Are You Poor or Broke w/ The Budgetnista

thing to mention, we're married. We are. We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about through the lens of a millennium married couple. Dead adds is the term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We bought take pillow Top to a whole new level. Dead as starts right now. This story is going to take me back two two

thousand and twelve. Okay, de Val gets a little bit of knowledge about Facebook going public, right and at this point in my life, um. We had lost money in the stock market. We lost money doing all of these things, um investments, buying property. But while I was starting to rebuild my bank account, but I was broke. Wasn't poor because I had everything that I needed in life. I didn't have everything that I wanted, but I was broke.

It's funny because the story comes around I was. I was broke, so I had and it's gonna sound funny because you know, money is all relative. But I had about dollars that I had saved up over doing all my training and stuff like that that I was like, know what, this is money and I can play with. So I got tipped that Facebook was going to go public. So I went and took the twenty dollars and I

invested it in Facebook. Right. I invested in Facebook, and initially Facebook started to drop first, Remember people put it, I think about thirty nine dollars. Put my money in that thirty nine dollars. It dropped, right. I was like, dang. At one point I got down to like fifteen dollars or share. But I had put all the money I

had saved on it, so I couldn't double down. So I was just letting it sit there, letting it sit there, and after a while it started to come back up, and it got back up to I think about twenty six dollars. And at that point my t K was at around k And it was around the time of your birthday. And no a matter of fact, it was your birthday. It was the ten year and averses right, two thousand twelve, um. It was a ten year anniversary of the day we first met. And I wanted to

do something nice for you. So I took out that dollars and you didn't I upgraded your wedding ring. Are you serious? Yes? I did, because to be honest, I didn't listen. I had you know, I told you not to do that. I told you to leave that right there. So but this is I'm gonna gonna tell you why

that happened. Right. I had a poor relationship with money because I was doing all the right things when I was in the league, and I didn't trust the stock market, I didn't trust real estate, and I had lost my money. So at this point I was like, you know what, I got this money. I want to do something nice for you. And I was like fuck it. I was like, fuck it, it's you know it's money I saved, I lost a little bit of it. Let me upgrade her ring.

So I upgraded your ring and Facebook skyrocketed like shortly after that. Some of the issues of being broke. When you broke, you make broke people decisions. As y'all know, tomorrow is my birthday. You know I'm the aries baby people. Second. Yes, So I'm gonna give you an exciting song today that my wife loves. I'm gonna start with the beat. I'm gonna let you do the ad libs. Let me see, let me see, let me see. No, no, no, no no,

Now what you wanna do? Wanna be ballers? Shot callers, broers who beat them in and on the loaf from the jake, the tourists trying to give my hands some grants like horast, you're living the roa deal, three course meals, spaghetti, that Genie deal, steal, everything's really in the field and what you can't have now leaven you will. But don't knock me for trying to bury seven zeros over rio. Diy ain't nobody here, but I want to be heard

or yat not seven every day. That's my word. Women with ther own Condomenium five plus five, who dropped millennium for the months hand Karns nice On the hand, I already spent my money on you. I could have had more Facebook, How could have could have had about a hundred thousand dollars right now instead? So you know what coming out of karaoke back to your story time, I feel like we're even now. You know why we even now. I'm gonna tell y'all why we're even now because I

didn't know anything about this story right. I was just like, oh, my baby just upgraded my ring. Oh, this was so sweet, not knowing that he made a poor decision, much like my poor decision when it came to the wedding versus the property. This is how I'm gonna explain to you'all how women make no sense. Oh my god, listen, she now says, we even right. Listen to how we even. She made a more economic decision to get something she wanted. I made a poor economic decision to get her something

she wanted, But we eveny I didn't make it? Makes sense, Make it make sense, be fair. I didn't even know the upgrade was coming. That was a surprise. And had I known that money invested. At the point we were in our life, I would have been like, you know what, babe, not maybe you should leave that money there lines. But that's not the point. The point is when there's someone going to make a poor economic decision to give me something I want. I've done, That's that's when. Then we'll be.

Then we'll be even when you did that several times, don't you know? At this point in our life, not want me making no poor economic decisions. And that's why we brought our guests back today because what we ain't doing is making bad decision be lying to the people lying. This is supposed to be dead ass, and you lying talking about economic decisions to get me stuff. I've made some in my tix. Okay, wait, just watch watch what I'm not going even tell you how I got you

that Rolex. But it's all right. You did get me right. You don't right. You want to be digging up dirt. Don't don't think too deep, don't think too deep? All right, all right, you're gonna find points. Is happening when you when you get married. You don't know how to say this, but you have to say you're right, and it give me the look that you always give me thank you thanks.

So today we're talking, of course, more money, we're talking less problems, more money and less problems, especially where we are right now, we're pretty much a full year into this pandemic. Spoken about what people are doing now that you know jobs are lost and you know that noodle budget that we spoke about in season four with Tiffany Lecha maybe dwindling down. So um, there's so many things

to talk about when it comes to finances. By now, many of us are familiar with the app called robin Hood, which I was not really privy too, but we're gonna learn more about what exactly happened with that. Um it's the stock market, stock trading app, um, the investment app, and there was some controversy around there. So we're going to talk to Tiffany a little bit about that book, her book, her day absolutely investing money in different ways

to financially plan for the future. Um. And it's always a good time with her. And understand too, this is a young lady who doesn't just talk to talk, she walks the wall. Absolutely very very successful. And it's supportant for us to say that because there's so many people who say I don't know what I can be because I don't see anyone who looks like to do those things or people giving advice and themselves. It's like it's

like having a an outer shape trainer. It's like, how you would be training me to be in the best shape of my life. However, well, I mean sometimes they say those who can't teach, So that's you know, that's motivate. It's not just about that. But the great thing with Tiffany is that I feel like she's wrapped up all in one. She's engaging, she motivates, she gives also step by step very successful, yes, very successful give and she's

failed before. Yes, So it's not a story where it's like she was just a child prodigy, went to Harvard, was intellectual that she got this from the Mud. And that's why you know, we like bring her on. No, we definitely rock with her and appreciate her. So let's welcome back Tiffany Elean. Yes, and we're welcoming back to the show for the m team time. And I'm just so happy it's time because she's become our resident guest here.

Tiffany Elic the budget knee stuff, what's up Tiffany, Hey, you know I have to come back, and that's all Mary had a little lass reside. Absolutely, wherever the money's residing, we want to have you there to talk about how we can keep it there. But whatever the money reside, that's what t is. That is true, that is true. And at this point the money no longer resides in our bank account because we purchased this home and now I'm like, how do we rebuild it? Let's call Tiffany

back on the show and ask her. But I'm so proud of y'all. Think it's a beutiful, beautiful, beautiful house. And folks have to understand that home ownership is a cornerstone for wealth, and especially for black wealth. So that's what you guys are building. So that's awesome. Thank you. We actually did a whole podcast on on why we purchased a home and how this was more of a legacy move than a stunt move, right exactly, So these baby boys have, you know, something to hold on too.

And I also said talked about the importance of education, which is why we want to have Tiffany back each season to educate us on how to continue to grow this money. Because what these kids ain't gonna do is take this house and then we pass on and I'll just piss it away somewhere. So if we want to make sure that the generations to come know how to

be financially savvy. And of course Tiffany has a new book which is fresh out just drop cut off the press, Get Good with Money, Um, that just came out a couple of days ago. So congratulations tiff Yes, thank you. I think I'm like I just gave birth. I was the blood, sweat, tears, labor that goes into something like that. Absolutely, and you should be super proud of yourself, and we

are proud of you. Thank you, thank you. I really wanted to create like I was like, Yo, it's where is the manual to really help walk you through, step by step how to literally get good with your money? And um, but in a way that speaks like how we speak. It doesn't feel like overwhelming. And y'all know I used to be a teacher for over ten years and like that really walks you through. I give you a little bit of homework, I bring in other instructors.

It's truly like this like classroom in a book. But you're like, oh, I got it. I could do that, I could do that, I got this. No, that's right. I think sometimes when you talk about finances, a lot of the jargone is just very overwhelming. So being able to have someone break it down for us, and at this point nobody's in classes and really no one's in school like that, we're virtually learning. So we're gonna learn

through this book about financial wholeness. Yeah, talk to us a little bit about about financial homes and how you can become whole. Uh and and not necessarily an expert, but how you can just become whole financially because Knee and I learned through this home buying process that you know you have to be prepared even to to begin

to look at property. So how do you become financially whole? Well, financial wholeness is when all ten aspects of your financial life are working together for your I call it your greatest good, your biggest benefit, and your richest life. So there's these ten components, right, So most people think of like financial freedom. I'm good, but I can tell you as someone who achieved financial freedom, meaning if I didn't want to work anymore, I didn't have to, I don't

have to financially technically work anymore. But I was still a whole financial mess. Like I didn't have an estate plan and something happened to me, what was gonna happen to my coin? You know, I didn't have enough insurance. If someone came to my house and send my neck, my back, my neck and my back, I was you know, you know, I didn't have a I didn't have a proper guidance. So although I know how to manage my day to day money, I definitely struggled with like the

larger plan. And so that's when I it clicked to me that like financial freedom is not enough. That is, it is a small component of maybe what you should be working towards, but financial homeless is what everyone should work towards. So the ten steps are one building a budget to saving three digging out of debt for your credit five um learning how to increase your income. These are the finance the foundational components of financial wholeness. Then

we work on the next level of financial wholeness. So six investing for both retirement and wealth. Seven getting good with your insurance, eight increasing your net worth. Nine picking your money team. You have to have financial professionals on your team, and ten estate planning leaving the legacy. Those are the ten components and get good with Money um um. Ten simple steps to becoming financially whole walks you through what does it? What do you have to do to

achieve this component? How to achieve it? All the tools and resources you need. If I need to bring in a specific expert, like, for example, a state planning, I'm not an attorney, so I had to bring in my attorney, Tony Moore. She's super dope, got her like doctorate in law, and so I was like, Tony, let's walk the people through what does the state planning look like if you're twenty, if you're thirty, if you have kids, if you don't

have kids. But to take it from like this like attorney's brain, but then make it that you and I could be like, oh God, to God, to God, to God it this is what I need to do. Well, that's what That's what get go of money does. Quick question because a lot of people I speak to, especially you know, in my family, how I grew up their idea of being financially whole is I paid my bills

on time? Like that's where a lot of people get stuck and they don't know how to get out of that level of because even that's not even financial freedom. Just paying your bills on time is not financial freedom. But a lot of people find themselves, especially in this capitalist country, stuck there. How did they get from that level to move to the next level? Yeah, because I didn't even know there were ten. When she said there was ten, I was like, well, how many people? You

started listening to them? I was like, all right, we dipping dab in a couple. But we're in the proce us state planning right, right, Because as we got to the point now where we were able to make money and we have different foundations stuff done, yeah and income, we're at a point now where we don't we still have to work, but don't give me. We still have to work, but now we do have money that's working for us. So that will be in a position where at some points, said you know what, we don't have

to get up and quote unquote punch of clients. But for those who are, you know, just pay bills to survive, where can they go from there? So if you're just just starting, I'd like to start with like mindset, right, So you know, our people we like to season our meat. I mean, you know, no judgment if you don't. But so mindset is like mindset right, because I'm African and I know contine that your West Indian season right, clean clean? We season to me, yes, So I like to call

your your brain like your meat, right. So there has to be a mindset adjustment. And so that mindset adjustment is when you're seasoning your brain because you know, we both know that if you don't see someon to me, it's gonna be bland. You know, you're not gonna be able to see your meal through. And so I I say that wherever you are, and this is what I start within the book, is that we start with a mindset shift. You know, we take a moment to rethink about, yes,

like where you are, how you got there? Is it? Is it your family members that are that are impacting your mindset? Did you have some past financial trauma whatever that is? I teach you how to kind of let that go so you can introduce new material and navigate differently. And so then we start really working on each step. So each step, so as a teacher, we used to have like this um this we have like this a layout of how we teach a lesson. It's plan do review.

So plan means I like, um, this is like, let's just say I was teaching preschool again, I'd be like, hey, boys and girls, we're gonna learn our A B c's today. But for the book, it's Hey, for this step, we're gonna learn how to budget. We're gonna learn specifically how to automate this budget. You know. So I give you like because I think adults need to know what's what's happening? What am I read it? It's a novel, you know, so this is not a Harry Potter book. We're trying

to figure out. Don't tell me what happened to the end. I need to go right right, So that's the plan for right. Then the due part is the actual lesson, how like how exactly do I make what you said we're gonna do happen step by step by step by step by step, you know. And then um, then the review is checking for understanding, like, hey, we said we're gonna do it, did you do your thing? Are you good to go? Then we're ready to move on. And so that's how each of the chapters has laid out plan,

do review. There's homework with each step. Again, like I said, if the step requires an additional educator, I bring them in for the technical things like insurance and the state planning. I bring that person in to kind of walk us through. But it's like a light, easy read, honestly, but it's perfect if you're like, Okay, I'm just graduating college, or what do I what do I do? Or I have a life change. You know, I purchased a home and

I realized that my life has shifted. So a state planning, for example, a twenty year old might be my mom was on my bank account. But for y'all, a state planning is you have to have a will because you have the babies. Babies, but you know, you know, a state planning for y'all. It's like your So, y'all have a business, you know the Ballum convene, right, so who what does? What does business? What does that look like? If something happens to you to your business? You know?

And so it's great, especially if you had to shift or you've never laid a solid financial foundation. I wanted to create something that you can almost like if you used to watch um like I used to watch this with my um with my mom when I was younger, Like, uh, soap operas, right, so you can watch from the very beginning and keep watching and get value. But if you just have to jump into this episode, you still get value. Yeah.

The same thing with the book, Like if you like look and you're like, I don't need budgeting, I don't need credit, you can literally jump to the part that you need. But it also builds upon each other if you do need all the building blocks. So that's what I'm really excited because I think we've been we've been lacking an adult in an adulting guide. No. Absolutely, there is no guide to adults. And you actually get kicked out of college um a lot of times and canna

and not talk about this. With education, there are certain things you go to school for and you pay all this money to go to school, and they don't teach you how to be an adult. Like they teach you how to you know, pass tests even in college and how to write papers, but they don't teach you how

to become an adult. And that leads me to my question, is there a minimum amount of money you need to have, you need to make in order to say, you know, what this book has value for me because some people say, oh, you know, I want to get into financial planning, but I don't even have the finances to start to plan. Is there a minimum for someone No, not at all. Honestly, if you are gainfully employed, I would say probably more

so a minimumount of responsibilities. So I wouldn't say this book is for a fourteen year old even if your babysitting. You know, there are some things that you know might be able to help. But I will say that if you are about to graduate, so you might be you, you might be eighteen and helping to support your family. Perfect, you might be I'm about to graduate college and get my first job. Perfect. You know, there's not a minimum amount that you have to have because no matter how

much you have, mindset is still critical. Saving is still important to learn even if you can't currently save. Learning how to pay down debt is critical to learn even if you don't have the finances to pay down debt. I believe that you should be pre prepared for what you're rolling into. So even if like you're unemployed, is actually a perfect book right now because that way, because employment is coming, will you be ready for that? Oh? It's it's funny you said, you know, it's perfect for

people who unemployed. I mean, we're in a recession and a lot of jobs have been lost, so now people are trying to consider what would be the job I take that can take me out of this debt that I've accrued over the last year. And I wonder how the noodle budgets are going. I remember that from our last time, because that's in the book to you have

you have the noodle budget? Yeah, I have. I have literally I have the I call a health and safety budget, the broke broke budget the noodle budget, because sometimes I feel like they're not enough. Books don't assume like you're kind of good. It's like, no, says that's why I'm reading. I literally have a sex and that says what happens if you're broke broke, because I have been broke broke, you know, not like you know how people say like candy, They're like, oh, I'm broke, But if you look at

your purse you can find a dollar or two. You have some money in saving. It just means you don't have no. No, no, I have been broke broke where I was like, I hope I find a quarter in one of these pockets, you know, where there's no money, where my retirement fund drained, save his account drained, Um, there's nothing in checking like broke broke? What do you do then? And I addressed that because that's real, especially with all that's happening now, because you know it's being

broke broke is terrifying. And then what happens is even after let's just say you do find some sort of income, there is a shame attached to being broke broke or making pregnancial mistakes that keeps you in that broke broke mindset. And I have been there where I was navigating from this place as if I was still fighting being broke broke, even though you know, I was, like, you know, financially

solid and stable. So I can't think. I don't think we can under under estimate the power of what shame could do, because I always say that shame is a liar. Shame tells you you're a mistake. To all, you're a mistake, not you've made a mistake, you know, And so when you feel like you're a mistake, you don't tell anybody, you don't share with anybody, and shame loves it. It gets stronger with your silence, with your fear. It gets stronger when you're solitary and you and you don't lean

into folks. But I show you how to expel shame, which really the only way to do so, the only antidote to shame is voice. You have, yes, tell your your boo, tell your your your work wife, tell your work husband, tell your work mom, tell your sister, your cousin, somebody that you can expel that too, so that way you can start working towards the solutions, especially for our black and brown communities. I think that if we there is a racial wealth gap that needs a number of

things right, so it needs let's just let's just lation. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm actually working on a new one right now with my friend Angela Vie mcnight assembly Woman. Angela, do it, do it right now, because you know I wrote that law for for the for the kids, like you know in New Jersey that we have to get financial education. But you guys purchased your home, but like appraisals on

like this little dark secret, talk about it. You know that process that people's homes like y'all have this beautiful house let's just say I'm making up a number. You brought up a five hundred thousand dollars, you put two

hundred thousand dollars working to it. Because you're black and brown, you are likely to be under praise by absolutely well, you know, we spoke to um, when we spoke to President Biden, now President Biden about it, he said for a fact that he could have the same exact home as Kadeina and I and it will get a praise higher and it also won't be ensured as high because we're black, and because he admitted that he admitted that he admitted and so that is so discouraging. So that's legislation.

So these are the things to fix, right legislation. So I'm the law I'm working on is an appraisal law for the state of New Jersey to make that illegal, and not just only to make it illegal, but to make it mandatory that the appraiser and the realtor have to give you, the buyer a checklist or the seller a checklist of like what to be looking for in the appraisal. And if they think it's unfairly done, here here's here are the remedies. So that way their praiser knows.

I know, bro, we we're here now. You know, that's one legislation too. There has to be education in our community for us to change our financial situation. So this is why books like Get Good with Money. You know, you guys having these um these talks and having me on you know, um my Facebook group, Dream Catchers, my podcast Brown Ambition, Like, that's why financial education has to be normalized in our community, because you can't do better

until you know better. And third, us folks who have the opportunity to grow wealth have to then give back to the community. That absolutely absolutely, you know, like we have to put on our super Women Superman capes and you know, like are we giving to you know, are are we sending students black and brown students you know, to college? Or you know, is there a fund? Um? Are we? I'm talking about actual money? Like you know,

what does that look like? You know? I have a friend who she shared me that she's on track to make fifty million dollars this year, and I was like what, and I was she was like, honestly, though, Tiffany, I'm good with three, she said, but I aim to make that fifty because I want to pour back heavily into into our competing because like, you know, no one's coming to save us. You know no one's coming to save us.

So pouring back into your community, knowledge and legislation. I think those are the three corners don't really transforming um black and brown wealth. Now I agree with you because you know when we when you talked about being broke. Just for clarification, there's a difference between being broke and being poor, right, and people don't understand that being broke um form For a lot of black and brown people.

It's a disease because you grow up working your tail off and you're broke because you're constantly trying to find ways to make more money. You're not poor because you're working. You're able to survive. You have everything that you need, but you don't have everything you walk so you don't have anything you want, So you're broke. You're not poor. Poor people don't even have the things that they need,

you know. But when you're walking around broke as a black or brown person in America, that disease gets to you where you're like, you know, I don't want people to know that I'm broke because the shame that you talked about comes in so the first time they do get a little bit of money out of being broke, they have to buy something to show people that I'm

not broke. So rather than investing in something that's gonna make them more money, it's like, let me get these Louis Hutton shoes, let me get this Gucci belt, let me buy this chain to show people I'm not broke,

but you still broke. And I think that's where the lack of business acumen and the financial education you need to get out of that broke mindset is needed, because if we can get out of that disease as a people, we would be able to live a fruitful life without feeling shame because we were broke for a little bit of time. We've all been broken. I've been broke. I made a lot of money and tried to invest in some stuff, became broke, made more money and was planning

and saving. I had money in my account, but I was broke, like I couldn't do things. So I get what you're saying, and I think it's important for us as a people to know that. Yeah, for sure, Um, the robin Hood app I'm not too familiar with that I don't know you wanted to talk together because there was there was a big scandal that happened early in

the year. Because the the regular investor, and i'll say a regular investor because none of us here have hedge Funestifficy maybe the only one of us who could possibly yet not yet, but the casual the casual investor started to get involved during the pandemic because people were looking for ways to make money and for the first time, realistically in history, because of social media, people started to communicate with each other and say, you know what, um

this this uh style is about to jump up. Everyone should you know. But then people started to play the same game the billionaires play. They said, you know what, we can short this stock. If everyone you know buys in and we can short that, we can make a lot of money. But the billionaires started to lose money. So as the billionaire started exactly, they was just like, no,

this can't happen. So they shut down the app and shut down all the trading, which a lot of people was like, it's illegal for you to completely shut down all of the trading and pretty much cut out the smoke the little guy, how can we as the casual investors avoid these type of traps, and can you explain a little bit about what happened so our our listeners can understand what happened in that case. Yes, so yes. Robin Hood is an app where you can buy, sell,

and trade stocks. I was using it before I dance anymore after this um so um so yeah. It was super easy and you could literally look up you know, like you know, you could type in you know, I don't know, like for example, games, games, the type of game, stop right, and then they would tell you the symbol, tell you how US do you want to buy? Do you want to sell? If it's during trading hours, you

can instantly you know, buy seller, trade um. If it's after, you could put in um, you can put in a request and when when trading hours open back up, it would do it for you. So what happened was that um that head funds. They're so terrible, these rich mostly white dudes. They look at companies that they are pretty sure are gonna go under and they do something called shorting, which is when you basically bet on the loss. You know, you play like you know, the US to play football.

So some people like bet like, okay, you know, the Bucks are gonna win against the Patriot, you know, but there are people who are betting on the loss, like I'm guessing that they're gonna lose by twelve points. And that shorting is similar to that that like you get in you you purchase and you know that you can um so basically exchange your purchase at a at a lower like lower than what you bought it for so you can collect collecting, you know, and so like they were.

But the problem is it's one thing because it's already like imagine you guys have a business. Imagine if there are people they were like, oh Thelan cuisine, Okay, they don't just look at real Oh they got a house girl. They're about to lose, let me invest in their loss. That's terrible, like morally. But then some of these headphones actually encourage, like meaning do things um to to help the company lose more quickly so they can get their

money sooner, which is even worse. Right, that's his headphones dive and they make they've been doing this forever making they're so bold, they make lists of their losing losing, Oh we're about to bankrupt these people. And these people like how arrogant, right, So then what happened is read it and read it is like, um, it's a um.

It's like a community board, you know, where like there's all of these like different communities you can talk about anything, cats, dogs, investments, But there was a community board I forget the name of it where they were. They've been like kind of helping each other out as they've been struggling with their finances, but they talked investing, and somebody realized, like, hum, you know these this headge fund in particular has been talking about game Stop um and shorting it. But you know,

I like game Stop. I I you know who else likes game Stop? What if we invest in games Stop and stop them from going down? Because what happens is that you only win at the stock goes down. If the stock goes up, you oh, if the stock goes down, you receive Yeah. So they're like, so, and the way a stock goes up, it's all about supplying demand. The more demand of a stock, the more the stock price rises. So they're like, what if we just start buying game stock.

Let's let's let's let's make the demand go up. Game Stop I think was trading at first at like thirty dollars, then fifty and a hundred. I think it went all the way up to like four or five dollars. Now these um let's just say, for example, that the Hedgecomb guys said they bought it at fifty dollars and said, um or they wanted to short at at thirty. So they're like, Okay, for every stock that we have a fifty, we're gonna short at at thirty. We're gonna get twenty

dollars per stock. And we have millions of these stocks. Now you've got it at fifty, it's now five hundred, so you're not getting twenty you owe four and per stock, yes, per stock, yes, And so that was that's what was happening, and so it was going and going. So basically it was stand up. I don't know if you ever seen like the didd the didd he meme when like, um, it's like the four show, when did he looking at the dude with blond hair and they're like, that's really

what's happening. It was like so because it's basically whoever, because if if the game stoppers had stopped investing in game Stop, it would have tumbled down. So they had to keep buying and keep buying and keep buying. So it's like who's gonna basically say all right, all right, you got it first. Who's gonna stop staring first? And so the heads from guys was like, y'all, y'all money too low. Eventually you're you're one of the money. Keep

buying the stock. But the games, the yes just keep buying and buying and buying, and people people stepped in to encourage them, like um Elon Musk, you know, the owner of basically like Go Guys Go, and they was like okay, so came yeah, exactly, who's next? And so as a result, but that here's a problem because being right.

So let's let's just say that you want to jump in and you're like, oh, game Stop at a hundred dollars, because there's no way to know that the day that it actually because game Stop actually was a company that was struggling. You could have put in ten thousand dollars and the next day that's going to drop you like nah, Or you could have put in your ten and it went up to thirty thou you're like, so there's no way to know. So there's some people who made millions

of dollars. One dude was like, yeo, I made like one point two million dollars. I put a hundred something thousand dollars in, took it out the next day. But there's no way to know. Very volatile because you don't know who's going to win the staring contest, you know, and you don't know are the game are the regular guys gonna run out of money or are the headphone

guy's gonna say okay, okay okay. So the heads funk guys gave in sooner because they're like, if it keeps going higher, we literally don't have the money already to cover what's gonna this loss is gonna cost us. They had to basically get an emergency um injection of money

to cover millions and millions of millions. Yes, but the only issue is this is that so right now the game stops, like oh it ain't good and then and then um Um robin Hood was like, actually, y'all can't buy and sell um or y'all can't Yeah, y'all can't buy um robin Hood, I mean not robin Hood games. So the whole game like I can't buy, So you know what happens about like I said, it's supplying the man.

If I can't buy, the price is gonna drop. So that's what ended up happening, is that like you know, a lot of people lost a lot of money. But it wasn't fair if that Robin Hood was like, hey, basically, y'all are winning, let's change the rules of the game exactly. You know, you know, you know it's not green, you gotta wear blue now It's like wait what all the time? You know? And so that's really what's been happening. There's like a lot of basically because you're not allowed to

manipulate the market. That is illegal. That's the question is first of all, headphones do it all the time. That all the time, but they're like basically with these regulars Joe Schmall's are they manipulating the market? Is that one person saying hey, guys, hey, or can people just talk about stocks that you normally do? You're not talking about it now, I'm not manipulating the market absolutely, that's yes.

And so like so we're going to kind of exactly so we're going to kind of see like what happens as a result, because big money people don't like losing, especially not the small money people. A small money people have now stepped into their powers, say oh, we've got a little power here, So I'll be very interested to see what investing looks like moving forward. Speaking of stepping in, I've been hearing a lot about bitcoin cryptocurrency. To me,

it's all literally a foreign language thing, um. And even when I've had explanations a couple of times, I'm still like, but what well, I mean, it's it's not like it's once set thing. It's constantly evolving. So you're being confused about it as normal because I've been asking the same questions. Basis, Basically, that bigcoin is money that doesn't belong to a company,

not company, doesn't belong to a country. Most of us have like you know, like every country has its own currency, you know, whether like we have a dollar, the yeah, the whatever. People have another places the pound, you know, yeah, right, So bitcoin doesn't have that. It's decentralized. There is no country that backs it so um. For example, in the United States, our dollar used to be back by gold, so we knew we have this many dollars based upon

how much goal we had set up. Then they took away the gold standard, and now our dollar is not really backed by gold, it's just backed by like the US, the United States promise that we got you. That's really where dollars backed on, like that we're a strong company, we got you, right exactly. So, but bitcoin is really based upon like supply and demand, like it's it's it's worth. It's based upon how much people um either want it or don't want it. I'm so mad at myself because

I jumped into bigcoin. Remember there was like a big bitcoin thing, maybe like two thousand eighteen or right, So I bought like one for like it was like a thousand dollars something like that at the time, and then it went down to seven eight hundred. I got shook. I was like, I'm scared. I took my money out, lost my three hundred. While bigcoiners like like fifty would have a coin right now, I would have had fifty thousand dollars for my little one thousand dollars. You know.

I'm like, we was scared. Money don't make no money, right, you know. So that's so so Really the reason why bigcoin is looking a little more serious now is because banks at first we're like we don't care what y'all doing over there in these internet streets. We're not rocking with it. If it's not a dollar again, a pound or whatever, a ruby. You know, we don't, we don't, we don't, you know, we don't recognize it, you know.

But now you have banks like Chas saying, well, you know, I think we're gonna jump into the bitcoin thing, which I helped to legitimize it. Because the thing about bitcoin is there's a limited amount of bitcoin. They only create. There's only a limited amountain. So what happens is once that amount is fully mined, like it's only about you know, you can only buy and sell like kind of like what's out there. So we'll see what's going to happen.

Is it like getting the clubhouse invite? I need somebody to invitecoin? Yeah, it is, honestly, it's like even like the sooner you got in basically the better, you know, because you have more people following you and so like. So we'll see, Like I mean, I don't think bitcoin is going anywhere at all, Um, It'll be curious to see like what happens because you know, right now is deregulated and governments don't like that because you know, they

want their peace, you know. Um, that's why bigcoin is like beloved by like, you know, international smugglers and drug dealers because there's no way to really trace it. And but the problem bitcoin is that if you get locked out of your bigcoin wallet, that's it. Yeah, that's that's there's no there's no real security. Someone can take your bigcoin and there's nowhere to go to get it back

because it's not government regulated. It's gone. Sorry, that's you just lost your fift That's what makes the bigcoin a little bit like that. People like you know like that that big banks and governments have shied away from it because there's nothing they don't there's nothing they could do to control it. And so like there's a dude now who has like something like I don't know, it was something crazy like three million dollars worth a bitcoin, and he forgot his logging and he's on he's on guest

number two because you only get three. So he's like, oh my god, I know, can you imagine? So he's like I don't even know what he's gonna do, but yeah, so you just have to be so I have to say this, this is what I say about investing, because even in the book Getting with Money, I have a chapter, chapter seven is about investing investing for retirement, which is different than investing for wealth. Investing for retirement is basically, you wanted to maintain your current lifestyle when you're no

longer working. So I called my no longer working south Wanda because I found like, like, like not that I'm gonna be old when I no longer work, but I just feel like Wanda is a sassy old lady. She got a little flavor. Ye what she's gonna be like, I'm sorry, you do your ball in my backyard again? What do we say about that? It's my analysis, right, Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to be old lady rude Anchorage. Now everybody okay, right, and everybody's business like

you're natural blonde. You're sure girl, because then Ruth say otherwise, But I'm sorry. So, so you want to retire for I mean, you want to invest for a retirement that's just to maintain your current lifestyle and when you're no longer working. That's the purpose of investing for retirement. Then you also want to invest for wealth. Once you start investing for retirement, which means to increase your current lifestyle and to help to leave a greater legacy for those

that you're your heirs. You know, So if you're wanting that private island, that's investing for a while. If you wanted to leave money to the kids, that's investing for wealth. Investing for retirement is not about leaving money for the kids. It's not about the private island in the private jet. And you know because because investing for retirement it's just bare bones, like I'm not eating cat food when I

no longer working. That's what that is, right. So like in the and get it with money Chapter seven, I walk you through how to do both. Because it is important to that you must invest. I just cannot stress that enough. That whatever that looks like for some people, y'all, it might be like we invest in our in real estate, we invest in our actual business, you know, um, investing in the market. I'm not gonna lie, especially now there's a lot of money to be made. I know a trader.

They make some million dollars a month because she trade. So to trade is um. Most people, I suggested them long term investing. You know, you buy apple, you hold apple, ten years from now. You sell apple. Right, trading is you buy apple at nine am and it's a hundred and fifty dollars and then at nine, um, nine thirty, it's one seventy and you pull it out and you

put it back in. So that's trading. It's by sell by cell sometimes during the day, like day trading people, so people do right, So she does that and because her the amount that she's putting in and out, it's seven million dollars. She's making a million dollars now. But it's not for the faint of heart. Because she said one time she was trading and she was waiting for like, you know, like her let's just say it was apple.

She knew that it's likely by nine to go to you know, one fifty, and she could pull out her money. Her mama calls, She's like, oh yeah, girl missed it. So now all of a sudden, so yeah, girl, that's seven million, ain't eight now is six? So she gotta

wait again. But do you see, Like so it's not for the faint of heart, you know, um, But there are other ways to trade, Like you know, you could trade options, and you can you can you can trade in a way that you kind of like set parameters and it kind of does it for you automatically, but you don't have to do that. But just know that investing in the market is an additional way to invest, and quite honestly, it's it expedites you're investing. So I'm

not super comfortable. I'm not going to pretend like I am investing in the market, but I do, and I do more long term investing like buy and hold good companies, right because I understand that I want to have real estate,

which I do. I want to have my businesses, which I do, but I also know what the market can really generate, Like I'm you know, I'm a last time I check, I'm up over a hundred percent, you know, and so in my business I might not be up over And so I think that learning to invest, even if it's the most simplest form, like you're just looking at index funds for example, an index fund is just the basket of investments UM typically like a basket of

stock sometimes bonds UM that mirror the market. So you your market is something like the SMP five hundred that down Jones and marketing just basically think about it like a supermarket, but instead of food, it's stock selling, you know, so like different markets sell like we know, Whole Foods, Whole Paycheck sells like healthy food, right. And so the SMP five hundred, the type of quote unquote food stocks they sell are UM five hundred of the one of

the biggest um companies in the United States. That's the spy sell there, right. So you can literally say, I'm going to buy an index fund that does what that what that market does the sp five hundred right, So I can you can literally condem you can literally say, okay, this typed in index fund um um SMP five hundred index fund. You find one, and you say, I'm gonna put fifty bucks a month in. And when the SMP five hundred is up. So when Whole Foods is selling

a lot of whole food, you up. When Whole Foods is selling a little bit food, you down. But the magic of it is is that we all know Whole Foods always wins, even if they have a bad day, they always have a good year. Even if they have bad year, they always have a good decade. And so it's the same thing with the market that even if the market has a bad day, Over the last hundred years,

the market has been is up ten percent. Over the thirty years, the market has been up on average seven to eight percent, meaning that if you just put your money automatically in an index fund, you're gonna go up. You're gonna have some bad days and maybe some bad years, but over time you're going to go walk. And that's one of the easiest things you could do. Set it and forget it in an index fund that mirrors the market.

I love that, and tit tifficy. You don't got no time to be sitting down there putting money in and out like a double dutch game. And girl, and I was like teaching financial planning as a resource. She's doing all the things. Okay, so why you but don't get what I was tepted. I said, wait, he was, how you trade? Again? I don't even a lot of you. I have a couple of mouneis who trade, and I was just like, you know, Mohammed trades. He's telling me about this. He's the first person to tell me about

Facebook going public years ago. And he quit his job and all he does his trade and he got a fat crib. You know, he's just doing it. And I'm just like a lot of money in it. It is, but he'd be on that computer. Imagine you be on set somewhere and you're joint just drops like you can eat it to your phone. Still, Oh my Goodness's why I said, Like, you know, investing is for everyone. Choosing how to invest is for you to decide, like we

must as black and brown people, we must invest. But if you're not comfortable with the market, fine, do you have real estate? Do you have a business? You know? Like you know you have to must, must must invest. Investing just means growing your money because if your money that same hundred dollars, Like, so y'all from New York. Remember quarter waters right, the little like right they right now? Like I don't know how must now I don't drink

What was that like? Literally when I was a little kid, straight sugar water, Like let me get the blue meant that blue does not even occur in nature anywhere? What does that? But where they getting that blue color from? But die? We don't even know death? Right, So quarter wards are a perfect They're a perfect example of inflation. Inflation is the devaluing of money over time, meaning that your money has less power over time. Well we were kids, Um,

your quarter could buy that that little water. Now your kids, if they wanted it, might have to pay thirty five to fifty cents for the same quarter water. Your money is worth less over time. So if you just keep your hundred dollars in your shoe box or the safetess account, that a hundred dollars in, like maybe next year is worth ninety nine dollars, and ten years, maybe it's worth ninety five dollars in thirty years, maybe it's worth fifty dollars.

You see what I mean. So if you don't actually invest to raise it, so you have to just invest just to keep your money worth what it's worth. So you would have to invest that cents just to get it to thirty five cents just so you can buy the same water. So if that is not even about getting rich, it's just about just maintaining the status quo.

That's why investing is so critically important. Honestly, that's why books like Get Good with Money are so important because I think that folks will understand that what I'm trying to teach is this is that I want you to get financially sound with the budgeting and saving and dead and credit, so you have excess money to invest, and so you can invest to grow excess money and so like. Because the purpose of of working, and Dame Dash said it best in some interview I saw him, it's to own.

That's yeah, that's the purpose of work to own because you ownership is how you yield wealth because the things that you own will go to work for you. Your own real estate, that house works for you, stocks, those stocks work for you. You know, so some of us, to your point of old like, that's what broke is is when you're working to work, not working to own. That is probably the best definity of the broke working to own. Every night, before the kids go to bed,

what do we say to each other? I say, why do we go to work to build capital? Why do we build capital to make our money work for you? Every night I make the kids say that to me, and they're they're repeating it now and they're repeating it, but at some point they're going to get it. At some point they're going to get it in That's that's really the American dream. People think, especially black and brown people, think the American dream is to have a good job. I have a good job. I pay all my bills.

Once again, that's what that is. A broke mindset you all you work to own. That's a fact. So in addition to this phenomenal book that I have to get because listen, I was an excellent student. I don't know about Devalu, but I used to go to class and signament. So what I'll do is I'll get the book, and I will get my my, my, my post it's and my colored highlighters like I used to back in the day, and I will break it down for us to see how we can take these things to a whole another level,

you know what I mean. Um So, in addition to the book, Tiffany, just um let people know how you can be a resource to them other surfaces us sorry, services that you offer on your team, offers where people can find the book, you know, close this out with all the goods. Yeah, so I am the budget de so all the platforms so you could always tweet me, Instagram, Facebook me. Um so, yes, as far as resources, We've

got a a financial group on Facebook. It is almost half a million of us, mostly women, but we do have some dudes in there, and mostly women of color. It's a safe space to ask questions to get feedback from your peers. It's called dream Catchers, Live Richer with a Budget EASTA certainly check that out. UM and UM and and I have a podcast where I we talked

heavily myself, Mandy Santos and I another sister. UM. It's called Brown Ambition, and we talk about career, money, UM, life in this brown skin, like how do you navigate? We answer a lot of financial questions and so feel free to We're on all the social platforms you know, UM, not social platforms, but you know podcast platforms. UM And Then to get the book Get Good with Money tend Simple Steps to becoming financially whole. The website is literally

get Good with Money. So, but I also have to have a gift for you if you go to Get Good with Money, UM, you know, get the book, But right away I want you to get your financial holeless checklist, because there if you scroll down on that, on that page, there is a quiz, a too minute quiz that you can take to see what level of financial holeness have

you already achieved ten? So you can get clear like, but I want people to do that, honestly, almost even before they read the book, so they know, like, dang, this is what I gotta work on. As soon as you take the quiz, I email you the financial Holeness checklist, and so you could be reading the book and understanding, like I really need to work on my assurance yourself a gift. Tomorrow's my birthday, So make sure that I'm

gonna send you all. I'm gonna here's what I ask you have, Like, you know, send me your your your your, your mailing address. I'm gonna send you guys a book, and then I'm gonna put a little sticky you know, like let me know, like honestly, we're really struggling with estate planning or picking a money team or whatever. And so what I've been doing for my friends is I've been like literally adding like little notes where you should look directly so you don't have to be like fumbling around. Right,

I'm like, go to this page. This is what specifically I know that y'all would would find value from. So send me your your your mailing address, and a and like what your financial pain points all. And I got you all, but the rest of you go to get Good with Money dot Com go because y'all are not her friends yet Tiffany is our friends over my friend. Thank you so much, Tiffany, I I you know, we

appreciate you being here with this season after season. You have, like I said, been a staple um in the Dead as podcast realm, and we appreciate you and we love you and continue to grow into greatness and help us to do the same for sure. And congratulations once again, first eight figure year. You know, it's just dope. It's dope, and we have to um once again. That's not stunting for people understand that this is a possibility. For we can't believe that we can do things unless we see it.

And when I look at Tiffany and she says things like that, that just inspires me to be like, you know what Tiffany did, that's all I'm gonna do it, you know what I'm saying. So we need to give people their flowers while they're here, congratulate them and just say, look, if she did it, I can do it. So that's dope possible. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Tim. Look, every time I feel like I could speak to Tiffany for hours, you know, I just so many questions I

want to ask. Yeah. I think what I love about Tiffany the most too, is that she, like she said, started as a teacher, So I feel like her methods methods are very digestible, you know. It's it's a bunch of knowledge. Like I said earlier, it's a lot of charger on that is surrounded um finances and how to be privy about, you know, the next move to make

or what to do UM. But I love that everything is like a step by step with her, and it's it's it's something that's um systematic, like you can do it, and you can follow these steps and guarantee to get success. And I just I love the fact that she is just She's just us, you know, She's she's not this entertainer that got all her money performing. She's not an athlete that was six nine pounds. She's got a ton

of money. She really got everything from the mud and started to build all these different streams of revenue, which shows us that it's possible, you know, and she's paying it forward by giving us the tea, the whole spire teeth pot you know what, Let's go to break right now so that way we can pay some ads. I could text her pay some ads. Please don't pay. No, that's not what we do. Get us paid. That that part, that's why I always do this podcast. She's trying to

get more money away. You see this. We gotta pay some bills, take some bill by getting these ads. That's the fact. And I'm going to text her now our mailing address so we could get that coy. There you go. We'll be back with listening to letters after this. All right, baby, So we're back with your favorite portion of the show. A very long media show. But you have to letters here. Yeah, it was. I'm not going to repeat that. I'm not

going to repeat that. Hey, Canina Devo. I'm a big fan of your show and very inspired by your success as entrepreneurs. Thank you. I'm in my early thirties, single and doing well in my career. I want to learn how to manage my money better, but I don't know where to start. I make k year with my nine to five, my credit scores under six hundred, and I live and pay all my bills alone in an expensive

city about a month for rent and utilities. Oh man, I have about seventy k in student debt that I haven't even began to pay back ten years after graduating college. But that's only the debt. That's the only debt. Okay, got you I have. I have one thousand dollars in available credit to me, but I don't have any and I mean any money saved except for my for a

one k. Yeah. I'm watching my friends by homes in less expensive cities and starting families, and I'm realizing it's time for me to get serious about my finances and my future. But I feel so far behind that I get overwhelmed and don't know where to start. What advice can you give me about where to start? It sounds silly, but my dream is to have at least a seven hundred credit scores. That's not silly, um, and enough money to pay bills for one year by two. Do you

think that's tangible? Yes, I do think it's tangible. The first thing, um, young lady, the first thing I'm going to say to you, is welcome to the real world. There are a vast majority of people in New York because that's where we spend the last ten years while life. Um living the same way. You know, I remember growing up thinking that the minute I hit six figures I'll be good and then, um, I have a lot of friends who make over six figures, and they make six figures.

They make six figures, and they're like, I still live paycheck to paycheck because rent is so expensive. They have student loans and they just feel like they can't get off the hamst to where they're just running in a circle. So you're not alone, um, But the first thing we do have to do is understand that that's part of

the system, the capitalist system. Right. You make people feel comfortable so they can continue to work for you, so that they can continue to build their dreams while you're constantly working, and you have to work until you sixty before you retire. Um. The first thing we can do is change the mindset. Right, you pay a month for rent and utilities, probably because you felt like if I make seventy five K a month, I'm seventy K a year. That's around six thousand a month, right, six thousand in

a month. That's seventy two um thousand a year. But after taxes, that six K a month will probably be down to about four K a month. So if you think it's four k man, and I want being being generous, now you make four K a month. Twenty three of those of those goals to rent and utility. So now you have seventeen hundred dollars left. I don't know if you drive, you got to eat, you want to go out. You literally have no money left, even though you make seventy K a year, which is not bad. You know,

which is not bad. The first thing I will say to do is get a roommate. Get a roommate so you can split your expenses. The vast majority of people who can't save money don't save money because they spend over thirty per tot of their revenue that they make on living expenses. And then it gets once you get to travel. It's up to six percent is on living and travel. You haven't even eaten yet and you've spent

six of your money. Get a roommate. Part of the reason why Codein and I was able to bounce back after we had all that money that we lost in the NFL and when K wasn't working, was because we moved back to Brooklyn and we lived with my my best friend Balau and my brother Brian. So the apartment was big enough then where we didn't have any kids. It was me and cadein in one room below and his girlfriend in one room, and my brother was in running room. So we split the rent by three people.

Sacrifice time because sacrifice. Yeah, I mean you don't think that people necessarily want to have to live with her roommate. That's never really did. But it's a matter of trying to get out of a situation that we were in. Yeah, it was. It was changing your mindset from from getting rid of that disease where you're broke. You're not poor, you're broke, but in order to show people that I'm

not broke, you spend money unnecessarily on things. So for example, I gotta have this nice apartment to show people that I'm not broke. Meanwhile, you can't save money, and then you're spending all your money for this apartment. Get a roommate, Get a roommate, say that you split that with someone. Now you have what that you just put in your pocket.

Now eleven fifty that you put in your pocket, Now that you can save every month to make sure that you put that towards something to the end of the year. That's an additional thirteen K that you can put towards something, and you save thirteen K for five years. Now you're looking at sixty five dollars that you can now put a down payment on a condoor home. That's something that you own, that you invest in yourself. So the first

thing I would say is get a roommate. Second thing I would say is check your credit score and find out why your credit score is under six hundred. I wonder if it's because she hasn't began to pay back her student loan debt. Well, I know you can defer your student loans, so your student loans shouldn't really affect

your credit. So you can defer your student loans. Yeah, you may need a credit clean up, find out if if there's any fraud on your account, because I even had credit issues and it was after I feel like we're at a point where financially we were stable, we were paying bills on time. Come to find out that I closed out a credit card that I shouldn't have closed out because of keeping that line of credit open.

Not knowing again, not having the financial or business acumen to know that closing out of credit card could then be a detrimentally score. You don't have credits. Now, you don't have credit, so there's Yeah, there's a lot of things that um factor into that. And also your debt to income ratio will affect your credit score. So since you make seventy k, but your living expenses start with your your rent and utilities, you really don't have a

lot of money to play with. So that's going to bring down your credit score because you don't have any any available and available credit and you don't have the cash monthly coming in to pay for the credit, So that's going to affect your credit score. So it is

tangible for you to be able to save money. The first thing I would say is get a roommate, someone that you trust, someone or if it's a possibility with the nine to five, I'm not sure what career feels she's in, if it makes sense to be able to move out of that city or move a little bit

on the outskirts. A lot of people are working from home now, so that kind of made it easy for us, for example, to move from cities that are more expensive to live into somewhere where we can afford a little bit more for our money and then have ability to work from home. So at this point, I feel like there's no real cookie cutter way to do things, especially

after you know the coronavirus hit and the pandemic. People are doing things a lot more unconventionally now and it's kind of becoming like the normal, which I didn't hope for. But since you mentioned that there was another thing she can do, which we did, get another job. Getting a nine to five will help you pay your bills, but you will not be able to save money unless you have a second job. And there was at one point we were trying to get out of our financial issue.

I had like four jobs. I was working full ten hour days at the gym. I was doing commercials. I was doing color commentating on the weekends. Um, I was doing personal training. Like I was just hustling, working a lot of hours, not sleeping. And I told myself, if I invest five years of my life into doing this, I'll be able to do what I want to do. And it wasn't just me. Codeine was doing the same thing.

You were doing makeup, you were doing hosting, You're working at mac freeker at Mac like use this time while you're in your early thirties. Um, I don't know if you're single or not, but if you're single and you have extra time, find another job and take that job and put all that money you make and save it, and you'll be good. There you go. I hope that helps. Yeah, and of course Tiffany's book will be a good way to stay absolutely, yeah, you can learn all right. Number two.

My husband and I got married in March, before the start of the pandemic after being together for nearly five years. We congratulation talked about Yeah, we frequently talked about starting a family, but it's been a bit of a touchy subject for me lately. I was hesitant to start right after we got married because of the pandemic, and I was really motivated to finish my bachelor's before having a child.

We also decided that we would wait a little longer after getting married so we can enjoy life as a married couple. Ye. I finally, I'm finally on board to starting a family, but I think my husband needs to make more money first. I work as a paralegal and I currently make a lot more money than my husband, and my husband talks about going to trade school and advancing his career, but he never gets off his ass

and works towards his goal quote unquote. He currently works from works for municipality yep, and the pay is okay, but not the best. He received a promotion since he started, but not much of a pay raise. Last year after his evaluation, his raise was only about seven dred and fifty dollars. He knows that I would like to stay home once we have a child until they're at least one. I can't do that if he can't make enough to cover the bills. I've tried to express my financial concerns

to him. He blows it off, like child care, food, baby clothes, diapers, et cetera. Aren't real expenses when you have a child. All the contrary, how do we financially plan for a family on a tight budget? Okay, so um, this is the first thing. When k and I were trying to plan life, we always said we want to wait till the right time to do things, and it seems like there's never a right time. So it just

happens and then roll with it. I'm just to be honest, There never seems to be a time where you say, now we're prepared to have a child, now we're prepared to buy a home, Like it just seems like something always comes up where it's not the perfect time. So this feeling of uncertainty that she has, I feel it's normal, Like it's normal, like people always feel like, I don't

know if I'm ready. I need to make more money. Um. The second thing I would say is it seems as if his work ethic is not the same as hers, right, which is fine. They love each other for whatever reason

they love each other for. But I will say this as a man, I honestly feel like when you start to ask a woman to have your children, it is your fiduciary responsibility to maintain all of the bills just in case your wife can't work, because it's the possibility after childbirth, application or something, she may not be able

to work. And the only reason why I say that is because you did have complications after Jackson, and you were out of it for months afterwards, and you couldn't go back to doing freelance immediately, you know, and you did go back to work after maternity leave, but it was a struggle. So um, as as a man, I just feel and this maybe you know, some people may take this the wrong way, but I honestly don't give

a shit. Um, you ask a woman to have your your child is your responsibility to be able to take care of all of the financial responsibilities because we bring nothing to the table at that point. They have to they have to carry the child, deliver the child, then nurse the child. If if your wife is going to breastfeed, there really is nothing for you to do at this point. And at this point, this is where you should say, you know what, let me take on this responsibility so

she can focus on the child. I mean in her, in her in her conversation here too, or in the letter she says that I think she's valid in her concerns. Absolutely, She's a winner of the family, so she's definitely valid in her concern And the fact that he's kind of blowing off the things that children need is kind of like, that's not a big deal about child because she's the breadwinner.

We've seen this a lot recently over the past year, right where women who are the breadwinners more financially stable. A lot of the dudes are fine taking a secondary role in the household when it comes to expenses because they don't know how to manage money. Him saying him blowing off those things seems like he doesn't understand the realities of life, because she probably handles all of that stuff, and the best way for her to teach him how to handle these things is to give him some of

those responsibilities. You know what I'm saying, Like you think that these things are not real things baby clothes, food, childcare, diapers, etcetera. Let him manage that for a little bit. Let him manage a couple of the things for a little bit, because it seems like she probably takes care of everything.

If he had to manage it, he would realize because we do all of our bills monthly, and in the beginning, when I was handling everything, you used to have the same You're like, oh, I didn't even realize that we were spending X Y Z on that you on. And it's just because you took it upon yourself and say, you know, I'm going to people, I'm gonna handle this, or you don't have to worry about that. You have kids and everything. But I do have a greater respect

for the process. I have a greater respect for what's coming in and out of the house because I know what's going in and out absolutely, you know, So having those conversations like we have on our calendar on our phone, like we know, okay, the fifteenth of the month of the first we literally have a reminder in there and we go over the bills. We discussed everything, so we're

on the same page so we understand now. Like I told Tiffany earlier, I'm like, I'm the one now that's just like I don't know if we want to buy that, yeah, every single item, you know, maybe continuing the conversation and just kind of letting him know, like, okay, babies are everything, lay everything out, put it on paper. We've put in paper for paper to pen, you know, put pen to paper. But we do think we eve a paper to pen on what you but pay be writing with the paper

on top of the pen. But no, for me, I found it easier to do things monthly because bills come out monthly. Yeah, so if you change monthly, right, so if you do monthly expenses, it's so easy for people to say, ah, you know, it sounds a lot. I make seventy five dollars a year, but then when you cut it down to six thousand dollars a month, and then four thousand dollars after taxes, and then it's like they only make four dollars. That's that's a thousand dollars

a week. And then you're looking at a thousand dollars a week seven days in a week. It's a little over a hundred dollars a day. And now you're like a little over a hundred dollars a day if I buy lunch and my lunch is twenty five dollars. You know what I'm saying. Every single day, now we're looking at of my check goes towards me eating lunch out, maybe I should cut back on eating lunch. And that's

really how you do things to totally. So try that out, says let us know how it works out for you and how being in good luck to you guys with your family planning and all that good stuff. Yes, all right, this is a great episode today. If you would like to be featured as one of our listener letters, be sure to email us at dead as Advice at gmail dot com. That's right, that's D E A D A S S A D E V I C E at gmail dot com. Alright, moment of truth time, Do you

have one readily available at the tip of your time? Yes, I have a moment of truth readily avariable. All right, My moment of truth is this, there is a difference between being broke and being poor. Understanding that being poor means that you cannot help your circumstance. You know, you you don't have everything that you want, and you definitely don't have everything that you need. But a poor person

really can't help this circumstance. They may have a mental hellness issue, a mental uh, a mental health or wellness issue where they cannot work and they cannot provide for themselves. That's a poor person, right. A broke person is someone who works but cannot get ahead of themselves financially because they have a poor relationship with money. You see what I'm saying. And there's a difference between being poor and

being broke. A broke person may work a lot of hours, and a broke person may make a lot of money, but they don't do the right things with their money to be able to put themselves into a situation where they have some financial stabilities, so they're constantly broke and

they constantly have to work. Understand this as you change your relationship with money and you understand what it's like living in a capitalist country where people want to keep you comfortable, but keep you broke, so you're constantly working, so you're constantly building their dream. It's part of the system. It's part of the bigger plan for capitalists to make more money because the people at the top don't want to work. They want to own everything so that everyone

else works. So ask yourself and my poor am broke? And if I'm broke, why am I broke? And how can I get out of this mindset of being broke? It's only you mentioned mindset as your moment of truth because I then thought about as my moment of truth when Tiffany mentioned the shame that sometimes associated around people's financial situations right and not speaking about it. And what I respect and appreciate about Tiffany is that she was like once broke, you know, like literally, like she said,

she was scrounging for a change in her pocket. So my moment of truth is that money has a lot

to do with your mental reality. And I feel like for so long we've been conditioned to have a very unhealthy relationship with money, whatever that looks like, whether it's having bad spending habits or finally having money and then feeling like you can't spend it, or you know, buying a piece of furniture and then feeling like you can't sit on the furniture because you spend so much money on it, and then we can't even enjoy the furniture that we purchased, Like these are things that I've seen

from several different people around me. Um So, really changing the mentality and the mindset that you have with money is sometimes the start to then open your mind to educate and see how I can then now navigate this financial wholeness that I'm trying to achieve. Um So, yeah,

that's my moment of truth. That's trying to change our mindset when it comes to money, and now that we are able to do that, or once you're able to do that, then looking for resources like the budget nessa her book um to be able to help to plan for the future. Right boom, that's the key right there. Find the resources to change your mindset exactly, and be sure to find us on social media at dead that's

the podcast exactly. You know where to find me Cadeen I am and I am Devout And if you're listening on Apple podcast, be sure to rate, review and subscribe. Tomorrow is my birthday man, shoot me. Some shout outs on social media, right, wish me a happy birthday man again. Yeah, I love it.