Session 291: Getting Good With Money

Published Jan 25, 2023, 8:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

There’s no better time than the start of the new year to get your financial house in order. Budgeting, retirement, emergency savings, and investing are all keywords we throw around when talking about money…but how can we apply them to our lives? Today I’m joined by Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche, America’s favorite personal financial educator and author of the New York Times Best Seller, Get Good with Money. Tiffany got candid about financial planning, gave us tips to prepare for a recession, and ten components of financial wholeness.

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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session to ninety one of the Therapy a Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors than what did did he and Missy say? It's all about the Benjamin's baby. There's no better time than the start of the new year to get your financial house in order. Budgeting, retirement, emergency savings, and investing are all keywords we throw around when talking about money, but how can we apply them to our lives today? I'm joined by Tiffany the Budget Nissa Elija, America's favorite personal financial educator and author of the New York Times bestseller Get Good with Money. Tiffany got candid about financial planning, gave us tips to prepare for a recession and ten components of financial wholeness. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag tv G in Session, or come on over and join us in the sister circles to talk about the episode. You can join us at community dot therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. I'm so excited to be chatting with you today, Tiffany. I'm excited to be here. Yes, it feels like we are way overdue for it to get money together. Yes. So you are affectionately known as the Phil Jackson of financial education and a lot of our community and was very excited to hear that we were chatting with you. And I just personally love your approach because I feel like whenever you talk about money, like I don't feel embarrassed or ashamed like I feel like some people approach this very critically, and I feel like you do it in a very loving, in inviting, but very serious way. And so people are wanting to start working with maybe like a financial culture or somebody. What kinds of accreditations or training should people look for to make sure they're working with somebody who's like credible and knowledgeable. So this is actually a really great question that I get all the time, Dr Joy, and it's important to understand that. So, like I'm a financial educator, and so I typically don't work one on one with people, but if I was going to, it would be on the basics, so like this is how you budget save, this is how you raise your credit. But if you're wanting someone who's going to take a deeper dive for things like investing in insurance, so I highly suggest getting someone who's not just a financial advisor that's like in general, they've passed some tests. You're gonna want the gold standard, which is a certified financial planner. So their financial advisor that's had a certain number of years in has passed a certain number of tests, and so it's certified financial planner will holistically look at your life, Like I have a dope sister Angelie who is my certified financial planner. And even me, with all that I know about personal finance, I just assumed we were gonna get right to the money and get right to the investing, and no we didn't for the first year. The first year we worked on getting my insurance together and figuring out what my goals were and looking even at my businesses because actually helps with that too financially. And so that's what you're looking for, a certified financial planner, if you're wanting someone to to walk you through the router to the tutor when it comes see your money, love it, love it. Thank you for that. Adding on the antiphany, I do feel like money can be something that a lot of people feel like they can kind of just talk about without necessarily having the appropriate like accreditations and training and stuff like that, or their ways that we can be careful or real flags we should look out for scams related to people who want to be financial planning, financial co chinning, that kind of thing. Absolutely, anyone who makes it seem that you're going to be able to be rich overnight, because there are some people, as the kids say, who hit a lick. You get famous on social media overnight and you've made some money. But typically financial transformation takes time. So someone who does not acknowledge that it takes time, that's a red flag someone who is irritated by your questions. And so I was a school teacher before I started the Budgetista, and so I love educating and teaching, so I look for an educator. But why, but when? But how like when I first met Angelie, I thought that she was gonna be like, girl, get off my line. Because I like to ask a lot of questions. Whether it's a social media person that you are reaching out to or someone that you're working with intimately, they should be educating. Can they explain something simply, because that's a hard mark that they understand the thing. If I can't explain it to my five year old niece Samelia, then I don't know it well enough. And also if they're selling too much of like this rich lifestyle, not to say that they don't know what they're talking about, but I caution people to think that that is something they're going to be able to replicate. A few years ago, I stopped talking and teaching about financial freedom because I felt like the educator and me was like, will the average person have a lump sum of money one day where they never have to work? And for many people, that's not going to be the reality, and the teacher and me likes to teach to where every student can succeed. And so I came up with something else called financial wholeness, which is where these ten components of your financial life, if you master them, you might not have that lump son, but you'll still be able to go on vacation, You'll still be able to look after your parents and your friends and your family. You'll still be able to be okay and live well now. And so you want someone who is not just teaching to the tiny one percent that their lessons and their tasks and the things that they're teaching you really can apply to a wider range of people. So that's what you're gonna look for. So can you give us a crash course in these ten components of financial wholeness? I sircus, you know, let me go ahead and get Good with money. This is my day in a black moment. There we go. So this is my New York continuest selling book, Get Good with Money. And I wrote it in response to the literally tens of thousands of questions I used to get every day. And the teacher and me was just like, oh, man, like I wish I had like a tool to give people when I'm not here. I wanted something like a legacy that they could hear my voice and go through the lessons without having me to sit next to them like I used to when I first started budgetes staff. So the first thing is budgeting. You have to get your budget under control. That's number one, and each of these ten will let you know if you have reached a hundred percent of financial wholeness. So do you have a budget it? Is it semi automated? Two is saving? Have you mastered saving? And is that on made it as well? Three is debt. You don't have to be debt free, but do you have a debt plan in place that is actively working on your behalf automated as well, So you have to set it and SETI forget it, So you have a debt plan in place that's working for you. Four is your credit. Ideally you want to have a credit score of seven forty or above. Seven forty is the beginning of perfect credit. Some of your friends like, oh, I got eight hundred, it's like that's cute, says we don't need all that. Once you have a seven forty, you and I can get the same interest rate, So that's four. Five is learning to earn, and so this is critical because I think everyone thinks that the key to mastering their money, especially for black folks, is to spend less, and that's not true. You have to sometimes learn to bring more income in. Sometimes that's the solution. So learning to earn, whether it's getting a raised at work or finding external income from your normal job. Six is investing for both retirement and wealth. There's a this sinction because when you invest for retirement, that is so you can maintain your current lifestyle. So look around. This is how you're gonna live when you are older, your current lifestyle. Investing for wealth, though, allows you to increase your lifestyle and to leave a legacy, but retirement comes first, So solidify your current lifestyle first. Six is getting good with insurance. So many people don't understand the power and the purpose of insurance. Insurance is there to protect your assets. So when I first started working with Angelie, she was like, girl, you are in short like your twenty five. I was like, but I love twenty five. She's like, but you're not. So she was like, you now have this successful business, you have properties, and you don't have enough insurance to protect your assets in case when something happens to you or to something happens on your properties, And so I had to increase my insurance. So understanding and having enough insurance. Seven is net worth. So your net worth is just what you own minus what you owe, and you want to have a positive network. You want to own more than you owe. You do this by increasing your assets and decreasing your liabilities. Eight is your financial team. Money is a team sport. You should not be out here doing it alone. At the very least, you should have an accountability partner. It could be your work hubby, It could be your best to, your cousin, your mom, or your dad, someone that you're connected with that wants to see you win and you want to see them win as well. But also it might be an insurance agent. It might be a certified financial planner. It might be your accountant, it might be an attorney. But having a financial team in place is going to be critical. And let's not least. Ten is a state planning. So this is really important, especially for us as a black community, because so many of us don't have the estate in place. That is something should happen to us. Many of you know. My husband passed away like a little over a year ago, and candidly, we didn't have a will because he was forty one and we were literally working on it two weeks before he passed away, Like Anteline was like, you guys really need to get your will together, just because we had been working through all of our finances, and we were like, okay, okay, okay, because you think to yourself, no one passes away at forty one, but he had an aneurysm and he was here on Tuesday and gone by Saturday. Of all the components of financial wholeness, that's the one component that we dragged our feet on. Thankfully, because we did have the nine other components of financial wholeness done that it made the financial transition of him not being here not as hard. But that little part that the will cover, it made me realize I got mine together. Within a week of him passing away. I sat down with my parents and made them get their's together. They had one, but not since my sisters and I were kids. My trust is finally complete because my own businesses. So that estate planning component, you might think to yourself, well, I don't have an estate but do you have children, What do you want to happen with your children? Do you own a home, maybe you have like a jewelry collection. You want to be able to say that when you're no longer here, your family can just miss you. I'm grateful. I have an amazing black therapist, and Dr Green has reminded me through all of this that I am allowed to feel gratefulness even through the grief. And so that's the space that I'm in now because of all of the financial choices that we make collectively and individually, I get to just miss my husband. And I want that for everyone because death is the most uncommon common thing. It's like everyone passes away at one point, but it feels like not your people until they do, and so I want us to be prepared for that. M thank you so much for that, and I do think so we've heard raving reviews. I have a copy if You're book and love it, so definitely would encourage people to dig more into the ten components that you shared, but we will talk I'm sure about some more of those today as well. So I know that you have been paying attention on social media and just probably in your own grocery stores to the rising prices of everything. Right, so all the jokes about eggs and we're gonna have to paint potatoes for Easter this year, right, all of the things like there's clearly, you know, lots of inflation. People are preparing for a recession, and so what kinds of things would you advise people to do in terms of like making a tighter grocery budget as they prepare for a recession, even before recession has ever come, you should have mentally and just even physically, have something that I call a noodle budget prepared. This is your break the glass in case of emergency budget. You're not to live at your noodle budget, but you should know what it is. And I call it like your Ramen noodle budget, meaning that if you had to cut out the bells and whistles of your life. So it's like, you know, I'm just going to take care of my necessities, you know, bills and things I have to maintain. How much what my life cost me? So knowing what that is, so that way, when something happens you lose your job, of a session comes, you can quickly drop down and get your new long girl. Because too many of us when financial trauma happens, still live at that same level for far too long. So that's what I would suggest, first and foremost. Even if you're like, I've got a great job, even with the rise and prices, I'm still able to maintain. You should still know what your noodle of budget is because it's just the preparation tool that you can temporarily live at while you ride the way through whatever financial hardships are happening externally. That's first and foremost. Second, if you're still gainfully employed, I want you to be mindful about beefing up your emergency savings. So you have to get a little creative. My mom and dad raised five girls, and my mom went to the butcher for me, the baker for bread. Know, there are places you could go to cut back on prices. Ask yourself to the kids really need fruit loops? Isn't there a fruity Oh, you know a generic brand that you can do. My mom needs to put the fruitios in the fruit loops box or else we way you eat it. And so like leaning in and also too, there's so many meal preps and meal plans of things that you can make with relatively inexpensive things like rice and beans, and like cutting back on your groceries intentionally, but using that extra money if you do have it to beef up your emergency savings. At least three months is what you want to have as a baseline. And then you ask yourself, hey, self, based upon the industry, young man, this is how quickly I could get new income should I lose my job. Let's just say you're a nurse. My mom is a nurse before she retired, so for her three months it's plenty because nurses back then and now are in super high demand. She's if you a nurse, you are never gonna have a job. But my sister is a mechanical engineer, as a black woman, it's her two years to get her first job. She might need six months to a year's worth of emergency savings. So the baseline is three And then you look at your industry. So I want, like, before we hit this with seemingly looking like a pretty bad recession, if you have the means to really start stacking up your emergency fund so you have it with you and start having the conversations with your family, especially if you have children. I think that we think that it's especially in black folks, how we are when it comes to talking to kids about money. We think that it's inappropriate to talk to our kids about money. And I say it's inappropriate not to because just because the kids don't hear you doesn't mean they don't feel the financial crunch. And so there's ways to do it in a way that's age appropriate. My father, who was a CFO, this is where I learned all of my financial things as a child. He would talk to us. We would have weekly family meetings about homework, about chores, but also about the state of our family's finances. And it was never from a place of deprivation and fear, just a matter of fact, here's where we stand. It was always goal oriented to you, guys, said, you want to go to Disneyland, but the light bill keeps going up and up and up. Do you know if you turn the lights off, the bill goes down and down to that And if you do that, then we could put the money in our our vacation jar and we can go to Disneyland. So I didn't hear, oh my gosh, we're spending too much in the light bill. I heard, we're going to Disney, you know. So that's a great way to phrase it and position it for younger kids. And as your child is older, you can use allowance if that's something that you do to help have the conversation. I have a sixteen year old boldest daughter. She just here with me this week, so I've hired her to do my TikTok's. Although I don't even want to be on TikTok, but it's an opportunity for us to talk about money. So I told her, I'm like, now you have a job, we can start setting aside for retirement or what's that? Why is my check lower? So it opens up that conversation. And so that's what I would say is intentionally reducing your expenses by being creative when it comes to food shopping and food planning. Know what your noodle budget is. You don't have to live there, but know what it is. So if you do experience financial trauma, you can quickly get to it. Start having the conversations with your family. That should just be something you want to do anyway and make that normal. More from our conversation after the break, so you talked a lot about preparing for the loss of a job, right, and unfortunately, we know that even recently there have been significant amounts of layoffs, and so I would imagine there may be some people listening who were maybe preparing to put this plan in place and now have found themselves without a total loss of income. So are there other suggestions besides the things that you share, that you would offer to someone who is maybe facing a recent layoff. So during the last major session, the one in two thousand nine, two thousand ten, I was a school teacher and I suddenly lost my job about three days before the school year started. And the things I did right where that, like I immediately lowered my home expenses. I was fortunate that can move back home. I know everyone does not have that option, but you have to make drastic changes. Is that getting a roommate, is that moving to a smaller place, Is that seeing as their family that you can move in with, Because unemployment, as we all know, is not going to enable you to manage. So one making committing to making drastic changes and trying not to wait to reaching out to your service providers, like your electric bill, you're any bill that you're paying. One good thing that COVID brought into the zeigeist is that almost every provider has some sort of plan in place for you ain't got it, So you could start to have that conversation now and say, here's what's happened, and what plan do you have to help me see this through. Everyone came up with a plant. There were places like credit card companies and mortgage companies they had something, but now everyone has that, So don't be afraid to have that conversation. And three, if you are in dire straits, then I want you to forget the noodle budget. You're gonna get down to your health and safety budget. That is when you only pay for things that are related to your safety and your health. Meaning I need to pay my rent because where will I live. I don't want to be unhoused. I need my asthma medication because this allows me to breathe. You know, one this other bill, like maybe my cable bill, I'm wanting to cancel it, and I did cancel it, but I'm back old. Let it be back old. I know it sounds crazy to say. I can't tell you how many people didn't get their money because I didn't have it and I had to be okay with temporarily saying when I get it, you get it that right now, I'm focused on my health and safety expenses, so I give you the permission to be late, because to be late is better than for you to be unsafe and unhealthy. And then once you start to rebuild, you revisit with them, so you don't want to just stop paying. You want to have the conversation and saying I'm not going to be able to send this in. Is there something you can do to help if not? If the answer is no, it's like, well, when I have it, I'll reach back out again. And if you find that people are harassing you, because I want you to understand and hear me, well, just because you owe someone does not mean they have the right to harass you. You're going to get something called a cease and desist letter. And this is what I had to do myself because my phone was blowing up with dead collectors. When I did when I was on my health and safety budget, I found a cease and desist letter online and I went to Staples and facts them that what you're not gonna do is because by law, there are a set of laws in place that do not allow creditors to harass you in that way, you send them a cease and desist letter and say here's how you can communicate with me via email, via written letter. You have to let them commun dicate with you, but you can say you are not allowed to call me and instantly. I like the facting is better than anything else because although it's very old school, it gives you that return receipt and they know if we go to court and you bring that return receipt, they will be found liable for harassment. They're not allowed to do that. Those season assist letters will allow your phone to be quiet. You'll still get those letters in the mail and your emails, but that's fine. And when you're ready to pay, then you do. And so like, that's what I would suggest if you find yourself in dire straits, is that sometimes it looks like you have to just huddle down, be still, and actively work toward finding a job, but not putting yourself in further harm's way. Thank you for that. I did not know about the set of law that do not allow for harassment. I think that's super helpful. So you talked a little bit about one of your components was around like investing in saving, and I do feel like there's some confusion, you know. I've often heard people say like, oh, don't save your money because it will end up losing you money in the long run. Can you talk to us about the benefits of saving as we are in an economy that's ebbing and flowing. Yeah, So I dont want people to think about a saving the way you think about a seat belt. Right, Savings is here as a protective tool. It is not there to make you money. It is not there to gain or whatever. We get it. We know inflation happens. But if you invest your savings and then the water heater goes out, what you're gonna do Since the purpose of saving. That's why having your three months or whatever it is that you think you're gonna need, that's necessary to hold you over until you find another job. That is the purpose of savings. It's a seat belt. It is not your cute Gucci belt, Like no one ever says, well, I'm not wearing a seatbelt, girl, is not cute. It's like, it saves lives. That's what it's here for. So allows savings to save you during those times. I think what people are confusing savings with is that there are people who oversave. I'm raising my hands. It's like the law of depreciating return up to a certain limit. It's not helpful anymore. Like at one point, I have two years worth the savings, Why, Tiffany, Why So now I have one year, which is still too much, but I'm like, I need it because i have post traumatic broke syndrome. I'm not going back. So honestly, it's slowly easy and my hands open to be like, let's just get the six months. I'm like, we're gonna see. But past a year, anything excess I do not allow myself to save. I invest. So if yours is three months, anything in excess, you can invest. And so that's the key is that you save first so you can have that safety in the in case of an emergency, and then go ahead and get you that Gucci belt for cuteness. But the purpose of savings is to literally save you. It is not to make you money. God it So we have sisters in our community from early twenties well into their sixties and maybe sometimes even older. And I love that you already talked about talking to your sixteen year old about setting up for retirement. And so that's something I would love for you to share with our community. So if there's one here that you could give two sisters in each of those clusters. So in your twenties and your thirties, and your forties, and your fifties and your sixties, what should they be doing to prepare for retirement. So in your twenties, you're likely getting your first real job, cute test, right, so I want you to start, because you ain't have no money now anyway, start maxing out your retirement account. Because once you get grown, you have some grown people, bills and kids. It's hard to max out. But if you're twenty one, is your first job, max it out sis you've been broke, like you have not seen that money. Start the practice of maxing out right now. I think it's six thousand or maybe sixty is what you can put in the max through your if you have a four one CA at work and so or a raw irm. What you want to think about is that if your company matches, then put up to the match at your current company. If it doesn't, then I would open up an external roth IRA, and I raise an individual retirement account and a ROTH IRA is money set aside for retirement from your your take home pay money, so meaning like the government has already taken their taxes and everything else, and this is what's landing your actual paycheck, and then you put some of it into your retirement account. And the beauty of a raw IRA is when you go to retire, you can withdraw the money tax free even though it's grown, because they're like when you pay taxes on the back end, so you can withdraw the money you put in plus the interest that it's earned, tax free. Now. A traditional IRA is something where the government says, okay, you can put money that you make at work before taxes, so it will actually lower your current taxes because the way taxes work is you get tax on what's left over. Right, It's like I made a hundred thousand, I put six thousand in my IRA, and so the government says, we're not gonna tax you on a hundred, We're gonna tax you on thousand, So it lowers your taxes currently now. But I like putting my money in a raw first because with raw typically there is a cap of how much you can make before you can't do a roth anymore. Although there's something called backdoor wroth. But if I'm speaking plainly, that there's a cap and last my check it was like a hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars that after that, they don't like you to put money in a row fire rate, So twenty year old, put your money in retirement. Max it out, start with a roth first if your company doesn't match, and then do that. In your thirties, I want you to focus on earning because this is when like maybe you have your second degree, you may or may not be considering getting married, maybe you're considering children, but this is really your peak. Focus on making sure that every single interview you are maxing. Now you should be doing this anyway, but like, no matter what your age, but you are squeezing as much as you can out of the job that you have. So get your raises asked for them. Create a go meet file where you have a file of all the things that you do and you bring to the company and quantify because of me, We've made this much. Because of me, I saved you this much. So I'm not only asking for a raise, We're just trying to even playing field here. And so your thirties focused on earning. Ask yourself, what else can I do to increase my income? Not necessarily more work for you, but getting more clever about earning more in your thirties. In your forties, I want you to really start thinking about how do you want life to go because once we once you really hit your forties, hopefully you've earned a good amount of money. You have money set aside for retirement. Maybe by now you're married and you have children, and you can start to see that your kids are going to be going off to school maybe in ten years or so, and start to really you might start to be thinking about, like, I'm in my Shade era. I used to be in my Beyonce era by any means necessary, Girl, I'm out here working, and now I'm forty three, I'm in my Shade era where I just want to come out with the album every ten years. And we saw a little bit. And so in your forties, I want you to start thinking forward because retirement is closer than you think. So in your forties you might want to sit down and say, you know what, I think we should get a financial planner. You know, I think it's time to update. Maybe we need a trust because now we have more wealth, Let's start thinking about what our assets look like. Let's start really dreaming. We're either by yourself or with a partner, about how we want life to to move forward. In your fifties, you should really be It's hard to say because I'm not fifty yet. In my fifties, I would say for myself, I would really like to be really focused on leaving what my financial legacy is going to be. Like, Okay, I've got nieces, I've got a nephew, my parents are still here and God willing, they'll still be here in my fifties, and like, what do I really want my financial legacy to be, not just internally with my family, but externally. I just came back from Kenya and it was an amazing, amazing trip. It was a treat for black women and it just was awesome. We did a service project where we went to this compound, this home for young teen moms and some of them are young as eleven twelve years old, really taken advantage of And it was then I was asking, like, because in Africa for all those school is free, you have to pay school fees in order to advance to the next grade, to get your exam results, and I wanted to know how much do the school fees cost for all the girls here? And then I paid them and I really have the intention of doing that every year. And I was like, that's the next level for me in my fifties. It's like what is my external legacy financially and putting those things in place now that you hopefully have taken care of your family, and then in your sixties and beyond, hopefully unless you're wanting you don't have to work anymore, and you're revisiting your finances to make sure they can see you through your updating any wills, any trusts and things like that, and you're really just leaning into day to day life, you know, with your personal finances. I like working a little bit but figuring out, like in your sixties, like Okay, now that I'm here, what do I want to leave behind? But what do I also want to enjoy? Because you know what, like someone gonna spend that money since you worked hard for it, Like you know, you don't have to leave the family all the money, you know what I mean? I would really be leaning into enjoying like the hard work that I put in, and so that's what I see for like those age ranges. Perfect. Thank you so much for their Tiffany. So now we do have some questions from our community. Again, they were super excited to hear that you were coming, so they submitted some questions to us for you. So the first one is Stacy is thirty five. She recently picked up some high interest loans because she had several unexpected bills simultaneously hit her. She's an hourly worker and doesn't have large sums of money coming in anytime soon or fast. She's considering enrolling in the debt consolidation program. She's unsure how to tell what programs are beneficial and which are predatory. What financial advice would you have for Stacy? So, Stacy, you're right, there are many that consolidation programs that are the worst. But there is one called oh what is that? One called oh I know what? N f CC dot org got it. That's the Foundation of Credit. Yes, notional Foundation of Credit Counseling and f CC dot org will have like sister nonprofits in different states, so you'll be able to reach out to them and they will be able to find you their sister nonprofit in your state or even in your city. And so I think that's not necessarily a bad idea. But the key with debt consolidation is you cannot open up new debt because in your old that plus this new debt, and it's just like and so like, yes, I think that that might be a good idea for you if you promised to me and yourself that you're not gonna incur, You're not gonna borrow additional debt. And it sounds like to me, Stacy, you have a don't make enough issue. So I want you to ask yourself, what are ways that I can bring additional income into my life? Is it a raise where I currently work? Do you have a LinkedIn page where you're like, I can update this to find additional work? Mike podcast partner for Brown Ambition Mandy. You should follow her Mandy Money on Everything, Mandy with an Eye. She teaches negotiating but also how to look for additional work that pays more. She's awesome at that, Like you could just follow on social She's gives some great tips about how do I increase my income because that's what it sounds like you're needing to do. Thank you more from our conversation after the break. Kim is a vivacious fifty year old. She's single and the hottest grandma you've ever witnessed. Due to a lack of resources, always taking care of other folks and some poor planning, she has no retirement account to look forward to you. She wants to retire with dignity and have a fly and fabulous funeral when the Lord finally calls her home. What kinds of services or programs might she want to look into to help secure her future? So one Kim, I would say, do you have life insurance? You're flying, you're healthy, you can still get life insurance. So that way, one of the core purposes of life insurance is one, yes, to look after your family when you're no longer here. If you're flying single, I don't know if maybe have grown kids, but your life insurance can be the policy that they can use to put you in way in the fashion that you'd like to be put away. And so that's one consider life insurance for that component term life insurance. I know some of my financial advisors who sell Whole Life are like now, I'm like Bill Tomato, Tomato, Now, I don't like Whole Life. It's super expensive, and the purpose of term life insurance is supposed to be for a term, Like it's so frustrating, Dr Joy because it's like when you get insurance for your car, you don't say, oh wait, I didn't get to a car accident, giving my money back. So why is life insurance Because it's a difference between term and whole life. Is that whole life you keep paying and it never expires or whatever. But for a term, it's meant to expire because it's meant to be for specific time period, typically the time period like twenty or thirty years when you're actively taking care of your family financially by the time you're fifty or sixty, Like if my parents don't leave me, life in shorts okay, because I'm not ten anymore, and it's way less expensive. Like at forty year old woman who doesn't smoke, a million dollar policy for turn you're looking at forty bucks a month. A forty year old woman who doesn't smoke a million dollar policy for whole life, you're looking at seven forty a month. That's seven hundred dollars that that woman can use to make her life better now and invest. So anyway, so what I would say, Miss fifty and Vivations Life Insurance you because you're fifty, they have this catch up policy when it comes to retirement, meaning that you can put in more. I think it's about like a thousand dollars more or fifteen hundred dollars more into a retirement account. So I'll be sitting down with a financial advisers to ask like, Okay, I'm assuming you're still working, how do you max out your retirement because you have fifteen years before you officially retired as far as the government is concerned, and so how all for the next fifteen years, how can you max out your retirement funds to make sure that you can see yourself through? Perfect and then one last one? So Peach is eighteen and just graduated from high school. She's not planning to go to college because she's already been offered a full time salary job in the industry she wants to work in. She's motivated to build financial wealth, but doesn't want to become a CEO the world's tenth black woman billionaire to do it. Peach wants to know is there a way to become financially independent for folks who just want to do a job and don't want to own a business. Absolutely, you don't have to own a business. It sometimes can expedite it just because the tax code is written for business owners, because this is the way the government looks. So when I was a teacher, Tiffany, the government said, oh, Tiffany, you made I was making like thirty six thousand dollars a year, and they said, if you put money in your retirement account, say six thousand, we're gonna tax you on thirty thou dollars. And it's like, uh, I don't have a choice. That's what it is. Now, business owner, tipty, the government says, I'm just making up a number. You make five hundred thousand dollars a year, like in business? Well, actually the budget needs that we're talking about you needs to the budget needs to make multiple million dollars a year in business. But I'm like, before you text me, I just bought this car for the business. And they're like, okay, well now you made a little less. And I bought this building, and I pay the salary, and I redid my office and and and and and and and so you can make ten million dollars in business, spend nine point nine and what's left over is a hundred thousand dollars. That's what you get taxed on. That's why it's typically faster to grow wealth as a business owner, but it's not impossible to grow wealth as someone who is not a business owner. The key is I love this eighteen year old. The key is this is the one. You have to have an income, which you have the salary, which is great, but I caution you to in your field, find a mentor in your field to see what additional education might be required to make more money. In my not be a cause degree, but it might be a certificate or something. If you want to move up the ladder and make more, consider that. So one, you have to make income too. You have to spend less than you make. My dad would always say, you cut your coat according to your size. You have to spend less than you make, and with the excess the between what I make and what I spend, you're going to save some until you get your emergency fund funded, and then you're going to invest. It's the investing that's going to grow you wealth. So I wish more people understood that the purpose of working, aside from paying your bills and things is to own, it is to work. You pay your bills, you're on vacation, you have a little fund, you saved some, and then you invest to own, whether you invest in real estate, in the marketing, in the business, but you invest to own. And if you keep doing that, eventually the thing that you own will make you enough money to put you out of business, to put you out of work. And so now me, as Tiffany at four d three, I don't have to work anymore if I don't want to, because the things that I own work for me. And so if you keep that in mind, young eighteen year old, and you will be just fine. Make your money, spend lesson you, make save some until you get to your savings account, invest the rest. If you don't know how to invest, your eighteen girl, get a book. Is a book, it's reading Rainbow like take a classic of course, Start to learn to invest and invest to own, and you will be just fine. And you know, I'll see you on Wealth Islands. Is it's cute over here? Thank you so much for that. So you have been dropping resources the whole conversation. But are there other like people we should follow books besides your own, other podcasts that people should be tempted too to learn more about the things that you've been discussing. I love earn your leisure right. Those young brothers are like doing a great job. They have something called Market Mondays with Ian Dunlap who's the master Investor, so he really breaks down like the market and what's happened in a simple way. I love Josh Brett. I think it's sing he's on Instagram. It's a minority mindset. That's a really great especially for beginners because he breaks down, like what's happened in the economy, what's the economy and so, like minority mindset is awesome if you're just looking for budgets stuff. The Budget Mom her name is Camuko. I really like her. I like her first one Hunter k Tory Dunlap. She's very much like down with the patriarchy. So if you know you need that pro girl sisterhood, she's great. Some books to read. I really like David Back. This is very throwback, but David Back is like he doesn't do as much as with books anymore, but he's got this great series called Live Rich, so he has Smart Women, Finish Rich, the Automatic Millionaire. Those are great books that I've read when I was very young. He actually inspired the way I show up because I knew I was silly and fun, and I've read this book. It was like, this doesn't seem stuffy and mean, and so I love the David Bach books, so definitely look into those. Yeah, and also too, I like in general, if you're wanting like just success in general, it's really an internal job. So it's not just working on your money. You know. I'm sure Dr Joy would agree as a therapist that like, the better I am as Tiffany, the better I show up holistically. And a rising tide lifts all boats. And so I spent a lot of time getting better as me, like setting boundaries, having tough conversations, you know, like I read to expand just the way that I think, because in doing so, I'm able to take advantage of financial opportunities. So it's not just money. I love the podcast on How I Built This, you know, even if you don't have a business, it's a great podcast to hear how these major businesses were built, like from the ground up, because it expands your mind to think differently. And so that's what I really would encourage is that, like, yes, as you're working on your finances, that you remember that really you're working on yourself. It's discipline, it's consistency, it's communication. These are just tools that you can apply to your personal finances but will help you across the board. M I definitely agree. Thank you for the an, Tiffany. So where can we stay connected with you? Where should we follow you online? As well as any website you want to share. I am the budgets down all the things right, have you seen me? TikTok? It just knows under durest child, I could teach this girl some blessings. She's like a gat. I'm like, I don't. I'm on TikTok Instagram, which is my current favorite, although I'm not there as much Facebook because I'm still old school Twitter. I'm the budget Nesta at the budget Nesta dot com. And if you want to get the book, it's Get Good with Money and it's available at Get Good with Money dot com. There's a tool kit there that I made that's totally free and it will help you, like even if you don't get the book. It's this awesome tool kit with all the resources from the book that you can like find a financial Advisor, my budget worksheet. All of that is for free via the Kid and I do have one more tool, dr Joy. I just did something called the Literature Challenge with my audience and almost three thousand people signed up for the Literature I know, and so because you know at the beginning of the year, everyone's hyped and so it's totally free. I used to do them. If you're old school dream catcher, that's what I name my audience, then you remember I used to do the challenge every year some years ago, and I brought it back because of this looming recession. This year's challenge is the Savings edition. People who took the challenge said that they were helped eighties six percent saved money. And so if you're wanting to do it, it's totally free. It's always been free. It's my way of giving back to especially my community is is black women who might not have access to tools and resources to help themselves. So I'm always committed to keeping it free. It's available at l r C for Literature Challenge l r C save dot com. It's automated now because we just went through the live version, but there's a community attached on the back end. So I don't believe in navigating this world alone, and so you will be surrounded by loving sisters just like you who are also working on their finances. So hopefully we'll see you at the challenge at LRC save dot com perfect We'll be sure to include all of those in the show notes. Thank you so much, Tiffany. I really appreciate you sharing with us today now. Thanks for having me absolutely. I'm so glad Tiffany was able to join us today to break down the ins and outs of personal finance. If you want more, join her Live Richer movement, where she's helped two million women save over three hundred and fifty million dollars and pay off over two hundred thousand dollars in debt. To learn more and to sign up for her challenge, visit Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash session to nine one and don't forget the text two of your girls and tell them to check out the episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digetting into this tip big or just be in community with other sisters. Come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet design just for black women. You can join us at Community NOTT Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by FRIEDA. Lucas and Elis Ellis and editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take you care,

Therapy for Black Girls

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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