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Fearlessly Female Uncensored
A comedic podcast featuring two friends sharing unfiltered stories and hilarious takes on life as modern women.
Fearlessly Female Uncensored
Assets not Asses: Creating Lasting Green & Building Wealth
Click Here to Chat with Us! We're all ears (& probably wine).
Ready to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and make your money work for you? Join Brittany and Megan in this empowering episode of Fearlessly Female, "Assets, not Asses: Creating Lasting Green and Building Wealth." We're diving deep into the financial skills that traditional education often overlooks—budgeting, money management, and understanding credit. Discover how financial literacy can be your ticket to true financial independence. We'll guide you through each step, from saving and budgeting to savvy investments in stocks, bonds, ETFs, and eventually, real estate.
Stay ahead of the curve with our "Building Wealth Through Financial Literacy" segment. Learn how to leverage modern tools like Investopedia, NerdWallet, and the Kiplinger Letter to make smart financial decisions. We emphasize the importance of multiple income streams and understanding the financial "rules of the game," just like successful investors such as Warren Buffett. Plus, hear our tips on automating your finances to avoid impulse spending and ensure consistent growth.
Finally, we unlock the secrets to "Maximizing Asset Investments for Wealth." Discover why real estate is a powerful investment tool and how inflation impacts traditional savings. Get insights into creative financing methods like home equity lines and 1031 exchanges, and understand the difference between good debt and bad debt. We also explore using 401k loans to tackle high-interest credit card debt effectively. Engage with us on social media, share your experiences, and take this crucial step toward financial freedom!
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Welcome to Fearlessly Female, where two blondes make a right. We're Brittany and Megan, the hosts of Fearlessly Female. This podcast was born out of ambition, drive and a lot of wine. We're two powerhouse comedic women having uncensored conversations about topics that affect women. We're airing all the dirty laundry, so grab your favorite drink and give us a listen.
Meghan:Today's podcast is Assets, not Asses Creating Lasting Green and Building Wealth Damn I love this topic.
Brittany:It gets my juices flowing.
Meghan:Also disclaimer please consult with a certified accountant or financial advisor. Aka, do not sue us, okay, Brittany DISH, the secret sauce on how you become rich.
Brittany:Well, first you want to go to your local 7-Eleven, get a scratcher and play the lottery.
Meghan:You're right. Let me rephrase the question how do you become wealthy?
Brittany:There we go. That's a good question. Become financially literate. I would say, educate yourself on the basics, the basic financial skills, and be able to put them into practice. It can be really challenging because this is not something that we're taught in school practice. It can be really challenging because this is not something that we're taught in school and you know we go 17 years, 18 years, through high school and then kind of spewed out into the world to go and figure it out, go forth and conquer it, but no one actually sits down to teach you how to balance a checkbook if we're still doing that, how to you know, apply for a credit card, what to look for, how to manage money, and it's kind of taught through this whole tribal knowledge situation.
Brittany:But nowadays, I would say, you know, we really don't have excuses anymore. We're not in the position that our parents were in, we're grandparents, where you have to, you know, get on a bus or a little horse and buggy and go down to the local library to grab an encyclopedia and hope that that book isn't checked out, like we have everything at our fingertips right now. They can just go online, google it. You know, there's someone has done the research. It's all about taking the initiative and going out there and finding the answers.
Meghan:I used to always say that they needed that class in high school for skills. Exactly what you're talking about balancing a checkbook though I'm sure our audience doesn't even know what that is but things like renting an apartment and how to get back your security deposit all the real life stuff that is connected to being wealthy, or financial literacy, but we've been throwing this term around financial literacy pretty loosely, so I know it's been a recent topic of discussion this year, with some states now mandating it as part of curriculum For our listeners. What do you mean by financial literacy? What are the topics? What do you mean by financial literacy?
Brittany:What are the topics? So the way I like to look at it is similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right, you have your base foundation, and then, as you go up the pyramid, you get to self-realization, actualization, whatever he's preaching, but essentially the way that financial literacy and becoming wealthy is very similar, right. So you have your pyramid and you have the base. So the base you can think of creating a budget, creating a savings account, having an emergency fund, stuff like that. And then you start to build up understanding stocks, bonds what is it? Etfs, making an investment plan and then, as you're building up, getting into real estate. But essentially you want to get out of that survival mode of living paycheck to paycheck. And by doing that is really just building the foundation and creating the budget. You're not going to be rich just by saving your pennies away. You need to understand, next, how to make your money work for you. So understanding money, how money moves, the rules to continue up to that pyramid.
Meghan:And we're going to cover all of that in this podcast. Someone had their wheeze this morning. Do you have a recommendation for understanding all of that? Garbly gook, you just said.
Brittany:I would say learn, read research, watch videos. Like I said before, we're just at a very interesting point in our society where you don't have to go down to the library to you know, look at the encyclopedia and read all about it. You can watch videos on YouTube. There's people on Instagram. Everything that's out there has already been done for the most part, and it's really just about taking the initiative and going out to learn about it. How money moves, how it works, what rules you need to play by is really the secret to be able to effectively manipulate things in your favor.
Meghan:So what would you say have been your favorite online sources in reading?
Brittany:I would say Investopedia and NerdWallet are my two top ones. I do like to take ideas from you know people on Instagram, on YouTube, tiktok, whatever your social media platform is, but I always take those with a grain of salt. I always really like to go back to more or less the quote unquote accredited websites that are able to dumb it down in a very simplified version.
Meghan:I would say Brittany is definitely the smarter one on this topic, but I do read the Kiplinger letter. It is forecasts for executives and investors. Every week I get a pretty dialed down newsletter. It's very helpful for me to have education in this space. It's really to the point, simple, but it's helping me understand trends and make financial decisions, whether it's on the real estate market or if it's time for me to buy a car or wait, and just really what's happening in our economy overall. So that has definitely been helpful for me. So, now that I'm literate, now what I have a 401k I'm good right.
Brittany:You know, it really just depends and I hate that answer, but it really, it, honestly it just depends. It depends on what your financial goals are, because everyone's different.
Brittany:You know some people are okay, you know working a nine to five and retiring out of one company, or you know having a corporate job and taking that route, that's fine. If you want to build wealth, that's probably not the best route because you want to have multiple streams of income coming in. Because, for instance, if you get laid off of said corporate job, then what? You're on unemployment and hoping to find another job. No one gets rich working a nine to five. The smart people or wealthy people have multiple streams coming in. So if one stream dies down, that's okay. They got six others and maybe a seventh on the way or eighth on the way to keep the cashflow coming.
Brittany:Cause, like you said earlier with the Kiplinger letter, there's trends in the market, right, so you know, maybe one quarter real estate's doing great market right. So you know, maybe one quarter real estate's doing great. You're getting money, you know, left and right with whatever your long term rentals, airbnbs, whatever your flavor is in real estate, and maybe it takes a nosedive. You know the next quarter, but you have other investments or other streams to offset the risk at the risk.
Meghan:That's helpful. So I really want to understand how money moves and really understand building the wealth and kind of the rules of the system. Right, there's just so many caveats. So, as you're thinking about those multiple streams of income and that retirement, what are the ways that you really think about your finances and how you run them?
Brittany:That's a good question, but essentially, what I like to do is understand. I like to compare it to gambling, which take this with a grain of salt, but it's really just the concept and principle behind gambling. When you go to a casino, everyone knows the house always wins, and in order to win this is where it kind of gets controversial with gambling specifically. But you need to understand what rules the house plays by, and so what I mean by that in the house in this situation, is the government or a lending institution or whatever person controls the money. So, for example, there are certain items that you can write off on your taxes. There are certain things that you can establish, you know, for example, as a business.
Brittany:Now I can see okay, you know, I have a car, can I use this for my business? Write it off where it benefits both the business and myself personally. What rules specifically are they playing by and how can I leverage, maybe borrowing, you know, $10,000, or getting $100,000 loan to make more income for myself? So that's really what I mean by you know, understanding the rules, how money moves and how it works, so you can use them to your favor, legally, of course, you know, I'm not saying go and you know, commit white collar crimes and you know all that. But you always want to pay the house. Pay, uncle Sam. Don't be shady or try to cut corners, because the IRS will find you or revenue department. Apparently they're packing this year, so Got it.
Meghan:So I need to make sure I pay my taxes and be interested in long-term gains, because short-term wins are usually going to bite me. What other habits do you have to build wealth?
Brittany:Study wealthy people, their habits, how they operate, and by doing so, you can begin to understand how they leverage these rules in their favor. I mean, everyone knows Warren Buffett is like just like a genius. So when it comes to wealth building, his model is very simple he buys essentially boring, long term, sustainable businesses. It works for him, they're recession proof, it adds to his portfolio and he always keeps the original, I think, the people that work there, because that's what his model is. He's found a model that works. So leveraging someone like him, how he operates, how he thinks, could be very beneficial, and then also automating your finances. Also automating your finances. So what I like to do a lot of people have impulse control but is, if you get your paycheck, just already set your direct deposits to go into your specific accounts, right, so you have your investment account, checking account, your savings account that's where you're not tempted like, oh great, I just got you know paid $2,000 this week.
Brittany:Let me go and YOLO it out, cheat myself. I'm going to go shopping spree and do all this. No, the money's already in the accounts, so you don't even see it, and then you can spend whatever money you have left over.
Meghan:I had a cousin that used the envelope process. Have you heard about it?
Brittany:No, tell me more.
Meghan:So she would pull out her whole paycheck, essentially, and she'd put the money into like physical different envelopes that were labeled for, like travel food shopping. They're probably hidden somewhere, but this is definitely pre-auto banking, but it worked for her.
Brittany:Yeah, and that's great. I love that because it's all about building the habit and having a positive relationship with money. So, yeah, that's perfect. You know, you just really have to find what works for you and what works, you know, for your personality and your type of spending habits. I do want to say a word of caution when learning about finances.
Brittany:Online is a lot of finance journeys are just a snapshot of their current state. So you see people on Instagram, influencers, you know promoting. I just can guarantee you you know XYZ returns flipping real estate and all this other stuff, and that's great. I'm sure they can do that. I'm not downplaying that at all. But just take it with a grain of salt because it's just a snapshot in their current time and they could have filmed that, you know, at the height of, you know, 2021, for example, when real estate was just absolutely booming, they did this amazing flip. But you know those economic conditions may not apply today. So just kind of take what they're saying with the grain of salt and just analyze it and start asking yourself a couple of questions before, a couple questions before you kind of just blindly follow these people down the road.
Meghan:That's incredibly true. It does not happen overnight. It's a journey. I have been trying to start my own business for years and I've seen my friends get involved in their own business. It does not happen overnight. You hear a lot of no's before you get yeses and you put a lot of energy in places promoting your business before you figure out which style works and gets the attraction that you're looking for. It is just a lot of work hands down.
Brittany:It really is. And you know everyone makes it look so nice and shiny on the outside because you know they're really happy for it. They finally got to that point where they're super successful. But it's just, it's just not the case. Everyone has the struggle and it's just not a very you know pretty picture that a lot of people advertise because it's also kind of boring too. It's a lot of late nights, it's. You know, sometimes I'm just going to cry for 10 minutes and then pick myself up and move on Like we've all been there.
Brittany:But on a serious note, if you're interested in gaining financial literacy, check out my ebook Everything you Wish you Learned in School, but obviously didn't, because you know we were kind of just spewed out in the world.
Brittany:But I really wrote this book because I didn't, because you know we were kind of just spewed out in the world. But I really wrote this book because I didn't get into finances until I was a little bit older. I had some basic understanding, but I came from a very, very conservative, risk-adverse, middle-class family. They were second generation, so you know they were just getting out of that survival mode. They weren't really in the thriving area in terms of the Maslow's hierarchy and needs I was talking about earlier, but they built the foundation for me. So my mindset changed a lot, understanding where they came from and now taking a step back to where I want to be and what I can do to advance myself and my family generations to come. So that was one of the reasons why I wrote the book was to help people like me and other people start earlier in life, because the earlier you get started, the more time you have to make that money.
Meghan:I think that's great. So I think, too, it's also a good segue to our next topic. We want to talk a little bit about buying assets and leveraging assets to buy assets and connecting it to what Brittany was just saying. She's talking about starting early and that helps you build that wealth. So you know, let's talk about it, Jump in. How do you buy assets?
Brittany:about it. Jump in. How do you buy assets? So look, if I stuff $100 under my mattress or in a savings account that yields 0.0000005% order, the banks are offering fucking annually. I'm losing my money every day. That little soldier isn't out there recruiting more soldiers like hands down.
Meghan:I love it. So why are you losing money? Tell us the details.
Brittany:So it's this subtle not so subtle thing we like to call inflation. You know, fucking inflation.
Meghan:Oh my gosh, can you believe avocados are like $3 per avocado? I don't know who's buying fresh avocados in this economy.
Brittany:The guac is definitely extra, extra this time. Absolutely, but exactly so. This is why it's so important to buy assets a lot as much as you can, and this is what I was mentioning earlier about understanding the rules and how money moves.
Brittany:So you don't need to come from a wealthy family to do this. It's really simple and a lot of people kind of just overcomplicate it. It really doesn't need to be overcomplicated, but it's what I like to what I've coined creative financing. So here's just one example, and it's pretty common among real estate investors, so I'm not reinventing the wheel here. So I brought a modest first home at a good price. I bought it. It wasn't intended to be my forever home. I didn't go above my price range. I could have bought something that was a lot more expensive. Very nice, very whatever.
Meghan:But I didn't.
Brittany:I stood towards the middle to lower end of my budget. I ended up moving out of it and then renting it. I didn't you know like I stood towards, like the middle to lower end of my budget. Um, I ended up moving out of it and then renting it. I didn't sell it. I could have sold it. But you know, whatever, I wanted some extra income, but in the past five years it's appreciated 62% and it's making me almost a hundred thousand dollars in just rental income over the last three years since I started renting it out. Damn.
Brittany:Now here's where the fun begins.
Meghan:What? It already sounded fun. To me it already sounded fun.
Brittany:I can take a portion of that 62% of appreciation or equity out and I don't get taxed on my profits and I can put that oh I'm sorry, I can take it out and buy another property with it with the equity, or I can do a 1031 exchange. So essentially I don't get taxed on my rental property, the profits I got on it, and I can put it in the 1031 exchange and then put that money down on something else. So since it appreciated now to almost 700,000, I paid the first loan off, keep the difference and now I could put that down on another property. Same scenario, different approaches, just based on your goals.
Meghan:I love that you brought this up. I've never seen myself as someone who could own a home by myself, let alone two, but it's happening.
Brittany:Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for you. I can't wait. So I'm just curious. There's a thousand ways to do it, but how did you end up funding your second home purchase and what are your plans for the property?
Meghan:Yeah, so my first house gained a hundred K in equity in one year, and so, rather than just sit on the equity, like you said, make those soldiers work for me I decided to use it. So I'm taking a home equity line, so I'm borrowing on the profit or the equity to get a down payment for the second house, and I'm going to use the second house as an Airbnb, creating that second source of income you were talking about earlier.
Brittany:Oh my gosh, that's perfect. That's perfect. I love it. I love like hearing what other people are doing, because it's essentially just it's nothing new, right? It's just how different strategies and how they work, and I think that's a really great segue into good debt versus bad debt too, because there's this connotation that you know, all debt is bad. That was the belief I had growing up. You don't want to have credit card debt, mortgage debt, any sort of debt, but there's a difference in debt. There's good debt, there's bad debt. Bad debt, I would say, is anything related to consumer debt. So credit cards, if you're buying clothes, going on fancy trips, just luxury or nice, to have items where good debt is buying assets, because that money pays you back eventually, whether through appreciation, cash flow, whatever.
Meghan:I would say that you know talking about good debt versus bad debt. You know I've done some 401k loans before and so 401k I have set up. I had some debt on a credit card that just kind of kept gaining interest. I wanted just to pay it off and make progress on that debt and so what I did was I took a 401k loan, paid off the credit card debt and now I'm paying the interest but it's going into my 401k, so I'm going to get the interest at some point when I retire. I wouldn't do it all the time and I would be cognizant of changing jobs because that can affect your 401k loans. But if you feel very safe in your job and you don't think that it's going to change for a while, sometimes it may be helpful to do a 401k loan to help you get out of that bad debt.
Brittany:Yeah, and that's perfect too, because you know, say, you're going to go buy something else later, whether it's a business or another real estate investment. You also need to look to what the mortgage companies are looking. They're going to weigh your credit card debt a lot more heavily than a 401k loan because in their eyes it's not considered a loan you're borrowing from yourself. So now that you've gotten rid of that credit card debt, you're looking a lot better to a mortgage company or another lender.
Brittany:So I'm honestly curious to hear from the audience and y'all's perspective in terms of finances, wealth building. Feel free to DM me, megan us, our Instagram directly or comment on us on our posts.
Meghan:I would say DM her probably not me.
Brittany:She'll probably just give you a sassy, sarcastic answer.
Meghan:You'll get a gif back. Well, I really wish I would have brought a drink to this conversation. I'm going to like log off and go get my post drink. Math has always been my struggle. If you ask my dad about us fighting over multiplication tables, he will have stories for you. He made so many worksheets and he was like doing them by hand and like photocopying them. I can like picture them in my head after all these years. So, that said, let's sum it up Britt All right.
Brittany:So to summarize everything we talked about number one educate yourself. I have a book, but there's other resources out there. The book doesn't guarantee any returns, it's simply just educational purposes. Two get multiple streams of income. What I mean by that is assets, so house, cryptocurrency, buying businesses, whatever your flavor is get a mix of those. And three invest in long-term solid assets, so real estate is a good one. I think that would probably be a good long-term asset or any sort of boring business that's more like recession-proof. You'll be good to go.
Meghan:Perfect. Well, thank you all for joining us today. We would love to hear from you, so please reach out, get a hold of us and follow our social media. We would love to have you involved, so your input is requested. Thanks for joining us today.
