Ladies and gentlemen. This may be a surprise, but you don't have to live broke now to be rich later.
I love that look at you, you always dropping gems in these little soundbites.
I love that you know.
And for me, I'm just always looking for ways to save money now.
And I don't know who I am. Dead ass, dead ass.
Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm Devout and we're the Ellis's.
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Voice and reading each other publicly as.
A form of therapy.
Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Yes, sir, we are.
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of Li's most taboo topics.
Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass is a term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred the truth, the whole truth, and think about the truth. Were about to take Billow talk to our whole new level.
Dead ass starts right now.
So storytime, all right. Every time we talk about money, I talk about Kadean, I get excited. Yes, But see, look I was about to say, but today I'm not talking about I'm not talking.
About about get excited when we talk about money, you.
Do you she love talking about money and spending it too.
No, so much better though, guys.
But yeah, today I actually want to talk about how I am changing the mentality of our boys when it comes to money. Right, growing up in my household, everyone I ever heard talk about money. They always talked about just save money, save money, having in your account. My dad keeps money in his house that he counts every day. Right. Then he has his accounts that he looks at every day, like McDuck, Yes, like screen scoop scoop McDuck scoop, mcdunck
or Troy mcscoop, whatever you want to call him. Right, So I grew up the same way. I grew up the exact same way. I like looking at my money on my accounts. I keep my cash here to make sure that, you know, if armor getting happens, that my family would be okay. Right. But when it came time to Jackson and Cairo and Kaz and Dakota, I didn't want them to have that unhealthy obsession with money. Right, The unhealthy obsession with money comes from us thinking that
you're never gonna get it. It's impossible to hold on to and when you get it, you have to see it. Yes, And I've changed that by getting Jackson a checking account. I got him the first time, first checking account that we have our partnerships that we work with with our bank, and he has his own bank account, so he's able to buy whatever he wants. Jackson no longer has to
ask me and his mom for anything. He works. His working it does not come from doing chores, So make up your bed, do dishes, I don't pay you for that. What I pay him for is working on skills that could help him make money in the future. So coding he gets paid for that, Basketball he gets paid for that football he gets paid for that. If his grades are all above ninety, he gets a bonus because academically, if you can be on top of those things, you
can make money from it. So I don't pay him for cleaning because those are just grown adult things you have to do. But what I've noticed with Jackson since I started to pay him based on what he does, He's starting to see money differently. Absolutely, he doesn't see money as a scarce thing that he has to hold on to, which has allowed him to be more forthgiving with his money. He buys his brother's things, he buys
his friend's things. He buy me and you things sometimes and a lot of times I'm like, bro, like that's your money, why don't you want it? But you know what, he says, I could always work for more. But what that's done for me has made me realize that he values money differently than we valued money. For sure, we valued money and it's like it's impossible to get so when you get it onto it. For him, it's like I just have to work harder for it. So if I spend money here, I have to work harder here
to get it back. I've also noticed that he budgets right. His account is at a certain point. If I was that age and I had that type of money at that point, I probably would have spent it, because you know, you get it, you think you have to hold onto it. But then the Jordan's come out than this. Jackson has programmed himself that he doesn't want his account to get below a certain level, and every year its rate is risen, so it's.
Like his own personal like goals for his money.
Yes, yep.
And I've even seen a pair of I think it was sneakers or some kind of like sneakers that kids are, you know.
I saw like an old lady for Christ, like an old lady.
At the bottom. We had them back in the day to La gears. I think Jackson was buying some La gears Jackson's.
Stride, but no, And I remember I saw him like kind of working through his head like damn, that costs that much. He checked his account. He was just like, I don't need them that bad. And he definitely didn't get him. But then the other day at Amazon, package shows up in his name and it's flossers for his teeth, for his braces and a special toothpaste that he found out about on YouTube.
And he was like, I wanted to try this new toothpaste.
So I was like, well, Jacks, if you want a toothpaste and floss, you could have told me how they got it at Target.
And he was like, Noah, man, I want to try for myself. I have money, I can get it. So I was like, all right, then buy a deodorant too.
You should know when he turns thirteen. When he turns thirteen, I'm going to make it a point that he is responsible to replenish and buy the things that he deems important. The Flossters, deodorant, he got his contacts. These are things that he wanted, Like he wanted contexts. He didn't want to wear glasses. You replenished that, just to teach him how to balance it, not hold it from him, and then say here, your dad gave it to you, so now be grateful. You want to continue to wear contexts.
A solution costs X amount dollars ordering the events. You want a specialty rate because it got a little bit of a sense. So you want to word cologne, you buy it. You know what I'm saying. But I think in teaching him that it's teaching him how to balance, how to budget, but also how to enjoy his life in real time sure and not wait until later on.
So good job, dad, That was a good tactic.
Now all right, In honor of our guest and also Kay's favorite discussion, I see what color she got on right?
I Needallas, Dallas, Dallas is what I need?
A song that was?
That was my song?
I remember why that was your song?
I worked at MAD.
When I worked at Mac Cosmetics, y'all, there was the playlists that played like every month or the week, and it would be the same songs in rotation, and I'd be in those stories for nine ten hours a day.
And that was one in particular.
Whenever a song used to come on, everybody knew that was my song because we had a goal of money that we had to make each day.
So once that.
Song came on, I was like, all right, y'all, I'm hyping out. I gonna make this money. So yeah, that was my little two cents for karaoke today.
Did they ever play this song.
Money, maney miney?
Did they ever play that? In Man?
They did Mad Money to make Mad Money for Frank and Frank listen ship.
All right, ya, well, we.
Gotta make some money here for this podcast because if not, there would be no what. So let's go pay some bills, get into these ads, y'all, and we'll be back with the special guests. All right, y'all, So you know, we don't be doing the whole guest thing very often because did Alla and I are just you know, we're not about that life.
We know, y'all like to hear from us.
However, there's a particular guest that every season we have to have her on. Yes, and I think she's the only guest that we have every season for that reason, just about because we absolutely adore her.
We love her spirit.
She is a fountain, a wealth of a knowledge, literally a wealth of knowledge.
And I love.
To have her because she really puts things in perspective. Me because for me, because finances never gets old, right, money talk never gets old. So our favorite financial expert, Tiffany Alice the Budget Nissa as we know her, is back to share her knowledge with us some more and has a brand new book that's out today, Made Whole, The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals is the ultimate hands on workbook for anyone looking to get their finances in order.
And that should be you, and you and yes you, who's listening now?
All right?
So today Tiffany is here to tell us all about what's in it and why you have to have this book in your life.
Tiffany, what up?
Hey, I missed y'all.
Now we missed you too, Yo. You've been kind of touring, you know, getting all the money, sharing all the knowledge with the world. How you've been.
She's been quietly.
I have been to like four or five different countries in the last few months. I mean, I just took my my bonus daughter. We came back from Europe for her sixteenth birthday. I took her to the London, Paris and today Mafi Coast.
Oh, and that's what's up.
Before that, I was in Egypt before that Kenya.
So I just you know, I haven't really posted to social I've just been like luxuriating in my quiet luxury.
I love that for you. Sometimes you just got to be present in that moment. I completely understand it, and I appreciate that, and I love that for you, Stace, for sure.
Thank so talk to us about this book just so you know. Ever since we've had our first conversation Season one, Kadeen has been on top of her budget. She opens up her account, she sees what's in there every day every other day. She's very tedious when it comes to suspending, like she's on top of it. And I want to thank you personally. I've been telling her for years and now she comes to me like, no, baby, you know Tiffany said that said Tiffany said what Tiffany told you that you should be doing.
What I've been telling you my financial fairy godmother Oprah, you know, like he'd be like, you know.
Oprah said, so now you want to do it?
Or doctor Phil said so now, I'd be like, well, listen, Tiffany.
Said that what we should do with the money through that's lou.
You need to hear from a different person. And honestly, that's why I wrote. So y'all know, I wrote Get Good with Money a couple of years ago.
It was New York Times bestseller, almost three hundred.
Yes, it was. Man, don't don't skip over that New York Times.
Everybody around here's a time.
We wrote a book, wrote something.
But I decided that I wanted to write a companion book to Get Good with Money, because gigod money is quite like a textbook, you know, And I was like, you know, what if I could write a work book for people who really want to get to work right away?
And so that's why I made Made Okay behind me and.
So I love that how'd you come up with the title?
Because the components of this book is going to help you reach what I call financial wholeness, you know. So financial holeness is like these ten steps that if you achieve these ten steps, you don't have to make a million dollars, you don't have to be rich, but you will be okay with your money. Because it really bothered me that I felt like the financial space was leading into everyone's teaching everyone how to make a million dollars.
Which that's great, but let's be real, everyone's not going to reach that.
What if you're a pre school teacher.
What if you're a mechanic or a nurse and you don't get that huge lump sum of money.
So does that mean you don't write a chance to have a good life, You can't buy a car in the house. And I say, no, I don't believe that to be true.
And so I wrote Mad Whole to help just regular, everyday people make the most out of their money. And by reaching these ten financial steps that I outline here so they can be okay as well, they can reach financial holeness.
So let me ask a question. Right, I don't want you to go through all ten steps because we don't have time, right, but what would you say, of the ten steps, are the most important three that could just help people? Like just the most the top three? If you do three these three you could be on the.
Path or can segue you because we also ultimately want you guys to go out and get the book because I know I'm going to get the book.
Two for sure, because we get good with money. So yeah, we definitely support and not only support.
We learned.
Yeah, and what I love about you what you said about this book, Tiffany, is that regardless of what financial level you're on, regardless of what your financial health looks like in this moment, you will find it useful.
Absolutely.
Okay, So I would say first things first, foundationally, you have to have a budget. They don't call it the budget the stuff for nothing, so you know, it's the foundation for all the things that you're doing.
You know, you can't say if you don't have a budget, you can't get out of that.
You don't have a budget, your credit's probably going to be the greatest if you don't have some sort of budget, which is just a money plan telling your money what to do.
So that's one.
The second one I'll say is learning to earn, because you're not going to budget your way to financial security. You have to learn how to make money when needed, you know, like not just from your regular job.
But in made whole, I teach you how to make money.
How to make more money at your regular job, and if you need excess money, I teach you how to make money outside of your regular job. So that's I would be number two for me. It's like meaning like a hustle, like a siey, that's what you want, a side hustle, a business, you know, like we have to make additional income, Like when I used to teach preschool. I love teaching, but there were times I needed more money. So I learned that I could tutor. I learned that
I could I could babysit. So learning how to make more money is critical in your financial holeness journey.
And then last, but not least, I.
Would say, it will be hmm, I'm vacillating between your net worth and maybe it will be financial professionals because I think, especially for black and brown communities, we hesitate to ask for help when it comes to our money. So I have a whole section of the book about how to identify the financial professionals you need on your money team, you know, like who can help you.
That's interesting, that's interesting. It's interesting you mentioned that too, because I think about when you say that in the black and brown communities, we are apprehensive sometimes to ask for help when it comes to the money. And I even think of our parents' generation, because we're at the space in our life where we're almost becoming like parents
to our parents. And you know, knowing that my mom and dad, for example, are retired or on a fixed income, and they like to see their money in their account and they don't want to take any chances. They don't want to take any risks. And Deval and I were trying to explain to them, like they just hold a property recently that they had in New York. You have
this lum sum of money. It's like, how can you now use this money to work for you, which may require a little bit of gambling, you know, or taking ariad But that generation specifically does not like to take that race. So how do you encourage that, you know, for anyone, how are you going to take a risk to potentially get this money to grow?
So that's actually perfect. So one of my friends, his grandmother lives around the corner for me, shout out to you, miss Diane. And so she recently same sold the property that she actually got from her grandmother for a dollar so many years ago. Miss Banne is like in her late late seventies, and so she sold the first significant amount of money. I'm not going to say Miss Diane's gonna be like, but she got a cute coin, a cute coin, and Miss Diane is more scared than ever
chid what it took to get Miss Diane. So he came to me, he was like, she will not listen to me. She has all this money sitting in a checking account just looking at it to your because anybody're looking, she would have seen and see her, you.
Know, every day, like on just to see Yes.
So I told him, I said, well, one, you her grandbaby.
She's not gonna listen to you because she's like, I know, the baby ain't even though he's grown forty. She's like like the behind now, right, The first things first, you have to bring it outside help. And so what I told him is, then let's get a certified financial planner, which is a type of the gold standard of a financial advisor, which I help.
Oh before you continue, before you continue, please tell the difference because people have been asking ever since season one, what's the difference between a certified financial planner and a CPA.
Oh okay, so a CPA is a certified Public accountant, So that's your accountant.
Yes, So there are financial advisors.
Anyone could basically call themselves an advisor for the most part, but a CFP, a certified financial planner, is a gold standard. They have to take a certain level of testing, they have to have been in business for a certain amount of time, they have to keep up their knowledge base, and they have to be what they call a fiduciary, meaning a fiduciary has to legally put your interest first before.
Anything else first.
So if you're looking for a type of financial advisor, there are many types. You want to look for a CFP, a certified financial planner because that is the top because everybody can't make it. It's like the difference between like, oh, I play you know, reck Ball on the weekends and you and the NBA.
So right right, you don't don't be fooled.
Don't be fooled.
So you want to see f P, a certified financial planner, and I I teach you the book like how do you identify, how do you interview?
How do you pick the right one?
And so what I did with miss miss Diane is and her grandson. As I said, miss Diane, like, you are gonna want someone because she wanted it to be me.
But I'm not a CFP.
I'm a financial educator, meaning that I just teach financial knowledge. I don't tell you what to do with your money, specifically what to do with your money. So I told her what we can do is I showed her that this is how you interview. I'm going to line up my top three financial planners that I like personally mine am, this woman named Amy, and this other woman named Helen.
And I said, and for the first one, I will co interview I know Amy, but I will co interview her with you so you can see, so you can see what questions to ask and like what And so I did that and she was really just like okay.
And so they did the.
Next two on their own, and they ended up choosing Amy. And so now Amy is the referee between what her grandson wants because he's young, he's forty, so he's.
Like, yo, let's put it in the market.
Let's the best, you know, And then what she wants, which is I don't want to I don't want to lose now one cent I want to ride this thing out until I'm no longer here.
And so Amy helps to add that.
Extra sense of comfort for me, saying I just saw her the other day, like last week, and I said, let me walk over and check on her. I said, how's it going with Amy? She's like, I like her. Amy's a little older. Sorry, Amy, you know, I'm just saying you are a little older.
It was a little old. Actually, she's a little older.
So she liked the fact that someone they're not close in age, but old enough where she felt like and that this is someone who can understand like why she might be a little or hesitant. So slowly they had been like chipping her toward, like, well, let's put some of this money into a high yield savings account. Let's open up, like put some of this money, like, let's look at what it might look like to purchase another property that could be a property to live in and
potentially a property for investment. So with Amy's expertise, she's building trust and slowly inching Miss Diane to a place. I have to always remind her grandson, Dee, I'm like, yo, she's Miss Dianne. She's seventy seven years old. Like she don't walk, that she don't want that. She's not gonna move fast, you know with her money, you know. But that movement that's 'ah making is aligned. Before she wasn't
moving at all. So that's what I say that if you have older parents, like my dad, you know, is in his eighties and my mom is in her seventies, he got himself a hunt gred you know, young.
Girl, but they too.
I mean my dad, you know, was an accountant, and but still it was hard for him for me to move the needle when it came to making certain financial choices. Like his will was like he made his will when I was like ten years old, and I'm my daddy, you need to update it and he would say later and I'm like, I mean, not gonna be shady, bro, but you.
Eighty here, you actually past the expiration there because the AVA person lives to seventy eight and God willing, are you gonna be there?
But we're here now.
And so but it took me to bring in my I had this is another component of the book, right the financial professionals. I brought in my attorney to have the conversation to say, like, what are you afraid of He didn't really want to go through all the work, so she did a template of a will where they could just make little changes versus having the bill from
from scratch. So that's what I say, like having the initial conversation with your person, your your parent, your grandparent, bringing in a financial expert to help buffer, and then slowly working towards like what's this is the desired outcome, and you can have your side conversation with the expert like here's a desired outcome, this is what I'd like to see, and the expert works with you and you're
a grandparent or parent to get there. But having that conversation is critical the sooner because it's gonna take a while. The sooner you start those conversations, the better.
This is what I've realized, Tiffany. And that's I'm glad we're having this conversation because we've been talking to your parents who are now retired. My mom is looking to retire, my dad just retired this year. And the hardest thing explaining to anybody, not just people in their generation, but to anybody is that money is a tool. That's all it is. People like to collect money and like you said, steer at it.
It's a security, buddy.
But if you're staring at it in a checking account, ultimately over the years is gonna diminish one mainly because of interest, Like once interest grows up their money even if you don't spend it. But you also have to live, so you pay your mortgage, every month, you pay your card. No, it's gonna keep going away. If you don't utilize that money as a tool, you'll never You'll never have financial security. Can you talk about the best ways to turn your money into a tool.
So to start, if you're really, really, really nervous at the very least, open up a high yield savings account.
Come on, I'm the back plate, you.
Know, because the people get scared and I'm like.
The good thing about a high yel savings account is if you're like, I'm totally risk adverse. Is that up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per bank, you know you can you are protected if it's an FDIC insured if this is a federally backed bank, meaning that up to two fifty if the bank goes under, the government will give you back your two.
Still get money.
So it's like you can't lose.
Right and so right now, like as of the taping of this podcast, right now, I'm seeing like four and a half percent like return.
And so inflation.
Inflation is when money is devalued or things cost more over time, meaning your money is worth less year after year. And right now, the inflation in the United States is that money is going down in value at about three point something percent. So you know, if you put your money in a high yield you're making four and a half percent, but your money is losing three and something percent. So at least at least dollar for dollars, you stay
in about even, you know. So if you don't do anything else, you have a lumpsum money, take it out of checking and put it into a high yield savings account, you know.
But that's important that you said though. It has to be high yields for you to even be close to breaking because if you keep it in a saving and keep it in a checking account just based on inflation, you're gonna lose money.
Of the year because so think about high yields.
This typically the big banks that you see outside on the corner, you know, like those big old banks that we all know, they don't offer most of them don't offer high yeald savings, so the interest they're paying you is point zero zero or zero zero zero. I mean, I mean not only that. So they take your money.
You put that little hundred dollars you got in there, They take your hundred and they pimp it out and loaning and make money off of it, and then say they get fat off that money, and then say here's a penny for your troubles.
But at least with a high definitely all like eighty four cent. I was like eighty four a cent.
You don't want to take your saved. I never keep my savings at one of those brick and mortar banks. Is that I keep my check neighbor there for convenience because if you go, especially y'all like y'all, you travel, so I like to keep my checking there so no matter where I am in the country, I can get
to my money and my savings. Typically, most high yield savings accounts you'll find with online only banks because they don't have the same overhand, you know, they don't have like the location they have to worry about, So.
I never thought about that. That's why it actually makes sense because it's not brick and mortar. They don't have any expenses more sense, so.
They're able to pass.
You know, at least you get four five pennies versus the one penny. So that's so that's one if you're gonna do anything too. If you're still nervous, I want you to look at your job and if you have you know, you're not self employed or whatever, and see are you is your money being put into some sort of four to one k, you know, whatever retirement account is available. Like you might say, oh, I don't do all retirement account because I don't know where to put
my money. You don't have to. I can almost guarantee most four one ks or four or three b's or whatever. The retirement account has has something called a target date fund a TD target date fund, and that is when you say, this is the year I think I want
to retire closest to sixty time or whatever. You're gonna find TDF and the year that's closest like TDF two thousand and sixty five, TDF two thousand and seventy, whatever that year is, and you can say I want my money put into that fund, and the fond will choose the investments for you based upon risk. So the further you are from retirement, the more you'll be invested in stocks. The closer you are, the more you'll be invested in bonds and things that are a little bit safe in bonds.
So you ain't got to worry about it. You just put your money in your target day fund and every year that you get closer to retirement is the investments get more and more conservative until you're ready and then you can pull your money out. So that's the second thing. Make sure you're putting money in your retirement account.
So let me ask you a question, because this is what I've been talking to her mom and my mom about. Right when you do have a four to one K, now you get that lump some four on one K, can you explain why it's not smart to just take that lump some four one K putting in a checking account and say this be my money till I die. Can you please explain? Because I try to explain to them that money is a tool. You need to use it to make more money, like you said, buy another property,
start a business. But a lot of people say I got my four on one K. This is what I'm supposed to use until I die. So if I have two hundred and fifty K and my four on one K, hopefully I only live a certain amount so I can pay my mortgage. Like I'm trying to explain to them, that's the wrong way to view it. Can you explain to them why that's so bad? Ideal?
The ideal ideal? Ideal is that money that you put up is a seed. So I want to think about like the difference between like an apple seed and an apple. Right, So that seed that you initially planted ten years ago in the backyard, like that is the initial investment to your retirement account. You're puting seeds. You' putting seas. The seeds grow some trees. Over time, your retirement is growing.
The trees grow branches. Your retirement is growing. The branches eventually yield apples, and ideally, in retirement, you're going to want to eat the apples because what essentially the ball that you're saying that your parents are doing. They're going back and digging up the seeds and eating the seeds they originally put in, and so you will.
Kill the tree.
So ideally you want to be starting exactly what ideally what you want to do is that you, of course, who is mowing the lawn?
Can you hear that? I'll met you.
That's my landscape. I'm like Lewis.
I don't hear it Wednesdays too. It happens over here. We start later for that reason.
And so so ideally what you want to do is lead them seas alone.
And you want to eat the apples only, and meaning that you want to live off the investment what it's yielding.
So I live by so many people they call the four percent rule.
This is what I live by, meaning that you put up enough money and you never take more than four percent out because on average, if you have your money invested into the market, it's going to yield. It's gonna yield no more than it's gonna yield like ten percent on average. So the last hundred years the market has yielded on average annually ten percent, meaning some years thirty, some years negative twenty, but it all evens out to
about ten percent. So if you only live off four it keeps you real safe to one never touched the original seed, and to allowed to keep growing because you got about six percent to play with, just in case it gets a little crazy, you see. And so for me, I, when I'm no longer here those season I plan it will continue to grow apples for whoever comes after me, and I can still live. Well, just eat my four percent, eat my four percent, and that's actually safer than digging
up the tree. It's like the goose that laid the golden egg. Just keep getting the eggs.
Someone doesn't cut the goose open, and.
You know now that goose will no longer you know.
And that story, the farmer was like, well, why should I wait for this goose to lay a golden egg every week? I could just cut it open and scoop out all the gold now. And he found that there was nothing in the goose but just a regular goose. So now you cut the thing that was generating you money. Damn if you spend the source, SI analogy and tall you generating you money. So that's what you share with
your parents, which is like, this is the source. This source can generate your money indefinitely, even when you're not even here. But if we start, if we eat these seeds now, no more apples will grow. So let's leave the seats alone and only eat from the apples.
I like that I like that. That actually is a good, really good way to do it, because they all want to take it out. They want to take it out before one k and hold it and I got it now. But you're right though, because that's killing the guest. Killing Why kill the goose if the goose is going to continue.
To give you to get your eggs every morning, get your four percent, Like I just get my four percent. I'll get my four percent you know, every single year that way. Know that, Like it doesn't matter how long I live, because I.
Know I'll never outlive that mnchy.
You've got to live within the four And the good thing is if you if you make more money, you just keep putting more money back into the goose. So now you make it more money, you keep ordering keep that plan so it can.
Because if you lived at the full tea and then basically you bring yourself back to like let's just say you have one hundred thousand dollars in your retirement account and every year the one hundred thousand dollars grows through one hundred thousand, one hundred ten thousand dollars, because that's ten percent. So certainly you could say, well, I'm just gonna take the ten percent, So I'm back at one hundred thousand.
Ever, you'll take the ten percent.
You could do that and just keep that hundred thousand, But what I'm saying is it grows to add one hundred thousand, grows to one hundred and ten thousand. I'm saying, only spend four thousand, so that one hundred thousand is one hundred and six. Now, now it grows interest on one hundred and six, and so it's like and then next year it's not ten thousand, maybe it's one hundred and twelve, and so you still take your four percent.
Now, all of a sudden, you see, like that extra interest, you're leaving.
Every year more money money, money, And then also too, like it gives your chance to leave a legacy. That's one of the chapters in the book, the last chapter about leaving a legacy, like how do we leave a legacy for those that come after us?
Like when I'm not here, you know, like my my nieces and nephew.
You know, I'm leaving them plenty, But it doesn't mean I live less of a life, you know, off camera, you know, or I just shared with y'all. I just bought a condo cash half a million dollars I paid for it, and I'm renovating it another one hundred thousand I paid for it. So it's not that like I'm leaving all this money left over for my nieces and nephew and my sisters if I'm not here anymore, and then I don't live well now.
No, I'm I'm living well now, like I'm getting all the things.
Yes, but I'm still living within my means, you know, in a way that I can enjoy life while still leaving a legacy.
That is possible.
That is why why I wrote maid whole, not to teach you how to be wealthy, But how do you maximize.
The money that you have access to already?
Nothing?
Okay, going back to the first thing that you mentioned, which was the budget. Now that was something that in the very first season devout always a joke about me. I'd say budgets are made to be broken, because that was my mindset. So how do you speak to someone who may be again like your nurse, your doctor, your lawyer, your you know, tea school teacher, anyone and who is maybe has the the unhealthy relationship discipline. You don't want to say but budget just sounds like, oh, it sounds
like a restraint. It sounds like boundaries. How do you encourage someone to develop a healthy relationship with budget? Because I know how it has worked for me and how I've seen the benefits of it over the course of the past couple of years. But how can you speak to someone who said, you know, this is the first place you're going to start when you get this book made whole budgeting is the first thing.
How do they create a healthy relationship?
But well, you can change the name. I like to call my budget. I say yes plan, Like the budget is there for me to say yes to me. It's there to say yes to me in a way that will keep me safe and maintain my current life style. So I like to think about budget, like why are you a black mama? Your budget is your black mama.
Right, Like I'm sure your kid's Like, Mom, could I have dessert?
Yes?
After you have dinner? Can I play outside?
Yes?
After you do your choice? Can I, you know, jump in the pool? Yes? If after you put on sunscreen. The budget is you could?
It is there to say yes because you care about your boys, you know, But is there to say yes in a way that keeps them safe.
And so that is a budget.
The parameters are not there to hold you back, is but to provide the safest environment forward for you to have a yes.
So that's how I like to think of a budget.
And you don't have to like thinking of the yes yes, and you know also the moments when you can't yes.
But I mean and if it doesn't say yes now right, then it's like, well, what can I do to get to a yes? That's what your budget is there for. It's there so you can see your money down on paper. So you're like, oh, you know what, Actually I don't really eating out is all right, but I much rather go on vacation. I can get a yes and vacation if I reduce this thing that I don't even care about.
You know, see this, this is why, this is why I really appreciate what you do, because it's always a mentality. Right when when people hear budget, the first thing people think is, oh, this budget is going to tell me no, as opposed to, this budget is going to allow me to be able to say yes when I really want to do something. And I think that's the biggest thing. Budgets aren't a list of nose. Used to look at it like a list of loads astrations.
Like don't hold my sagittarian and that's hostage because that's when I become the sagittatist everything.
But if you got to listen to her now, her sister is and her brother in law getting married, right, So we had things we were planning to do, and this is the first thing Kadeen said to them. Can you guys, are you guys going to be able to do that? Because you're planning a wedding. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute, you did you just check them or doing something because they have something to do in the Martyr for change, And if you think about it,
that's the way you should think about life. Everything is in a no, it's not it's not a dream denied, it's a dream deferst. I can do it now and then I will have to do a whole bunch of shit I don't want to do later, or I can decide, you know what, I'll alter my plans now to do whatever I want do later. On budget is an automation.
You don't have to because I think people also think they have to be with a notebook, writing down every penny, like everybody got the top of that, right. So instead, what I like you to do is I tell people do the split it before you get it right, which is,
you figure out how much money you need. And there's two four accounts, two checking, two savings, one account for bills, one account for spending these checking accounts, one account for long term savings or emergency savings, and one account for goal savings. These are these are your higheld savings accounts. So you go to your HR department and say, I need you to put my money these four accounts for me,
so you don't even have to budget. So yeah, So money goes into your bill's account, money goes into your spending account, money goes into your both your two savings accounts, and you have your you only have your debit card attached to that one checking account for spending, so that way you can spend as much as you want for groceries, for hair nails, lashes, whatever, but it's only gonna attached to that account because you know, bills is paid automated.
Saving. The others say was to say, this is one of the ways that you get.
Over the hump of having to be so responsible is that, like, I never worry if I'm overspending.
How can I?
I can only spend what's attached to to my debit card, and so I split it before I get it. And if you do that, that will help you maintain a budget and not feel so bad about it.
Tiff. Let me tell you that is literally literally what we do. Kadeen and I pay ourselves. But we pay ourselves like our cash fund, our slush fund, after everything else is taken care of. We have trust building, wealth building, mortgages, children for one k's and then at the end, after all of that stuff is paid, Kadeen and I have our money. Could Deen get some money in her account?
And she's just like, I could do whatever I want to do with this because everything else And then now she's planning her whole life based on this, and what she's realized is like, dang, I ain't even need that much to plan what I wanted to do. So at the end of every month, I'm like, how much money you got on your account?
She's like that, like look, and even he was surprised one day. He was he was like, you know, how about you got in your account?
Are you good? And I'm like, yeah, I have X amount of dollars and he was like, you haven't been doing any spending.
There's a freedom in that because you thought to yourself, I do that, I'm in financial jail. But now you realize, wait, the organization actually grants me freedom, not jail, because now you know I can spend in a way that doesn't harm anything else that I'm doing. I could do whatever I want with this money, you know. So that just feels really good.
Yeah, I love that.
That That actually is like the best feeling when I look at my slush account and I could be like them, I could just spend all this today and I don't got to worry about nothing. It feels good. I don't feel like it feels freedom. But I just heard something. I think it was Serena, No, it was Venus Williams. Venus Williams said, structure for her and discipline is freedom.
She said, structure and discipline is freedom because since she's learned to be so structured and disciplined from when she was young, when she's ready to do what she wants to do, she's always able to do it. She's like, I've been so structured and I've created such a strong foundation. She and I think Serena in that same interview was just like, there's like, what's your big splurs She's like, well, my my big splurgs. I like to buy houses.
Excuse me.
I'm like, god, dang, like some people be like a bracelet. She said, No, she likes to buy a problem. But imagine you've been so structured that one day you're just like, you know, if they go to house is worth a million dollars, yep, I'll buy it.
So it's just that's freedom.
It's changing the viewpoint or the negative connotations around words like structured, yes, and looking at it as freedom.
But even now that I'm retivating the condo that I bought, I already know because I'm like every year I have a certain amount of money that I like to give to my financial advisor to put up for my seats that I want to put up. You know, that's about half a million dollars or so I'm like, Okay, this is my goal. You know, we got to hit it, and so I like to hit it as early as possible.
I used to be like, if I hit it, you know, by I don't know, like August, let me keep going and it took Angelie my financial and be like, girl, you good like that, like I know your goal of what it is, and that half a million that you put up, you're going to reach that goal.
You're giving me extra. It just means less life for you, now, you know. So now she was like, go ahead. So now I've already had my goal with her.
And so now when I am looking at like I was looking at Marble for the for the master Bath, I was like, oh, I.
Don't want it on give me that horrible hit my Marble.
I was like, but I none of that because I feel free that I can, I know how much Like it's my slush account. I'm like, Tiffany has a freedom to get fancier things in your place that maybe if I had not seen my plan.
And knowing like you already feels all the other buckets you good my mind.
You don't you don't have to actually hold back like this extra money, like if you want to spend the extra you maybe I have a budget for them renovation, but if I want to spend an extra thirty thousand dollars, it doesn't take away for my retirement account, doesn't take away from my own goals, doesn't take away from bills, It doesn't take away from anything. This is money that is in excess and so I can use it to
enhance my current life. And that's what I want for people that we are not here to merely work, pay bills and countpennies.
You know, that's like whole Listen, how do you want your life to go?
You are here to use money, to your point about as a tool for a better life, and that's what I want.
Yes, I love that because that's actually sums up my final question.
The biggest I was like, dang, that was the perfect take pay for take.
Yeah, what I was going to ask, what was your biggest take or what do you hope people will have as the biggest takeaway from maid whole?
And that I think that was it.
Yeah, being made whole doesn't mean that you sacrifice your whole life so the people after you can live. No, being made whole means that you learn to sacrifice in the right time so you can live the best life you living right now. That's what people don't understand about financial literacy because that's ultimately what it is. It ain't about just making all the money putting it in the
side for your kids or your nephew's. No, it's putting the money to where I can use it for my life, right exactly.
Because even to go back to speak on the property my parents just so, my father's mindset was well, I'm going to have this property for my three children, so when I passed away, they can then inherit this house.
And Deval and I were talking to him and we were like, Dad, but if you were to sell it now in a market that was a seller's market, and we can now then use that money to then make our own investments, like sell it, then divide it, and then we can now have the leverage to do those investments.
We told them. He said that you have one property that's paid off, That one property can now be six properties. Once you sell that property, each of your children can then buy two properties with that same money and then do the same thing for their kids.
And that's when he was like, that's the legacy.
He was like, oh, I said yeah, because your kids are still working, so they don't need the money from your property right now. All they can can use it for as an investment for something else. That's what you call planning. That seed and watering it. Dad, let them water their own seeds now so that they can continue to go.
And he's like, I love that, thinking that season.
Yeah, it's just in time, just in season. Tiffany, thank you so much for joining us again. And it's always, always, always a pleasure to have you here. The fact that you have another book, which you're already gonna say, is gonna be a New York Times that's already Oh yeah.
You can already. You can already put that on And when when exactly does it drop?
Though it should already be out by now, November twenty first, because I know this is airing around that time, and so it's available at Mad Whole workbook dot com. That's made Whole working.
Then you're going, baby, I think that's the perfect time with holiday seasons coming in. It's giving the perfect stocking stuff for the perfect gift. Go get that book, especially when people like to go into the hole for the holidays.
So go get that book, and I'm gonna be made whole.
Don't go into the hole.
I'm gonna be honest. I'm going to be honest. Your first book is something that you and I have adopted. Yes, a lot of when people as were telling me how did the Elysis get out of the apartment to move here. I'm not gonna lie to you. So many of the themes and the ideas and the way I just viewed money changed from twenty and eighteen, and a lot of it had a lot to do with the fact that
we spoke. Our first conversation was twenty eighteen. Then when the book came out, I was like, this is stuff that we talked about.
We expected our financial advice, Like okay, so said.
Then, but then he started following you and it was just like, yo, she got some dope. He's like, she got some dope, some dope by this. And the thing is, it wasn't for just oh, you're in entertainment, you're an athlete. No, it was for everybody. So I can guarantee you if you have the first book and now you get the second book, you will not be disappointed and start planning to live the life you want right now, not forty years later.
That's it freedom, maybe structured discipline that mainehold.
Thank you so much, Seff. Let everyone know where they can find you too. I am the bu case. They're new to the show.
All the things Instagram. I know, know on's on Facebook like that anymore, but I'm there too, YouTube.
Dot com. But yeah, so I'm there everywhere.
Awesome, all right, we love you so so much. Thanks for being with us again for sure, and all the best with this book, baby.
Out all right, Man, it's always fun with with Tiffany Man and budget.
She's great, She's always insightful. She literally really has like helped us so so so much when it comes to just building over the years. I mean, it's amazing when we really look back at how far we've come, man, from the apartment days and trying to find ways out of there.
I mean, it was all it was all a consistent process of small progress over the years that when you look back at it now, it was just like it was thirteen years we spent in that apartment, but every year when you looked at it, you wouldn't have thought the progress was that much. But now looking back on the thirteen year progress come along.
With that is a shout out to you, because I could not see the bigger picture. And again just growing up in my household and seeing my parents' relationships with money, like they would just encourage working because that my parents weren't works, hard workers, but also saving and that was it. It's just having the money there so you could see it. But you had a little bit more business acumen and you were willing to take more risks. And here we are,
so amazing, amazing time. All right, let's jump into this listening letter. We're going to do one today because this one seems kind of long, so we can unpack a couple of things here. I'll go ahead and read. Go ahead, baby, it's cool, all right, Hey, cuttin a daval. I hope this email finds you as well as in your families as well. I am a huge fan of both of y'all, all the way from London Town.
In the UK.
That is dope. I got to get there. We got to get there, a baby.
We haven't been to London yet, but thank you for being a fan of ours all the way across the sea. My husband and I have been married for six years together. Well, we've been married for six years together for sixteen. I'm thirty two, my husband is thirty three. I'm an aries and he's a Sagittarius. We're flipped, all right, flipped, and our relationship has been a very similar dynamic to that of y'all's. We have three children, one boy and two girls, ages eleven, seven and three.
Every four years.
I love that it's kind of similar to us well, with the exception of the back to backs for sure. Anyway, y'all, let me get to the point. Over the years, my husband and I have suffered financially, and to be frankly honest, it was mostly due to my immaturity at the time. Like Kadeen, like me, Like Kadeen, I wanted the wedding over everything. I understandsis. In my defense, we had been engaged for ten years and your girl was tied with a lot of a's. We had close to zero family support.
It honestly feels like finances never ever seem to get better, even though my husband is very frugal with money and saves everything for a rainy day. I, on the other hand, appreciate that life is very short and I don't want to just be existing and not have lived. I've worked three, sometimes four jobs at a time in order to help, but my husband always says it's more of a detriment than a help because something is always falling by the wayside.
My husband works extremely in capital letters hard to provide for our family and says that he does not feel respected because I had had I because had I listened and followed his path, we would not be struggling right now.
Currently.
My husband is totally unmotivated and defeated. I know my choices in the past haven't helped, but I really don't know what to do to get out of death and help my man feel more motivated again. It really depresses me to see him down and out, because outside of him being my husband, I care about him and his dreams as a human being, and he deserves happiness. What can I do, y'all? I'm out of hope and out of answer. Is signed a desperate wife trying to get
that old thing back. That was really really sweet.
First thing I want to do is acknowledge her taking accountability. Yes, like just taking accountability and saying, you know what, I was immature, Yes, I'm the reason why we're here. We don't hear that often from a lot of people, men and women. Most people don't like taking it. They blame Yeah, I just want to point this out right.
And she gave her husband his flowers and said that you know, he's tried, He's tried a lot.
I want to take this time to point this out. We had a young lady at one of the live shows point out that her boyfriend needs to share to get off the pot in three years and whole bunch of all this stuff. I asked her, remember what type of rings she wanted? She says, she wanted three carrot rings. She wanted all this other stuff, right. I want to point out that this is why men struggle sometime with
the right time to getting married. You love a woman, you want to give that woman everything in life she desires because you love her, and that woman deserves everything in life she desires. But there are times when as a man, you just aren't in a good financial place to provide that. And I know that ten year engagement might have been long and tired, but now you married and you got everything you wanted, and now this marriage
is long and tired. Yeah, And sometimes we as people need to realize And this is going to go in line with what Tiffany was talking about. Sacrificing now so we can live the way we want to live later on is paramount, but also not sacrificing your happiness in the present day. And this message is to a lot of young men or older men who are looking to get married. Oh for sure, this marriage is This message
is for you. I'm going to speak from a man's personspective, right, it isn't fair for you to tell you're a woman that you want to marry or significant other, you gotta wait till it's my time. Financially, we as a community have to collectively find a way to do both give the person you love what they desire because you want to provide that, but also plan a life for the future. And there are ways, and that's what we talked about
with Tiffany today. Now, what we all have to realize is that no one is entitled to time to your time, So you can't say I want it done on my time. It's gonna take some time. But we also can't tell young ladies, well, you're gonna have to wait on my time. We have to work together. And I feel like if they would have been more communicative about what they wanted from each other, they could have found a way to both get the wedding and get the life they want
and not sacrifice. Because now here's the sad part, that resentment that he's not motive he's not motivated, and he keeps saying to her, you know, if you were to just listen to me, and that's not fair to her. That's not fair to her, and it's also not fair to him.
Because she's thirty two and then begin together sixteenth, so they've been together since sixteen seventeen.
Yeah, that's a long time.
That's a long time to be together, to work through those years, Like Devella and I know exactly what it is facts eighteen and nineteen years old, trying to figure things out and thinking that you had things figured out, yes, and also being in that age group where you want the wedding and you feel like at that point you're invincible. Money's always going to be there. We can always make
more money. We're young, we're able body, we can do it, but not really realizing how much of a setback that can be or it can be.
And we have to as a community of people, start realizing when we're making demands on people what that demand can do to that person, whether it's a young man asking a young woman to wait until I'm ready, or if it's a young woman telling a young man, you got to do this on my time and I'm leaving. We have to stop that conversation. The conversation now has to be how can we collectively build to get what we want one now and get what we want later.
And I don't want to leave out our LGBTQ people by saying man a woman, it's partner partner, because because even in those partners, because we have a large contingent of lgbt Q I A plus people who follow us, right, and there's always one that's like And it doesn't matter if it's two men or if it's two women, there's always one that's more fiscally responsible.
I think any relationship for sure, yes, And we just.
Have to do a better job of collectively having these discussions during the courting process, not after because now they married and got kids and they tired of each other.
But if they tired of working and stuff too, But trust me, I had those moments. We were tired of each other.
We told y'all our first five years of marriage a hot mess because we had a baby, we had the wedding. I thought we were going to have the wedding in all the houses, but instead we had the properties that work in other states that we were trying to keep afloat. I was working long hours in retail. De Val was
working NonStop at the gym. There were just I think every couple, especially being together for that long period of time and as teenagers growing together, you just make dumb ass mistakes and dumb ass decisions and they're all lessons, they're all learning, and it's just how you come out on top after that. But I love says that you are acknowledging, you know, your issue in this. I love that you are so devoted and committed to your husband and his happiness, like you said, as a human being.
Like reading the end of that almost made me kind of emotional because that's how I felt in those moments with Devo, where I saw he was busting his ass day in and day out, and then he's just like, you're still not doing the right things to get us in a financially, you know, comfortable space, and at some point something had to give and it really just required us to break things down again.
I think one of our early YouTube videos we did was a budget.
Episode and they got over two hundred thousand years at the time we only had about six thousand.
It was like subscribers, Yeah, but so many people saw it because at some point it has to click, and it's just like, Okay, let's go back to the basis. Let's go back to what we're both willing to do, how much money is coming in. Looking at it from this perspective where Tiffany talked about the book you know made whole, the first thing was the budget. Not looking at it as ways to restrict each other further, but ways to be able to make little sacrifices so you
can do what you want to do. So continue to have the conversation with your husband. I hope that you've also expressed this to him, your investment in him and his happiness and you guys's financial future.
Well, she asked, how can she get that old thing back? The first thing I would do is do what you did express and say to him and I diagnowledged that there was some mistakes I made. Ask him how he thinks it can be changed for them moving forward, and then work collectively, both of you, because it's not just work on one side.
For sure.
You can't do all the work yourself now and take all the blame. No, Because here's the truth, right, and I'm gonna say this, and it may ruffle some feathers, he's still a blame too, even though it was your decisions, because he could have at any point said I can't do yes, and that's why. And I feel like that's part of the reason why Kadeen and I were able to make a turn, because I stopped blaming her for our financial decisions and started saying, Okay, you know what,
I did. Concede to do it because I wanted to see her happy and smiling. And my ego was part of the reason too why I wanted to get for these things. So yes, once I stopped blaming her and stopped self loathing, she and I got on a plan together.
Right, We've both done things different. Yes, yes, for sure.
Continue to speak to him, ask him how he feels, ask him what he needs. When he tells you, listen, but also express to him that you're willing to be a participant to make you guys move forward, and y'all just work together and know what's not going to happen next week. You know what I'm saying, Give yourselves a five year plan and say let's move ourselves out of this in five.
Years, absolutely, and go ahead and get made whole because I know Devala and I took a lot of really good tips from tip actually on and that might be a good way to just kind of start and bond over it and you know, talk about the positive things that you guys can do with your your money and your financial situations enough.
To get good with money. Was that's a good find, like a good foundation to start with, get good with money and then get made whole. Her principles really do Kadeen and I have grown our family and our finances following some of the same principles.
Yep. Absolutely all right, y'all, If you want to be featured as a listener letter, be sure to email us at dead ass Advice at gmail dot com. And I know I tease y'all about y'all long dissertations now, but we love it because they gives the contexture because we usually still have questions even after that.
But keep writing in. We love to hear from you guys.
Yes, that's D E A D A S S A D V I C E at gmail dot com.
All right, moment of truth time.
I think my takeaway from this whole thing and talking to Tiffany and you and just thinking about my entire mindset when it comes to just finances and budgeting and
all that is that the discipline involved in it. What seems like a boundary is not in the necessarily that it's just me putting myself in a position to do the things that I really want to do, and it forces me to live in a space where I'm really assessing the things that I really need versus the things that I want to do or need to do, and what's required for me to get that.
So discipline, like we said, structure, those are.
All words that typically have a negative connotation and you feel restrained and limited, but really it's a way for you to gain freedom over your life and your time because ultimately that's the goal for me at least, is to have autonomy over my time, to be able to do the things I want to do because I have the financial freedom to do that.
Facts, I believe that Tiffany opened up something to me today met my mind thinking about it. Okay, right, you know how we went on a diet, but while we were on the quote unquote diet, we had cheat meals, so it really wasn't a crash diet. It was more like a lifestyle change, moderation so that we can enjoy our life while losing the weight to get to the goal we want to get to in the future. Why can't we do the same thing with finances. I like that, You see what I'm saying. It doesn't have to be
a crash diet of finances. Let me say fifty thousand dollars in a year. No, you can still have your cheap meals, you can still enjoy your time, but know that there's a plan down the line. Because if I'm being honest with you, guys, that's what Kadeen and I did. Even though we were broke and we weren't doing all the things we wanted to do, we still enjoyed our life while we were building what we've built so far, and we're still enjoying our life while we're continuing to
build to where we want to go. Because the way you see us now is not the way we want to spend the rest of our lives. We want to be able to accrue more and gain access to more so we can give more to our kids. But that doesn't mean we're going to sacrifice all of our happiness now.
That is a whole fact. I love that.
I love that analogy that's perfect puts in a really good perspective too, because man listen sometimes on them diet days. Baby, I was ready to crash, but you know, having the little cheat meals here and there definitely helps to kind of lessen the blow. All right, y'all, be sure to sign up for Patreon and subscribe so you can get more exclusive dead Ass podcast content, more Ellis family content as well, and you can find us on social media at dead Ass the Podcasts.
You can find me on my personal page Codeine I Am and I Am Devout.
And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and get your copy of We Over Me, The Counterintuitive Approach to getting everything you want out of your relationships shit.
Perfect time with the holidays coming up, y'all is giving stocking stuffers, go ahead and get your book now.
All right, y'all, run it up, dead Ass.
Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network and it's produced by Donor, Opinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead Ass the Podcast and never miss a Thing