00:00oftentimes we think that we're overextended with money i never have money to save i'm living
00:07paycheck to paycheck but i always want people to be very careful with that because people that
00:11truly live paycheck to paycheck they pay their bills and they don't do anything extra so there
00:17are need to haves in life and there are nice to haves in life so maybe when we pause to think
00:22about when we're making purchases do i need to have that right now like because we're in a pandemic
00:27and a lot of people are sitting at home it's a myth that we aren't spending money but we are we're
00:32doing a lot of emotional spending so the best place to start when you feel that you are overextended is
00:38really looking at not even your budget but your bank statements to say where am i spending money
00:43and i really didn't need that but when you're ordering food you're doing things like things
00:47like paying driver's fees you have tips so doing that often and a lot throughout the month that's
00:54like 400 to 500 easily that could be saved many of us are just tapped out right now we want some
01:00type of release but we have to be willing to get back in the kitchen also let's think about what
01:06we're seeing a lot on social do i have the new workout equipment well can you really just go for a
01:11walk do you need that workout equipment that's costing thousands of dollars but essentially what you
01:16just did was to relieve some stress you spent money so maybe that's not something that you would
01:22have done if we weren't weren't in a pandemic but just those small things again the concept goes back
01:27to a need to have over a nice to have definitely when you want to save money
01:31we try our best to skip budgeting because we really don't want to know what the numbers tell us
01:40that's why many people don't want to look at the numbers because the numbers tell us that we can do
01:45some things but we can't do everything we want to save we want to invest we want to shop we want a new
01:51home we want a new apartment we want to go to concerts we want to attend the conference we want
01:56to do all of it all of it but when you look at your numbers your numbers will tell you the truth
02:01so it puts you in a space to say this is what i'm able to do at this moment and this is what i'm not
02:06able to do and because we oftentimes lack a level of patience it's really hard for our numbers to give
02:12us that truth of what we can and cannot do right now
02:15we are already behind the work that we need to do in the black community when it comes to money is
02:23to have constant conversations it's important to have these conversations so that we can constantly
02:28get better we can figure out ways to be able to grow a level of wealth because we are already behind
02:35when it comes to the wealth gap a lot of times what we see on social media is that we're talking about
02:40investing we're talking about purchasing stocks which are all important you know to building wealth
02:45but at the same time we're not well educated on what we're doing we're not thinking about
02:50long-term financial planning well wealth building also includes money management tax management estate
02:58planning it's an entire financial portfolio of how we grow wealth so if we're only having a conversation
03:05around things that maybe how can we get rich quick well that may be great but long-term planning allows
03:11you to be able to plan wealth for generations to come because again as i mentioned it goes back to
03:18when you are aware you're able to teach others and oftentimes the only way that we have a level of
03:23awareness is that if we're reading ourself we're researching but when it's not and that's not enough for us
03:29we go to people like financial advisors that are skilled in this we go and invest in the people that we know
03:36they know what they're doing and then we pass that we pass that on we tell our children that you know you can
03:42learn how to invest on your own you can save on your own but long-term financial planning to keep it going
03:47throughout our family the more we learn the more we grow and connecting ourselves with people that definitely know
03:53what they're doing when we think about additional streams of income or investing we also want to
04:01consider our why that is the homework that you need to do why do you want more streams of income
04:07and then what are the short-term and the long-term goals and then that allows you to decide what vehicles
04:14do you want to use to be able to get there more work and more money doesn't always mean better it just
04:19means you're doing more of both and then you're just spending it so you're really not even seeing
04:24the fruits of all the labor that you've done so we have to be mindful to say to ourselves why do we
04:29want this money are we trying to beef up our savings are we trying to get to six months of income sometimes
04:35it's just wise if you're saying okay i'm going to work a part-time job to earn additional money but
04:41this part-time job is solely so i can get six months of income in my savings account and then i'm quitting
04:46or you can say that i want to earn more money just to spend on myself how much are you really
04:53profiting from working so we have to be mindful around why do we want more money and how are we
04:59getting that money always have a reason
05:02so if you're thinking about creating additional streams of income one place to start that many
05:11people overlook is with retirement plans so if your employer offers like retirement options like
05:17a 401k plan then you want to make sure that you are maxing that out and what does that simply mean
05:23if you are contributing six percent your company contributes contributes six percent you are saving
05:2912 and six of that is free money you didn't even have to do anything extra to get it that's number
05:35one if you are an entrepreneur and you are seeking ways to earn additional streams of income then a
05:41good way to do that is by opening an ira account an individual retirement account and then talk with
05:48you know your banker around what that means how do you make it grow they can tell you an amount that
05:54what is the max out amount then you go back to your budget to say how much money do i need to
05:59invest in my ira account each month to continuously make it grow so those are two options and then
06:06beyond that then i think that it's important that you dig into options like stocks opening up a brokerage
06:12account and then purchasing your own stocks we think about the more money that we need one thing that we
06:21miss often is in our community is understanding the true cost of our lifestyle well what does that mean
06:28that means that many people can tell you exactly how much money they earn you can tell me down to
06:33the cent however many people can't tell you the true cost of what their lifestyle costs them each
06:39month that includes essentials non-essentials the nice to haves and the needs need to haves and when
06:46you don't know that number you're always reaching for more money because the money that you're currently
06:51earning is not enough to sustain your lifestyle and that does not mean the bare minimum that just means
06:57for myself what does it cost me to pay my bills and for the things that marcia truly enjoys doing
07:03that's the amount of money that i need to make but if i don't know that number which many of us don't
07:08know that in the black community and other communities as well then that helps us to get a really good
07:13gauge of well how much do i really need to work or am i just working more just to work more
07:19the starting point for us to understand how we manage debt is to identify how did we get here
07:28why did we get here what type of debt am i carrying so i hear often um individuals speaking about student
07:35loan debt well many of us went to college because we thought that it would further us in our careers
07:40many people just didn't go to college just to say they were in college most i would think that's fair
07:45to say but on top of that then you have things like personal loan debt credit card debt debt that
07:50you may owe to family and friends so you have to identify how did you get there first and how can
07:55you not return back to that space now when it comes to great ways to manage money then i or manage debt
08:01my apologies is to go back to say what's in line first am i trying to save money and invest money first
08:07or just trying to save money and pay down my debt a great way to do that is number one list out all of
08:14your debt from top to bottom from the smallest balance to the largest balance and find a starting
08:19point many people like to start at the very smallest balance because you can pay that off sooner and it
08:24gives you that boost of emotion to say ah yes i can do this many people like to start with the balance
08:31that has the higher interest rate because they don't want to keep they don't want that balance to keep
08:35rising neither way is the best way it's just the the best way is the option that works best for you
08:42and that will make you feel more confident to keep that progress going but i would definitely say
08:48the way to stop any type of bleeding when it comes to debt is to consider how did you get there each of
08:55us carry something that's called a money script and a money script says that marcia thinks that every
09:01time that she gets paid that she has to go charge something on a credit card because i deserve right
09:08that's a that's a money script a money script is also saying that marcia's never really going to
09:13buy anything because marcia doesn't think that she deserves it so we have to ask ourselves what is our
09:18money script and how did we get this debt why did we get this debt you know we want student loans to be
09:24paid off for sure we all do but we also have to make peace with ourself to say that i was a i got student
09:30loan debt because i wanted to learn and i was attempting to further my career or whatever your
09:36reason was not that i hate the student loan debt no one taught me about the debt i'll never get get
09:41it paid off and that's with any debt because if we take the negative approach we'll never get to the
09:46finish line so i say add up your like total up your debt from top to bottom identify where you want
09:52to start and just start oftentimes we say from year to year this year i want to reduce my debt this year i want
09:57to be debt free well each year is only 365 days and we give one year way too much credit we simply
10:04can't do it all give yourself a starting point maybe pay off one or two small debts this year save
10:11the rest invest the rest because this year is definitely going to be about recovery and reset and
10:16not attempting to do it all set small tangible goals and just constantly work at them i think that's
10:24definitely the best approach
10:25you
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