Track 4: Money Talks (Financial Literacy in a Clout Chasing Generation)

"Got a little plan to get the bread and boss up..." -Boogie, "Came Up"

W I S D O M (click the link to get some knowledge kicked to ya)

Now y'all, I want to put a disclaimer that I haven't finished watching the video I linked above, so if he says anything problematic past what I viewed, then it will be removed immediately, and I apologize. HOWEVER, thus far all I've heard is FACTS. 

Baby, so let's do a breakdown of currency and its importance to your well-being. For one thing, I know we don't like the idea that people with large amounts of money have an ungodly number of advantages over piss poor people. And this isn't even getting into third-world poverty. I'm talking the difference some bands can make just here in America. I don't think we even realize that. To begin, for any of the people that read and follow my blogging journey, I appreciate you tremendously. I also realize I may have readers that are from all walks of life, so I'm going to start making this a little more diverse and not just speaking to the people that are in my age range and basically at my stage of life. That being said, since we're discussing financial literacy, I will link later on in this entry jobs that require licenses or certifications and no college degree. (Oh yeah and that give you a livable wage. Imagine that.)

For starters, most of my peer group is either in their first semester, second semester, or second year of college. I'm sure practically all of us get a student refund from taking out loans that we will be paying off until we're ninety-three or dead. (Unless of course you have a full ride, then this doesn't apply to you. OR if you do another thing that's actually very smart and don't actually spend your refund and instead use it for school.)  How many times have we just completely blown that student refund? I mean we get the money in our hands and forget what it was like the week before deciding if we're going to pay our phone bill or put gas in the car. I mean, come on, we've all done it. I get it. "Life is short." No, not really. It isn't. In the words of Chris Rock, "Life is not short. You will probably not get hit by a bus, and you will have to live with your decisions for the next forty years." I'm paraphrasing, but that's one of the absolute most memorable lines from "I Think I Love My Wife." He's right. We have to STOP excusing our poor money management and financial illiteracy.

***

After beginning this entry, I sat on it for a couple of weeks because my schedule and attention span just wasn't allowing it to be written, but I want to go ahead and get this out now because I actually advised a friend on some things dealing with money the other night. Most of it came from my own mistakes and things that were not explained to me, so I wanted to make sure I was able to pass the information along to someone else.

Credit
Credit is not half as complicated as it's made out to be. It's basically comprised of three major factors: credit utilization (how much credit you have compared to how much of it you've used. Let's say you have a credit card with a $500 limit. You want to utilize only $100 or less of that limit at one time.), credit inquiries (applying for loans or cards), and your average age of credit (how long in total your accounts have been open). That's it in a nutshell. Having credit cards isn't harmful. Having ten credit cards and maxing them all out, however, is.

When you apply for loans for say a car, they're going to be looking at all these factors in addition to your income. Your income has to be able to support paying the loan back. Everyone needs to have a job and a Credit Karma account. Periodt. I don't care if you're working at McDonald's. If you play your cards right, you can STILL have a good time and manage to flood your savings account, which leads me to my NEXT point.......

BUDGETING (50, 30, 20 RULE)
Whether you're getting paid weekly or biweekly, you know about how much you're bringing in every month. I know it varies, especially when working hourly jobs. I doubt any of us are on a set salary yet, BUT if you know your work habits (Ask yourself, "Do I always volunteer to leave early?" "Do I accept extra shifts when they're offered?" "How many days per week am I usually scheduled?"), you will know how much you'll have to play around with. Let's start with a weekly budget.

Let's say every week you make about $218. In a month, you make $872. Let's say you live at home and aren't required to pay any bills. All you're responsible for is putting gas in your car and paying your phone bill. Cool. Some of you are weirdos that rent your phones, so I'll do a budget appropriate for you all.

Phone Bill: $120/monthly   Gas: $35/weekly. 

In total, your bills for the month add up to $260. Okay. That means if you saved half of each check to put toward your bills, it would only require two weeks worth of HALF your check and a small portion of the third week's check. Boom. Your bill money is utilized and/or placed away. You don't have to worry about your phone going off. Your car is gassed. There should be a good bit of money in your savings account, AND you can still have some fun in moderation, which leads me to my NEXT point.....




Make Sure The People Around You Have Similar Financial Goals
I'm a huge advocate for people living their lives the way they want to as long as it is not harmful to themselves and others, HOWEVER, you can't really expect to fight off the urge to withdraw all the money from your savings account if every weekend you're making plans with people that don't exactly want to Netflix and chill, mmk? If you're hanging out with people that you know are going to want to smoke, you've got to put in. They want to go to a movie? Everybody's gotta buy their own ticket. They want to go to the club? There's an entry fee......and none of those things are painful on the wallet individually, but together they add up.


QUIT IMPRESSING PEOPLE THAT ARE BROKE
I shook hands with one of the richest men in Louisiana a few months ago. Lived in a mansion. Beautiful lawn. Was riding around his property on a damn golf cart. You know what he had on? A raggedy t-shirt and some Levi's. THRIFT SHOPS EXIST FOR A REASON. THERE ARE GOOD SALES IN STORES REGULARLY. MOST OF THE SHIT IN YOUR CLOSET PROBABLY JUST NEEDS NEW ACCESSORIES TO GO WITH IT. Also stop RENTING your phones. That's so stupid. Flexing for the Gram is cute now, but when you want to retire in your forties, I imagine looking back on those pictures won't reimburse that check you ran up back in the day. Be yourself. If yourself isn't good enough, then work on that. No material thing will make you a better person.

YOUR FANTASY SELF IS SUCKING YOU DRY. 

Is Your Fantasy Self Toxic?

I linked the video that put this notion into perspective for me, and it's been really helpful. I have a lot of anxiety and hang-ups on a lot of things. Um, I have a habit of thinking my best self is in the past or the future and not realizing my best self is in the present because I'm the one that can actively decide to be better than what I once was so that tomorrow I can continue that trend. I love you, bees. Also, be sure to check out my mixtape! I released the first half on SoundCloud. I didn't really know how SoundCloud worked, so I didn't upload the tracks in the correct listening order, but I'd love if you listen to it. If it sucks, let me know in my email. It'll be linked on my Other Writings page since I wrote everything on it. Other than that, I don't have anything else going on. I will try my best to be more active with this blog because I'm not quite ready to let it go. I feel like this is still a really important platform for me, and I don't want to abuse it.

---Dree

Oh yeah, here are those jobs I mentioned.

Track 3: Thank You, But No

"Used to fuck with Young Thug. I ain't addressin' the shit. Caught him in my dressing room stealing dresses and shit..." -Barbie Dreams, Nicki Minaj

Dear Men in the Supermarket,

When I make eye contact with you, please look away. It's so awkward to be in the presence of a stranger that won't stop looking at me. It's not like I consider it harassment. I'm not trying to label you a pervert because you think I'm pretty. I'm uncomfortable being stared at in general by anyone, even people close to me, so imagine how I feel with you making a beeline for my irises.

Don't walk up to me on the other aisle and try to strike up conversation. My headphones are in for a reason. I am anxious. I hate shopping alone. Don't make this any weirder for me than my anxiety already does. I'm not interested. I don't want to talk. We don't like the same Powerade flavors; I'm purchasing these for someone else. Please go away. Please take your entourage with you. Please tell them to stop staring too. It's all so weird and uncomfortable.

And you, the reader, don't you dare try to blame my tank top and jeans for the reason I'm being approached. Don't you even dare. This happens all the time. It doesn't matter if I'm wearing a wig or my curly puff. It doesn't matter if my headphones are in. It doesn't matter if my stomach is showing or not. They come. They say weird things that are supposed to be flattering. They pretend they know I'm so in tune with love and nature because I'm reading.

The problem is not that they approach.....in a sense. It's how, usually. Sometimes it's a quick compliment. Those are my favorite. It's still awkward, but maybe if my day gets worse, I can think of it and smile. The quick compliments are rare. Usually it's a pull for a conversation neither of us have because we have nothing in common. Nothing. You'd know that if you knew me, but you don't know me.

I'm a woman, and you're a man. We're in the same building. Obviously I want you to flirt with me. Obviously I want you to be pushy when I'm clearly uninterested. Obviously I want you to keep making me uncomfortable because I'm a woman, and you're a man, and we're in the same building, and life is like those movies where two people can know absolutely nothing about each other, but with the man's persistence, somehow it'll work.

It's not like I'm stuck-up. I don't want you to pay my bills or get my hair done. I don't want you to be six feet tall because realistically, that would make you over a foot taller than me. I don't want you to have a new car because I get rides to/from my destinations. It's none of that. I'm just not interested. Later down the line, when I say I want a man, I am not obligated to feel bad because I rejected you.

That's like telling an AIDS patient they should've chosen herpes. It's all terminal, love.

Track 2: This Is a Diss

"'Cause you's a fuckboy, fuckboy. My mama even said it. Got a new nigga, I ain't even gotta sweat it." -Fuckboy, Trina

I've been living in Louisiana for almost four months. In the time that I have been here, I have learned one thing for certain: Southern men have to be the most fucking problematic out of all of the rest in the United States, and that's saying something.

There's a community here called "Four Corners." Today a young woman was murdered by her boyfriend while being three months pregnant (and then he committed suicide). This is the second time within the past month or so something like this has happened and the casualty and excuses in which people speak about it are...disturbing to say the least.



Still, I haven't spoken my piece on it because what is the point? With older people, especially older males, their minds are already made up because they were somehow (fortunate? lucky? "smart"?) enough to make it this far in life, they must have all the answers. I couldn't be more over it if I catapulted myself 100 miles away at a velocity of 2,000 mph. Their conversation on this was, naturally, wondering what would spark such an awful and tragic incident. After the deliberation? "He probably found out the kid wasn't his."



Even. If. That. Was. The. Fucking. Case. And. He. Suspected. He. Wasn't. The. Father. How. The. Fuck. Would. He. Know. If. She. Was. Still. Pregnant?

Original Publication Date: July 17, 2018 5:12 PM

Edit: December 04, 2024 At the time I wrote this, I was not aware of noninvasive paternity tests. This means that a paternity test can in fact be done before the birth of the baby in question.

PROBLEMATIC BLACK MEN DO NOT VALUE THE LIVES AND LEGACIES OF BLACK WOMEN WHATSO-FUCKING-EVER.

The longer we continue to tolerate their constant disregard for our safety is the longer we are able to be victimized in our homes, at our jobs, schools. Conversations like that are appalling for me to listen to as a Black woman that will soon be living on her own (more info about that soooooooooooon). It's painful, disgusting, and it honestly makes me wish I'd just go ahead and get more comfortable transitioning into the female side of my bisexuality or at least work my way up to dating outside my race (more on that later as well) (I promise it isn't anything problematic.). Anyway, we need to open a serious discussion about this because I'm highkey tired of the mess. Once I do a little research and find out the name of the woman involved, I will be sure to give a small tribute to her on here.