Hey, hey, BA fam. It's time for the B-A-Q-A-A, the B-A-Q-A. What to say? The B-A-Q, way with Manday, the B-A-Q-A, the B-A-Q-A-A. Happy holidays, BA fam. We're on the other side of Christmas now, and I hope that it was a beautiful holiday for y'all, or if it wasn't, it's in the past y'all. It's over, let's move forward, let's look ahead.
Now, in this special episode of the BA QA, we're going to take a look back at some of our favorite questions of the year. I hope you all enjoy it. Hope you just, you know, can play this while you're, you know, enjoying watching the kids run around with all those gifts and hopefully maybe you're having a white Christmas, whatever. I hope you're just having a season of rest and rejuvenation and we put together this little show just for you. Thank you, BA fan. We love you and we'll see you in the new year.
It's time for the B-A-Q-A, the B-A-Q-A, what you say? The B-A-Q-A with Tiffany, the B-A-Q-A, no mandate. I am taking these questions I'm answering today just in general from what the people have been asking. And the people say, bajanista bajanista.
question, so I have these financial resolutions, and it's not looking good, Queen, even though we're in week two. How do I stay on track for the year? Who has that question? Raise your hand, raise your hand, right? I know I have that question sometimes, and so I have found a system, if you will, that allows me to stay on relative financial track for the year. I want to hear it, hear it, go.
First things first, you do have to kind of identify, I don't necessarily do resolutions, but I do try to identify what goals, financial goals I'd like to meet by the end of the year. But this is what I ask myself. I say Tiffany, January 1st Tiffany. What would you like January 31st Tiffany to look like?
Where would you like for her to say, Ooh, child, I went on these trips. What would you like her to be wearing? You know, I was just looking at a pair of Jordans today, these Jorda ones. I love the Jorda ones. They were red and black and white. I want her to be wearing those, right? What, what, you know, what is she a last girl? Cause you see, I got me a little lash off right now. Does she still have those? Okay. Um, has she finally moved to her condo? She's been renovating forever. Um,
Has she eaten at certain restaurants? Ula la. Has she spent time with people she wanted to spend time with? What does January 31st Tiffany look like? And then infuse financially, what does that mean for her? Or him, right? Or they then, right? What does that mean? Because this is more powerful than a resolution.
Because of the resolution is like, I'm going to fix my credit. That's great. What does it actually mean? I'm literally envisioning myself December 31st, you know, not outside because child is ghetto on New Year's Eve in dangerous.
the September 31st reflecting on my year that's passed and I it's I'm gonna actually because if you know me you know I'm always cutting my locks and I've cut them to the chin I've cut them shorter but for one thing I'm like I'm actually gonna let my locks grow so I imagine it's already like at broad length and so I imagine there'll be like mid-back and your girls gonna be a mermaid I also think I'm gonna keep the lashes up
I will have traveled. I know for a fact I'm going to Africa. I'm going to go to Johannesburg and a few surrounding countries. Literally tomorrow I leave for Puerto Rico with my sister. I just got back from South Carolina. Y'all never told me about the sea islands. Gullagulla. It was so freaking beautiful.
I was right on the Atlantic Ocean. It was moving, right? So that's happening. My sister just started taking Pilates classes. It's $40 a class. I'm considering it. But do you see, as I imagined, December 31st, Tiffany, I'm looking at her holistically, and then I'm attaching the financial goals to their holistic life.
Does that make sense, right? Like, what do I want for her? Like, I want to have travel, you know, I don't necessarily want to lose weight, but certainly I would like my body to be tighter or snatched to the waist, okay? Because I'm going to be bringing in 45. I want to be giving 45 grown woman energy, but the body of 30. Let me not 30, because 30 I was too skinny. 35, 37.
Now, just tighter than what I am now. It's still giving keep though, right? But I literally am asking myself, how do I want to show up on the last day of the year? And what does that look like what I have to do now? And how does that tie into my financial life? Is there money that I have to save? Are there trips that I have to book?
Maybe I need to lean in. Like, literally, I'm going to Dubai in February. Your girl's outside, outside. Here go. Catch this too. My trips in the month of January, South Carolina, I started off with there doing Karen Hunter. She's got this awesome podcast. She had this healthy, wealthy, wise conference, which was impeccably done. I started there. I go to Puerto Rico. I just got back on Sunday. I go to Puerto Rico tomorrow to celebrate
My sister's 40th, hey girl. That's Roman and Amelia's mama. And because my friend Rachel Rodgers is having her ROI conference as she has every year in Puerto Rico. So I'm going to go to the conference, but also enjoy PR. And then the week after that, I have to go to Boston because I'm taping this huge podcast. Y'all heard of Mel Robbins? You know you have. I'm taping her podcast in St. Boston. So I'll be flying out to do that.
And then I got booked to do this gig in LA a week after that. And so I might we'll see how long I stay because I have some friends in LA. Hey, even in my cousin Chris. So maybe I'll stay a couple days to hang out with them. And then two weeks, then the week after that, I'm going to be going to DC to see my friends.
And so that's happened in DC. And then the week after that, I go to Dubai for this mastermind. And during this mastermind, my friend Terri is going to be there. She said, I've always wanted to go to Singapore. I said, OK, girl.
So we are going to go to Singapore. The mastermind for Dubai is just two days, but who goes all the way to Dubai just to stay for two days? Not me. So I'm going to be in a way for about 10 days. And so we're going to spend time in Dubai and then spend time in Singapore and then bring myself on home. That's just January and February. Your girl is what? Outside.
So as I think of December 31st, Tiffany, she has been well-traveled, right? I didn't even talk about me when I go to Africa, when I go to Johannesburg and the surrounding countries, right? I even book all the other things I plan on doing, okay? But in order to do that, I am currently looking at one, my finances, two points.
I'm literally like I was watching YouTube videos today about the best way to um redeem points. I got a lot of annex points. I got to get in that a lot a lot of united airline points. Some chase venture card points. And so but do you see that like
I don't want you to think of your December 31st self just from a financial place. I want you to think of like how you show up holistically and then match your money to that. That's how you stick to the quote unquote resolutions, because resolutions are dry, honey and ashy. But if you make them about your holistic, wonderful life,
then you say, hey, money, catch up. I need you to do this, honey. I need you to give this. We need to give savings. We need to give pay down this credit card debt. We need to give maximize these points. Do you see? Do you see? Do you see? We need to give strong credit score. And so that's what I do first and foremost in order to stick to my quote unquote resolutions is that I make it about a bigger life, not just about the money, and then I match the money to the life. I don't try to match my life to the money.
That's one. Then two, one of the things I do is I look for help. I look to you. Isn't that Wendy? Not Whitney, right? I look to you when the... I don't even know the song, but it's a cute song. I just still have a great voice.
Anyway, right? So one of the things I have learned in my almost 45 years of life, well, let me say almost 45 because my birthday is not in October. So we're going to live this cute 44. I mean, some of y'all be hung up about age, not me girl, because you see the skin, Botox and filler free. Still looking like what?
I feel like I look in my 40s, which is great, but I feel like I look like in a cute in my 40s, okay? The body is still body and the face is still facing and the skin is still skinning, okay? So I'm always looking for help. So in my years of living, I have learned the fastest way to get from where you are to where you want to be is typically through someone else.
Because, girl, why are we learning new lessons when the lessons have been learned and written about and podcast about and blogs about?
Okay, so for example, I'm like, hey, I've never flown Emirates or Qatar, and I've heard they're really beautiful. And I want to fly, like too, when I go to Dubai, I want to have that luxury experience, business or first class, that luxury experience. I mean, I've flown obviously first class and business before, but those are supposed to be very high upscale airlines. So I'm currently like in these MX groups learning through people, how do I maximize the points that I have?
in order to like not have to pay for that girl because by. So through someone else, you get to maximize the lessons that you want to learn. Why should you learn from scratch? That's why you're here listening to Brown ambition. If you want to do anything that has anything to do with financial wholeness, that's budgeting, savings, debt,
credit, income, investing for both retirement and wealth, your net worth, insurance, your financial team, and estate planning, any of those 10 things. Child, that's why I wrote the book Made Whole. It's the workbook version of Get, Go with Money, right? And so looking for guidance, do not do it alone. Money is a team sport. So finding people, tools, and resources to help you get to the goal
the financial goal that you need to live the life that your January 31st self is like, I did that, I did that. Does that make sense? So one, identify your January 31st self, what they tend to say about how the year went. Cute. Two.
Get yourself a guide. Why are you out here by yourself? It's ghetto out here. Go ahead. Get you a partner. When I used to teach free school, we would always tell the kids, hold your partner's hand, right? You would have to hold your partner's hand because if you was missing, one of these kids was going to be like, my partner's missing and I could be like, Jaheem, where are you, sir? Why are you always behind?
Right? So get yourself a partner. I love an accountability partner. So that's like a little friend frame that's going to walk you through. Well, that will walk with you on your journey. They don't have to know personal finance, but they're there to cheer you on and hold you accountable and support you and share their goals too. Right? But then you find somebody that's done the thing you're wanting to do. Like I don't know everything. I lean into my financial advisor, Angeli. For certain things, I lean into my
My, my peers, you hear me talk about Cabrella a lot. He's one of my business peers that I, I bounce things off of my friend Brandis at the HFR. I bounce things off for her, ending it to my mentors, Lynette Calfati Cox, Sandra Davis of, of, oh,
I'll just say, Sage Financial, right? And so, like, these are my mentors. And so, I am quick to raise my hand and say, I need help. Let's get good at that. I need help. I don't know. And it's okay. Finding those people that are doing the thing you're wanting to do and then following their lead. Some people you'll know personally and some people just follow digitally. That's fine. Okay?
So if you want the buckhood, go ahead, made whole workbook can certainly help you with the financial part. So that's the second part. And the third part of keeping these financial resolutions is building a community around you. We work best in community. So when I said like looking for guidance, that's typically a person or a number of people that have achieved the thing. But the community around you are like your family, your friends, your work friends, your work husband, whoever your partner, your children,
building this community around you and sharing the things you're wanting to do. So for example, I was telling my sisters, I want us to go on a sister lunch date once a month. So one, that's still a financial choice, how much does that cost?
how do we set that side? Maybe we have like a sister account where like, you know, the money goes there so that when we pay, we're just paying with one bill, but we've all contributed say like 50 bucks a month. I don't know child, right? I was just thinking that I was like, okay, I want by the by December 31st that Tiffany is says like, oh my gosh, I had like, I mean, I hang out my sisters all the time, but I intentionally had at least 12
sister lunch dates with my sisters this year. My friend Cabral, who's one of my besties, Cabral is definitely my fancy friend. And he has a list of places that he like, Cabral's a foodie. So he has this list called Tiffany Eats. So we will go and like, to this really nice restaurant and eat good honey. Because leave it up to me, your girl doesn't have a sophisticated pallet. At least not at first, but Cabral be like, girl, we're not eating there. Get yourself together like Daniel.
And so we have these amazing places at Cabral. I'm like, how did you find this place? So I told Cabral, yo, I want it on the calendar once a month, on the calendar, like every third Thursday of the month that we go out to dinner, we choose a place off the Tiffany Eats list. Because you are liable to get in a car with Cabral and end up in Delaware, and we live in New Jersey. He don't mind driving. You're like, where are we going to eat today?
I was taking Rhode Island. You're like, what? But it's always fabulous. It's always fun. It's always a time honey. But that's also a financial choice because how much does that cost? What does that look like? Because we take turns treating each other. Like, I pay for one dinner. He picks for the next dinner. So what does that look like?
You know, and so but creating a community around you to share. I want to do this thing. I have something called Sunday Supper that I try to do. We used to do a monthly, but now I'm trying to do at least every other month. These are my family, my friends, my neighbors. I invite them to the house. I hire this amazing.
Cook chef, Nisha, they used to cook for Jarela and I when he was here. And Nisha will make food for Sunday supper. And it's just litters like I have many thanksgiving every other month. But that cost, what does that look like? So these are the things like, you know, but as I have a Sunday supper group chat.
And we'll talk through it because building community around your hopes, goals, and dreams holds you more accountable. So those are the three things that will really help you to make your financial resolution stick is that you have to make it bigger than the resolution. One, just for recap, because you know I'm a teacher, plan, do, review. One, identify your December 31st self and what they want holistically and match the money to that.
two, get you some help, a guide, whether it's made whole, my new book, whether it's this podcast, someone or a collection of someone that have accomplished the thing you want to accomplish, let them help you through it, whether it's digitally or in person or whatever. And then three, build community around that life you want to live that goal you want. And so they can hold you accountable and you can keep them updated on your progress. Okay.
Well, hopefully that's a helpful job because when we check in December 31st, honey, I want to be like, I went here, I did this, I did own child. It's going to be a time, I can already tell. My sister, Tracy, has already coined it. She said 2024 is going to be a banner year. A banner year, meaning an excellent year. My business is already cooking with Greece. The budget is making coin already. We started the month of January off strong. My personal life is looking cute.
I'm like my family, my friends, super connected. And yeah, I'm exploring the possibility of love again. Don't ask me questions. I just said it because he'd be listening. Hey, anyway. And yeah, I just think 2024 is going to be a banner year and it can be for you too, but it's intentional. These things happen intentionally, especially when you're grown.
So this is from Nelly from IG. Hi, Mandy. Hope you're well. Girl, I'm here too. But that's okay. Corbinos, stop. Everyone's always like, hey, Tiffany, and that girl.
I just need to know what. Because you know, Bassett, this is a handy question, but either way, hey girl, I'll just say hi. Question, I'm looking to interview very soon for a new opportunity at my current company, different department. It would be a promotion, and I have most of the required skills, plus finished my master's in 2021, go ahead girl. How can I go about getting the absolute max amount of money since they have access to my salary history? FYI, the range is up to 156k.
and I'm at 123 currently. They require a salary expectation entry. When I applied, I said 150 just in case they negotiated me down. Let me know if you have any tips loving everything you're doing. Thanks, Nelly. This is a good question. What do I want to start singing hot in here? I don't know why.
No, no, let's do it. It's getting hot in here. So make sure you get all your coins. Anyway, listen, Nelly, first of all, congratulations, because I feel like this is a really exciting opportunity. And to work at a company where you can apply to another department, it's awesome. And I feel like when people think about quitting a role for a new opportunity, you sometimes think like you have to go outside the company.
But I'm a huge fan of pivoting in place like that's what I call it when you find a growth opportunity right where you are and Your mindset is really important here And this is a thing where you know what you make and you're kind of letting that kind of get to you a little bit I would treat this new department like a another company
So anything that you would do if you were interviewing for an outside company, I would do, you know, I would go in there strong and establish, you know, your credentials and how excited you are for the opportunity. You've already mentioned a salary, at least it was a sort of the top of the range you mentioned 150. I typically would have said, you know, put, you know,
competitive or put zero or put $1 or whatever it is in the field so that you don't have to necessarily name a number. But I think that you should go in there definitely expecting to get paid what the value of the job is, especially if it is a promotion.
You have most of the skills, like you said, and you now have a master's degree. So if you were thinking about the salary that you have now holding you back, this is a whole different job. You know, it's a step up, probably more responsibility. What may help you feel more confident going in and asking for your value is to
find comparable roles at comparable companies. Those are the two comps you want to have. Similar company and a similar role and see what types of salaries they're offering as well. And then again, think of them as an outside employer who doesn't necessarily know your current salary and negotiate from that space. It's not about what you're earning now. It's about the market value.
Excuse me. It's about the market value of a candidate for this specific role that you're applying for. So don't go in there thinking 123 vibes. Think 156. Okay. Thank God. And you also know that you're not probably just making 123. You also have to factor in your annual bonus on top of that. You know, so
Don't forget that you can still negotiate those types of things like your annual bonus amount. If they offer you equity at your company, you should still feel confident negotiating equity when you get to that point. You've just applied now and you put in your salary expectation, which is cool. Now the key is everything that's going to happen before the negotiation, which is you really want to make them excited to hire you.
You already know the company, but what other strengths do you bring to the table? Like how well do you understand the challenges, the pain points of the team that you're joining? Do you have any connections on that team already that you can build on those relationships? You want them to think of you as a no-brainer, you know, so that by the time you get to the negotiation or the offer stage, they want you so bad that when you come back to them and like, hey, 140 is cute, but what about 156?
that they're like, okay, we really want Nelly. So let's make this happen. That's essential for you at this point. But before you get there, you got to get your mindset right around, this is a whole different employer, even though it's with the same company, whole different team. You are not in the same role that you have now. You're not making 123 in this new role. It's a whole different ballgame. So start to think that way and don't get in your own way.
I'm like, then I'm just like, as someone who employees and oftentimes typically will promote from within, you know, I like most employees, employers are going to want to look within if someone is good, because it's like you don't have to learn the company culture. I don't have to like kind of talk, talk to you about like and teach you about what we do here. So know that like, that's a benefit, you know, to be even, you know, to looking to work internally, but
Also, sometimes the problem is it's like the prodigal son, right? The person who leaves and comes back gets like better treatment than the person who stayed. So don't be afraid either to like be like, they seem like they, you know, they treat me like old news. Maybe I need to be made new again.
You know, so if you're needing, if you wanted to make more, consider that too. But I just say this, that I have people on my team that are just so excellent. Like, are you bringing obvious excellence to the table? Not that you're doing well, but you're visibly doing well. You know, there are people who like, even now, there's a woman on one of my teams that I want to bring on over to the bajanista. She's on the literature academy team. Shout out to you, I case your girl. We come to get you. She's amazing.
Like, you know, it just started with, you know, us contracting her to do a few things here and there. And I was just blown away about what she delivered. Logan was like, Oh, we got to do it to get her, you know, and project management, but she's just excellent.
She's one of those people that is going to see the thing all the way through. Aikisha works really hard, but also smart and strategically. She's a great team player, easy to get along with. So her first project management thing that I had her do was she helped me with the Get With Money launch.
That was a huge project to trust and trust to someone. And it was like 15 of us working on get good money. And it was going to be overwhelming for me to manage everyone. So I said, I heard through the grapevine, because we used to have our weekly chats when I was the CEO of the Academy. I heard through the grapevine that I key she was interested in project management and just wanted to test it out. And I said, well, I have a huge test for you. Try get good money on the budget needs to sign. And she was like, are you sure?
I said, one, all 11 people on the get goes money team are hard workers. So the project management component is not, you know, you don't have to manage and motivate them. These are great people. I cherry picked everyone on the team. So that was one. You just have to keep us all organized. And she was excellent. And I was like, hold up.
I wanna teach it for myself, so me and Tam had to tussle. Like, oh, I'll teach myself. I won. And so, yeah, so I'll be making her mad, you know, if I can teach it, listen, but yeah, girl, I'll be making your offer soon, because we talked about it already. But I'm just saying all that to say, when you are excellent, A space is always made for you at the table. So I'm sure you're bringing excellence to the table in an obvious way, because it'll make people say we cannot lose, you know, nally sound.
Good luck to you girl. Keep such a perfect point to make. Yeah. I talked to a coaching client this morning all the way in Australia. Shout out to Nicole. It was 10 30 her time, 10 30 am my time. And she's going through a similar thing. She's applying for a senior role at her company. And I had to remind her how
incredibly beneficial is that people already know her. She has brand recognition exactly where she is. I feel like sometimes we take ourselves for granted at work or no one tells us, but there's so much value in having a great reputation. Colleagues wanting to work with you.
Plus, you can teach skills, you can teach how to do this, how to do that to a certain extent, right? So if you're meeting most of the qualifications on all of them and people know and love you and will vouch for you and endorse you, that is so key. And that gives you such a huge advantage over external candidates. So yeah, it's just about building your own confidence Nelly in that you have a lot going for you already understanding the inner workings of this company.
And even though I want to know like 12,000 more things about the situation, I just want you to go in again, feeling strong. And to Tiffany's point about sometimes if you are missing out on opportunities and you're not being valued where you are because that unfortunately is often the case.
use this as a litmus test to see, okay, do I have growth potential at this company? And if this promotion does not work out or you don't get the support that you feel like you need, well, at least you explore that option and you should feel no ounce of guilt for looking outside of the company, you know, for new opportunities. Sometimes they got to really fear losing you to really respect and value you, which is unfortunate, but it's up to you to, you know, assert your value in that way. So I hope this works out for you, but I'm just saying, even if it don't,
There's other paths ahead of you as well. And they don't have to be, you know, feeling stuck or stagnant where you currently are. And we're back in black urban. This is from Esmeralda. Okay. Remember Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Disney movie? It was not that great. Anyway, but Esmeralda was the part that Demi Moore played. What? I just, sorry. I was, I thought I was going to sneeze. What are you talking about?
No, I said or remember the hunchback of Notre Dame. It was a Disney. I mean, it's a real thing, but also it was a Disney movie. They had turned it into a Disney movie doing my hunchback. And so anyway, Esmeralda was like the character that Demi Moore played. She was like a gypsy. Anyway, whatever. I don't know. I just say this, this lady's name is Esmeralda.
As we're all the heads up on IG. Say say hello. I've got a question for B.A. Q.A. Please keep me anonymous or call me Esmeralda and I'm saying we call you Esmeralda. Esmeralda said I worked for bank and recently received a reduction in force noticed due to my location. I was given 60 days to find another internal role as the bank is focusing on other cities for their hubs.
I was never asked to move. They have asked me to sign a release of claims to get a severance package. What does that mean of a release of claims? Basically, it's where you agree that you won't try to claim that they owe you more money or that it would use wrongful termination. Basically, you can't you take away your power to sue them or
you know, further any negotiations and that. In exchange for that, you will get some submarines. Okay. She said, I have several questions. Can you explain what a release of claims for? Oh, anyway, what a release of claims for a separate package means at a high level? Done.
Before getting the reduction in force, I was planning on taking a short-term disability leave but delayed it in Navigrant not doing so sooner. However, I did end up submitting a claim and it got approved just before my termination date. So at least I don't have to work during this period and still get 100% salary. I applied for an internal role before getting the release of the reduction in force.
and had an interview that went really well. If I get an offer, I can stay with the company. My question is, how can I try to negotiate for a higher salary given my situation? I realize I don't have much leverage, but I am considering leaving the company because I have enough savings to cover me for months and I need to focus on my health. This is a lot to process. Any thoughts and advice are greatly appreciated. You two are the best.
Ooh, Azmarallah. Yeah, this is, well, there's a lot going on here. One, I'm glad that you were able to take advantage of your disability leave, even if it's not probably as much time as you wanted. Like you said, you have 60 days, so some chunk of that, you're going to be able to take your leave, and then I hope you can focus on your mental health. I'm excited to hear that.
I'm happy and relieved to hear that you do have some savings to cover you for several months in the event that you just want to focus on your health, which it sounds like you might need to, and that perhaps this is a bit of a blessing in disguise that this has happened. But that being said, if we take away the need for disability leave, for mental health leave,
Just in general, the whole, we're going to fire you in 60 days. So here you go. Do your best work for us still, because we can still fire you. And by the way, sign this release for him. It's annoying. I mean, in some ways, it's nice to get a heads up, right? A common complaint for people who are let go is that it's like, OK, tomorrow's your last day. Today's your last day. You got to go. And if you don't have any severance payment on top of that, it's a huge slap in the face.
Um, so I would look really closely at your severance package as a career coach. I love reading, um, severance agreements. Um, it, there's a lot to, to pick apart in a severance package. Um, you want to look for things like, uh, non-compete, uh, like, you know, typically they'll be have some language in there about, um, whether or not,
they will have an issue if you move on to work for a competitor. It typically more applies to like senior positions, but not saying it doesn't exist. So I would look out for that. I would look out for what happens with your benefits, like you'll want to figure out your Cobra benefits. And in your case, like even if you decide to take some time off in between roles, like having that healthcare coverage will be necessary for you, it sounds like. So you want to figure out when that all
goes into effect and how much it's going to cost you to continue your benefits moving forward through Cobra. If you have any equity in the company, any unvested stock, what happens to that? Are you forfeiting it? Can you exercise any stock options or sell any RSUs before? What will happen to those benefits if you do not? What will happen to your 401K contributions? Any company matching? That should all be covered in your
severance agreement. Let me see. You can negotiate your severance. Like if, if, yeah, I mean, for sure, like there's always a case remade, like especially if their severance package doesn't fall in line with like industry standards, you can do if it's a pretty big bank, then it's very likely that there are news reports of severance packages at similarly sized financial institutions. And I have helped even my brother, you know, make a case for more severance.
And in his case, I was like, be sure to compare comparable sized companies in the industry. And what their severance was, how do you find it? So news reports are really helpful. Also, sometimes if that's a public company, they have to put that kind of information into their quarterly earnings reports. So you may find
Yeah, but typically it's a lot easier to do if you work for a company that is like being reported on by, you know, business insider, by Bloomberg, by Reuters, whatever these like new sites are. But if in the event that you're not like my brother worked for a smaller sort of startup, it was less than 50 employees. Okay. And he, he collected information from like peers. So he had friends working at other companies like that he had met through his work.
that he could check in with and ask because at the time this was like the great tech layoffs of 2023 or 2023 that he was impacted by. So there unfortunately were other layoffs that he could compare himself to. What else can I say?
Oh, so the internal role. Okay. So how can you negotiate for an internal role, a higher salary, given your situation? Well, it's a reduction in force. So hopefully like that, it doesn't reflect on, and it sounds like it's location based, you know, it doesn't probably reflect on your particular like job skills or your contribution. So I would, I wouldn't let that, you know, get you down. Like, I don't even know if
At an internal level, is the company so big? Do they even know about this production in force? Or is it just impacting your team? Sometimes companies are so big and so global. You don't know what's happening in Tucson's office versus what's happening in Boston's office. It can all be very siloed. So that will depend. And if it's the case that they are not that aware of it, I wouldn't highlight it for sure.
Um, but always the best way to negotiate for a higher salary, including this situation is to be looking for other opportunities. You can potentially have competing offers. Um, clearly your current company, like your current salary isn't as much of a competitive, like a competing offer because like you both, you have an expiration date on when that salary is going to be.
over, but if you're able to go out in the job market, do some interviews, you don't even need like a hard offer letter, but at least the ability to say that I am in talks with a couple, excuse me, one or two other companies and their compensation packages, they start at X amount of money. That can give you a jumping off point for negotiation doesn't mean that's going to be successful, but
That's always my go-to tip is the best thing you can do is to get competing offers. And if this sounds way too exhausting for you and you just wanted some time off, then I would say use those savings, that's what it's for. But obviously have a bounce-back plan from when you get back in the job market. Yeah. Do you think like Harrod being on disability for a little while is going to help? It's going to hurt her own chances in the market?
Well, nobody, well, I mean, you can spend your disability with however you want. I have definitely had Mandy Moneymakers who have taken advantage of taking a short-term mental health leave, medical leave, whatever, because they got approved by their mental health practitioner. And I'm not trying to put, I don't think she even said it was mental health related, or maybe she did, I forget. But anyway, but then you can do with that time what you want to do. So it can be job searching, it can be
you know, laying around and just getting some good sleep and talking to your doctors and all of that. But no, it shouldn't necessarily hurt. I mean, I wouldn't go out of your way to mention that in a job interview. You can just say, you know, I'm taking a bit of a break right now to like, you know, assess out my options and I plan to
um, you know, make a, make a move here soon. And it's, it's again about owning the narrative, like just own the story. Like I worked here for X number of years. Um, and I realized that I needed to spend some more time focusing on X, Y, Z. And I'm, but at the same time, I'm very excited about what I could contribute to your company and what I can bring to the role and just kind of say it with your full chest and don't apologize for it. Just own it. And that could go a long way.
Okay. All right. This question is from Regina, from IG. Y'all can hit us, hit me up at Brown Ambition Podcast on Instagram. If you want to have your question answered on the show, also Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail.com.
All right, Regina says, hey, love all the content y'all do. I have been following y'all for a few years now. My question is that I have a 401k from a previous employer still sitting with the original brokerage. I opened it in when I worked there, which is TIAA. I am now with a new employer and I have a 401k through that employer through a different brokerage, which is Fidelity.
Now I realize I should roll my original 401k into an IRA. For ease, should I just roll it over to my new brokerage? If I do this and then end up with another employer later in life at another brokerage, would I then be able to roll both my IRA and current active 401k over?
I would imagine I'd want to keep them together just so I don't forget where my money is, LOL. Thank you so much for your thoughts, and no, I won't sue my brown besties.
Thank you, Regina. Regina's got her solace. She knows. Okay, but this is a great question, Regina. And I think your instinct is important, which is like for you, you would want to keep them together because you worry that you might forget where your money is. And that is a real concern here, right? Is if you have accounts in all different places, life is going to life. You may have several jobs over the rest of your career and it can. It doesn't seem like it's
you know, possible, but it is very possible to forget that you have some money left over. I, myself, have like $1,500 or something like that, saved in a 401k. That's now been rolled over into an IRA from a previous employer, and I still have not got around. Because every time I think about it, I'm like, yeah, I got to do that.
And then I just don't do it because I go to log in and I don't know my password and I'm like, I'll come back another time. And it's just, you know, it's a little bit, there's friction there. It's not so simple. It still like takes effort to do it, right? So, and I'm like, well, it's not going anywhere. But what if I forget I have this $1,500? It's not a lot of, it's not a little bit of money, you know? So we don't want that to happen, right?
So if you think you may be inclined to forget, it may make a lot of sense to just take your previous employers 401k and roll it over into an IRA that you own and then make that IRA your destination for any future 401k rollovers.
Okay, so that means if you leave the job that you have now and you want to move your 401k out of that fidelity account, you already have this IRA opened with that. That has your previous 401k already rolled over and then you can just add that and then open up your new 401k wherever your employer has their partnership with.
Another reason it's great to roll it over is because your 401k through your employer, it may not have all of the investing options that you want. They may have very limited funds or the funds that they do have, maybe more expensive than what you can find opening your own brokerage account, like through a Vanguard or a Schwab.
The good news is that, I mean, Fidelity, TIAA, these are both platforms that should have a wealth of options for investing and low cost investments as well. So you could be good, you know, just keeping your money parked there in that account. But let's say the other side of this is, okay, I don't want to open an IRA, even if I do designate that as my 401K rollover pot for the rest of my career.
I would rather just take my 401k from my previous employer and roll it over to this new 401k at Fidelity. You can absolutely do that too. That takes a couple of cons out of the equation. It means that you won't have to keep track of that 401k rollover IRA that you would open. It just sort of gives you something to build on through your 401k at your new company.
Those are a couple of pros, but for me, it's really which option is going to work better for you. The simplest, which means like, I can just do one thing and kind of get this ticked off and I know that I'm not losing or keep losing track of the money that I have.
is just to go ahead and roll that 401k, tell TIAA, here's where you can send my money, they'll roll it directly into your new employer provided 401k and you can keep it moving. You can keep doing that for the next job and the next job and the next job and you have this snowball of 401k balances that you're moving over.
But it can't hurt to take a couple of extra steps to say, okay, long term, maybe I should have my individual brokerage where I can roll these accounts over into and I can control what types of investing options I have. There's no bad answer here. There's just slight differences. And at the end of the day, it's up to you and what
you're willing to do, how much work you're willing to put in and how much effort. And it's, yeah, it's up to you. But that's a great question, Regina. And thank you so much for sending that. Again, you can hit us up Brown Ambition Podcast at gmod.com or send us a DM at Brown Ambition Podcast on Instagram. If you want to have your question featured on the show. Until next time, bye.
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