask anyone to use our own money if we need it. I'm very risk averse and skeptical of financial advisors. Plus, I thought an emergency fund was something you kept one hundred percent liquid, But my
¶ My husband wants to invest our emergency fund, but I want to keep it liquid, what's the best thing to do?
husband sees things differently. How would you, ladies say, we go about getting a return on our emergency fund. My plan would give us about two hundred dollars of interest per month, which is more than enough in my opinion, and we can keep money ourselves for an emergency. I love the podcast and I love the life updates from y'all. Thank you, Okaynis, So this is a really interesting scenario.
So they've got hix months worth of savings. Fantastic. So her husband's looking at this pile of cash and it's like, Yo, we should be investing this to earn even more return on it. And she's thinking of it like, oh, we need to keep this safe and protected in a regular ass banking account, as I like to say, So interesting, what do you think.
To Well, I can understand your husband's position, But the purpose of an emergency savings account is for risk management. It is not for growing wealth. Anything saved above them, go for it, you know, That's what I tell him. Like, so if we put our money into the market, right, let's just say, and then we hit an emergency, what will we do if we put our money into the market. Because when you invest, you have to think long term.
You have to think five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. So you might put your money in today and the market drops and then someone loses their job, and then, well, what happens to your emergency fund. The literal purpose of your emergency fund is to be your first line of defense in the case of financial trauma.
So I mean, I don't know.
I probably wouldn't keep it in the checking account, just a high entry sealed savings. Did you say checking or did you tell you said savings, Mandy, she.
Must mean savings if she's getting one percent, yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, yeah, So there's nothing wrong with that, and you just tell him, like any money because so my husband and I have maxed out, we have saved because I'm you know, crazy, We've saved the year's worth of our expenses, and so anything above that now goes
to one or two things. We have a bucket to invest into real estate, and then then we also I have a certified financial planner, Angelie, and then anything I also send money to Angelie to say, okay, put it into like, you know whatever, like our investments are with her. So so yeah, I don't believe in investing your savings because the purpose of it is to provide you are cushion.
Since something happen.
So I mean, but I know a lot of men are like go go, go, go go, and sometimes you know, it can be like, ah, what do we do?
But that's what I.
Would just share with him, Like, well, babe, if we invest his money and then the market goes down and up and then down, and then when it's down, we're down, then what you know? So yeah, that's what I was sharing. I mean, I think you're you're you're on the right path. But I can understand why he sees it as like it's a wait, it's really not.
It's it's there to protect you.
Yeah, I just like, this is the reason I spend money that I really don't need to spend on financial planner because like, I know my shit. But it's really satisfying when you, as the as one partner, are told that you're right by the person you're asking advice from. So I can kind of imagine Eunice like forcing her partner to listen to this episode, like you might want to skip ahead to the thirty four minute mark because there's a really interesting segment you might want to like.
But you know, all jokes aside. I think it's I think in this case, like, Tiffany's totally right. You want to keep that money. You like, congrats, you say six months of expenses. That's major. Now, it's a and especially in times like this, it's not a bad idea to shore up your emergency fund and and really have that money. Like, it's not just about being accessible, it's about being safe. It is insured by the federal government, and whatever we can say about how crazy things are, FDIC insurance is
still rock solid. So your money's not going anywhere like it would in the stock market. Your money is not insured. It's not protected when you invest it in the market. So yeah, I think you're exactly right. And I think what's exciting is now y'all anything else is icing, Like y'all can start investing for real, you know, start with your four one ks, your IRA or then you know,
open a brokerage account and have some fun now. But yeah, congrats on getting your your six months and good luck with the you think that's the first financial disagreement you're ever going to have.
Oh lord, oh girl, me and Supman are going through it right now. I'm like, well, for whatever, okay to share.
I love I love it. You feel normal right now?
Well, we get on the other side of it, because we haven't.
I haven't quite run one yet, but I will so when I you know, once I finished my victory lab then I certainly will share.
All right, how about my my husband went to the Apple store, came back with everything but the uh, the dongle that he needed, the damn dongle. Tiffany knows how many times I have started this podcast late because I'm looking for a damn dongle that I need for my for my mic to attach to my computer, and my husband's constantly stealing, and I'm like, can you go buy your own damn dongle? I just love saying damn dongles makes me so happy. But anyway, he came back with
an Apple Watch, a labor case for his AirPods. I'm like, oh, you got discretionary funds. Is that what you're telling me? You got discretion Let's put something in Rio's fifty nine plan. Okay. Anyway, he eventually got the dongle. That's the moral story, and.
Too, I mean, it happens like so you might so for example, there is there's negotiating, right, so you might say, okay, well, I I adamantly am against us, like you know, investing, you know our savings. But you know what, maybe I well acquiesce two maybe two months worth, just so he can see and then you go back to you get back up to saving the six months. Do you see what I mean by giving a little something? Because it's marriage is long, girl.
You have to lose some battles. You have to pick the battles that you're willing to lose every once in a while, you know, so that you can win the important You have to look at the long game.
Yes, you know. Yeah, so that's what I would probably teach it.
If this is Superman, I might say, like depending on how adamant he was, because sometimes he's like, eah, I can tell he doesn't mind losing, so I'm like, well, I'll just take all the victory. But then there's times that I'm like, you can tell he's pretty frustrated with me. You know what, let me loosen that.
I'll give you two months sir, oh three.
Yeah, maybe it's like five, here's five hundred bucks. Here's a like shave off a little something for them to go play with. And I mean I tried that, but see, be ready to lose it though, because you're gonna lose it with a lot of teasel stock and tell you that right now. Anyway. Yeah, well, good luck to you and thank you so much for your question, Unics. This is a fun one.
That was a fun one.
Please you guys, if you want us to prove you right, send your questions to Brand Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com or hit us up on IG Brand Ambition Podcast. All right, boost and break.
Yes, and now it's time to boost a break for all of family.
Are you gonna boost? Are you gonna break? What you gonna do? Mandy? What you gonna do? Mandy? I wish you could see my hand moving. What you gonna do? Very Brandy esque? What you gonna do? Mandy?
Shout out to Mosha, shout out to Sister Sister, shout out to Black Netflix. I love it. Yes, I'm so excited about my boost today. As I was digging through our dms in IG last night, I came across the story that just warmed my little heart. And it's from a listener. Her name is Ellen c and she just recently won a scholarship from a website called Student Loan Planner, and her scholarship essay featured Brown ambition. Yeah, so she called to share the link, and I'm gonna share in
our show notes. But but I also wanted to read a little bit because her story is really interesting. So to get the scholarship, she submitted an essay to Student Loan Planner and it's all about kind of how she has transformed negativity of twenty twenty into opportunity. All right, So let me just I'm going to read a little bit of her essay. It's really cute, cute, really cool,
all right. Ellen says, one of the main negative experiences I faced was in high school, wh my high school counselor stereotype me and did not give me the guidance I needed to apply to college. That was always my goal. I was working hard to be eligible. I received no support with college applications or financial aid. I pushed forward anyway, ended up going to college and earning a bachelor's degree,
to master's degree and a doctorate an educational leadership. Only around five percent of Latin X in the US earn a graduate degree, and this includes masters in PhD. I was set on proving to my community and others that it can be done. The reason I read this experience up is that I turned that negative experience into a positive by becoming a high school counselor so that students
would never have to experience what I did. I vowed to not only support students to get to and through college, but to make sure to have important information accessible to all. Fast forward to twenty twenty. We were living on one paycheck in an expensive city in an expensive state with our first child. I was at home full time flan like I needed to do something productive. I was introduced to the Brand Ambition podcast a few years back, but I never made the time to actually listen to it.
I finally started to listen to the episodes from the very beginning around February twenty twenty, as the coronavirus started to hit and our state went into shelter in place. I wasn't binging Netflix like others. I was binging podcasts. That was my gateway into personal finance, and I started going down the path of learning how to budget, invest, and take control of our finances. And that's a little bit from her essay. Y'all check out the link and our notes. And that's so sweet it is. I love
that in inspirational. Oh my gosh, Yeah, that reminds me of Michelle Obama story. That was like the famous Michelle Obama story. But how in high school her counselor told her that she wasn't what was it, Princeton material screwed the haters, Okay, And I love that. I love that you're going back into the same field to make sure that no student is left behind like you could have been.
Yeah, that is awesome. You know, it's so crazy. I actually had my guidance counselor.
Although my school at Westfield was super super white, there was less than like, probably five percent of students were black. My guidance counselor was actually a black woman. I'll never forget. And she was so like supportive and encouraging. So I'm just realizing just how fortunate that was, because it wouldn't have been odd for her to be not a black woman.
But yeah, she just always reminded me how smart we're actually from Facebook friends and she hit me like maybe a year ago and told me how proud she was of me. But wasn't surprised that she brought me something about like what does she say about how I was in high school? I'm like, really, she was like yeah, girl, I'm not surprised.
And I was just like, oh, that was so nice.
Yeah, so yes that unfortunately, there are not enough people to encourage us.
So I'm glad that you are now part of the solution where you saw a problem.
And think about your counselor and how alone she must have felt working in a school with like I'm sure not the facult the faculty probably wasn't representative of the area either. But I thinking back on my high school experience there, I had a vice principal at the last high school I went to, and she she used to always just like invite me to her office just to chat, you know, about whatever. And it always seemed like, oh, she's just being friendly, but it felt like those invitations
that really matters, and it does. And when you see a black woman and I think about her now, and I'm like, damn, she was like the only black woman in the faculty at the black woman, especially at this like super white high school, and it must have been hard for her too, you know. And anyway, she I remember when she gave me the that Doctor Juice book all the places, Oh the places You'll go, and my
mind was like blown, Yes, I love that book. But yeah, shout out to our educators and definitely a big, big, big brown boost for you, Ellen, thank you so much for sharing and can crab on winning that scholarship.
Yes, so I mine is not a brown boost. It's kind of well, I guess it's a brown break and more of a or maybe a brown and it's a hoosy breaking. So lately I've been seeing on social media something called SAR. So y'all know I'm Nigerian. Woop woop EQUI quin new a right. So SARS is the Special
Anti Robbery Squad so Nigeria. Unfortunately, when it comes to it's civil workers, so like teachers and police officers and things of the sort, oftentimes won't These people will not be paid for months and months and months and months on end. It's resulted in a very unstable financial environment where people have resorted to an armed robbery. And I've seen it firsthand with myself. Every time I've gone to Nigeria, we've always gone with heavy, heavy, heavy like protection and
so yeah, it's just it's unfortunate. And so in nineteen ninety two, I guess something called the Special Anti Robbery School was formed called STARS. They were a special like a there were supposed to be a Nigerian police force unit that was supposed to combat this anti robbery.
And I'll give you an example.
My dad, he had not been back to Nigerian in a number of years, went with my sister Karen is driving down whatever road. Police stands in the middle of the road, tells them to pull over. Your light is out. He's like, okay, it's not but okay, pulls over and says your light is out. That's going to be a fine of Let's just say, like I don't know two hundred n ira, which might be like I don't know a few dollars and he's like what no, so continues to tell him, well, well.
Then you just go to jail. My dad's like okay, let's go.
And I remember my sister Karen telling me this and at the time she was young, she was like eleven, she's now in her forty.
Sorry, Karen, She's like.
My business and there's no shot.
And they took him to jail or it's either message to Karen, my sister at Lisa. Either way, they took him to jail and he sat there until he agreed to pay whatever kind of like ransom and that those were police officers I have seen firsthand. So last time that we went like as a family, my father actually hired police officers to be our armed escort so we would be pulled over and then they'd be like, oh, it's my friend the other police officer, so we would be allowed to go.
But I saw like.
I'm talking about, like like aka's to your car, pull over.
Now I'm shooting.
And it's reached a fever, a feverish peak with the SAR squad where they if you are a young person that has a nice phone or is dressed nicely, they have been stopping. People have been killed. And I actually was just what's happening with my cousin Effie and I'm Nigeria, just checking on him and seeing if he was okay, and he was like yeah, So he was like, yeah, I'm okay. I'm in Port Hardcourt that's where he lives. It's mostly in Legis in Abuja, which are two major cities.
And he said, sorrows are what they are. Their activities are very notorious. They can harass you anyhow without you committing anything. If you enter into their net to bail yourself out. Sometimes you've pay over five hundred thousand k This is in naira. This might be a few hundred dollars, which is a significant amount of money, depending and some people come out to form or it's death, it's harassment and extortion.
This is what he's just telling me.
And he's like, people are tired of their listed activities and the protest is for the government to dissolve the unit. The last time the government agreed to reform the unit, there wasn't a proper mechanism in place. So but I'm just now looking and I was like doing some research because I wanted to post about it, and it looks like, literally as of a few hours ago, that the president has agreed to disband STARS, So we will see. Literally
it says STARS has ended. The Nigerian police Force is dissolved, so we'll see there's a lot of This is why I think people in America don't understand why it is so critically important to maintain a middle class, because what's happening in Nigeria is that you have the very very rich and the very very poor. When there is no middle class, people will result, meaning those who are very very poor will result into feeding themselves and their family,
oftentimes in ways that you cannot imagine. But we don't know that because we have a middle class to kind of balance out. But our current administration, the way it is structured itself, it is squeezing out the middle class. And it's so funny because it's like the middle class.
That's supporting whatever.
Some people are just they don't even realize that they're working against their own best interests.
But okay, but yeah, so.
I just wanted to, like, you know, so it's like, so we'll see. Hopefully I'm going to post some more bat it on my social because I thought to myself as a I consider myself African American, I consider myself Nigerian. I insider myself black a woman, So I posted a lot about Black Lives Matter. I can't be silent about SARS. At first, I was like, well, I don't only know much, and I was like, girl, do you know all the things about Black Lives Matter? And yet you posted so
don't you know? I told myself, I'm not that's not the excuse, Tiffany. So yeah, I just wanted to share that. And if any of y'all are familiar or if any of our our listeners are actually in Nigeria or surrounding countries and you have like more kind of like on the ground, be back up of what's happening. I would love to know. Certainly tag me at the Budgetista. I want to learn more and like what the hardest part for me is, I'm not clear of what can be done.
What other Nigerians are just asking is that you shared it, because in so sharing, you're shaming the government to make a move. But other than that is you know what else can we do? So that's probably my biggest I'm asking. I was just asking Iffy, my cousin, and he was like, right now, share as much as possible because right now it's forcing the government's hand because the world is watching.
So yes, and it's almost like you know, America and for what it's worth, like I know there's people who are very much against the US interfering so to speak in other countries situations to come to aid or whatever, and of course we have like a not the greatest
track record of doing that to anyone's benefit. That being said, I feel like if American citizens stand up and call attention, I mean, that's that's I feel like sometimes more powerful the same way that Nigerian citizens that seems like they've stood up and said enough, like we're not going to tolerate this anymore. Was it inspired at all, like by the Black Lives Matter movement? Because like that, so SARS has been around for nearly thirty years. Now, what do
you think is changing now? Like people are rising up against it.
It's funny because actually my sister Lisa, one of her professor, is one of the ones that started the movement. He has been on the ground for a long time. They actually arrested him on some bogus charges. They've since stripped him of He's out of jail after a year being held without cause, and they sent stripped him of his year. Hm. They stripped him of his passport, so he can't go anywhere. So he said, fine, if I'm stuck here, I will
use social media. So what you're seeing is accumulation of his efforts and the efforts of the people who who just like him want to see a change. And so I think what helped is they saw the I don't it wasn't Black Lives Matter that made the movement happen.
I think it's what it's like it helped to open the door for the movement to be heard because, like I said, I've been this, you know point Like I was like like the last time I went to Nigeria was like ten years ago, and I saw this myself with my own two So this is not a new issue. This is not something that Nigeria's have not been talking about. I just think that now it's like, Okay, you know, it's scary because there is at least some.
Law in order here in some ways.
But there are places like literally I saw the policeman like shoot his gun in the air and point it like at a family in a car and say stop or all of you it's I.
Mean, and then what can you do? You know what I mean, Like what Yeah.
So it's just so I think so a lot of people are afraid because you're really literally putting your life
on the line some places when you protest. We we don't know, I mean we know, but we don't know that level of scariness where you know, yeah, it's just like well, I don't want to compare like, you know, struggle for struggle, but it's just a different level of Yeah, it's just a different level of like what's allowed, and so I am grateful that Black Lives Matter has made Like you know, I don't want to take away from the movement of what they've done on their own, but
I just think that it's emboldened this type of protest. And so yeah, so yeah, Like I said, I want to I want to share more. I want to learn more. If you guys know more, please share especially. I want to find solutions or things that people can do here and abroad to help and to be of service other than just sharing. But the sharing alone is really important.
Well, thank you for sharing, because I was not aware of that at all. So I learned something today.
No problem, all right, Well that I believe is the show. It is another week, another week closer to elect Oh god, I hear the little one.
He crawls like a sprinter, sprints like I have never seen a human move so fast on four lands and insane.
These kids are fast out here in these streets.
They're so fast. All right. Well, I'll take care, have a good rest of your week. Happy early voting, you too, Hi bye, y'all.