Let's Talk Money

Tiffany talks about home title fraud, a fast-growing cybercrime that has gained a lot of traction in recent years.  Listen up to see what it is and how to protect yourself!

Links
www.moneytalkwitht.com

To pull your FREE credit reports, follow these steps: https://www.moneytalkwitht.com/blog/credit-part-1

Connect with Tiffany on Social Media

Facebook: Money Talk With Tiff
Twitter: @moneytalkwitht
Instagram: @moneytalkwitht
LinkedIn: Tiffany Grant
YouTube: Money Talk With Tiff Channel
Pinterest: Money Talk With Tiff

Definition
Market Capitalization or "Market Cap" is the value the market puts on a publicly-traded company. You can find market cap by multiplying the total shares outstanding by the purchase price.

Why It's Important
Market Cap is used to value and gauge the public opinion of a company. Amazon's market cap is currently about $856 billion (as of 10/11/19). That's huge! Their stock price is $1,731.92. You would think that the higher the stock price, the higher the market cap, but that is not always the case.

In comparison, Apple's market cap is $1 trillion, but its stock price is $236.21 (as of 10/11/19). This information tells me that Apple has more stocks outstanding than Amazon. Keep in mind that the market determines the market price, and every share a company sells is some ownership of the company. When you are researching what stocks to invest in, be sure to take a look at their market cap as part of your valuation.

When I bought my 2016 Honda CRV fresh off the lot (learn about her demise here), I didn't really understand car warranties. The salesperson was pushing it down my throat, and that should have been red flag number one! My grandfather advised me against purchasing it, so that should have been red flag number two. But, of course, I was hard-headed and bought it anyway. So, here is what I learned:

New Cars Already Have a Warranty
Most modern cars come with a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty on the powertrain that applies only to the original purchaser. In my case, I was the first owner, so I didn't really need an extended warranty. After 10 years, the value of the car would be so low, a warranty would be frivolous at that point. Why didn't I think about this earlier? I was clouded by the excitement of buying my very first new car that all common sense went out the window. I let the salesperson talk me into it because he mentioned all of the bells and whistles the car had and how the...

Tiffany answers a listener's question about student loan payback if the school that they attended closes.  While on the topic, she also covers other ways your student loans can be discharged or forgiven.  
This is a listener request episode.  If you want to have your question featured, please submit on our website.

Definition

A mortgage-backed security is a security backed by a collection of mortgages held by an organization.

Why It's Important
Mortgage-backed securities are a pretty complex topic to understand, so let me give an analogy.  Let's pretend one of the organizations (Ginnie Mae) goes grocery shopping.  In the grocery store are hundreds of thousands of mortgages on the shelf.  My mortgage is somewhere on those shelves, as is yours.  Ginnie Mae goes down the aisles and groups the mortgages in their cart based on creditworthiness and chances of getting their money back.  The ones with the highest rate of default are called sub-prime mortgages.  When they check out at the register, they put hundreds if not thousands in each bag and then resell the bags to investors.  The best mortgages have a lower return because they are not as risky.  The subprime mortgage bags have a higher return because they are the riskiest.  As I pay on my mortgage,...

Join Tiffany as she dives into homelessness and thinking of personal finance as a team sport with Rahkim Sabree!  Rahkim talks about financial empowerment, discipline, FOMO, and how to utilize your circle to get better results.

About Our Guest
Rahkim Sabree is a millennial author, speaker, personal finance expert, and co-founder of the not-for-profit An Extended Hand, Inc. which focuses primarily on empowering and educating those who are at risk of or currently impacted by homelessness.

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/finance_fridays

Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unlimitedinvestmentinquiries

Like him on Facebook: https://facebook.com/unlimitedinvestmentsolutions

Links
Rahkim's website: https://www.rahkimsabree.com

Sponsor
Decluttr specializes in buying your used CDs, DVDs, Blurays and Games to help you make room and money! With Decluttr you can enter your items barcodes into our valuation engine and we'll give you...

Definition

Target date funds are mutual funds that change allocation automatically based on your target (goal) date

Why It’s Important

Target date funds are a great option for those that do not want to be involved with picking different mutual funds, stocks, and bonds to get the allocation appropriate for their situation.  Think of funds as big baskets. In those baskets, there are other little baskets of stocks. So, you become diversified by holding just one target-date fund. They also typically have low expense ratios.

You may be saying well this seems like a no-brainer. Why doesn’t everyone just pick target-date funds and invest?  Well, not so fast! Target date funds assume that every one that is going to retire in a certain year have the same situation.  What if you have a different situation than the average? That doesn’t make a difference to the fund managers that are making the determination on what to invest in.  I started with target-date...

*This article contains affiliate links.  I will be compensated for any purchase using the links below.*

This week has been difficult for many reasons but the one that stands out is death.  My boyfriend lost his sister to cancer this week and it made me realize that life is too short.  I have not been taking my health seriously and since I have a family history of several ailments, I need to get serious!  Diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, and anxiety/depression runs in my family.  For years, I have wanted to lose weight BUT never really took it seriously.  I was like YOLO (you only live once) let me go ahead and eat what I want.  That has to stop.  

One of my biggest issues is sweets.  My grandma has had diabetes for decades and she always tells me "Tiffany, you need to slow down on the sweets before you end up like me".  Now, whether or not that is really the case (I am not sure what studies show), she...

This topic was requested in my Facebook group (you can join here).  People wanted to know if a balance transfer was worth it.  If you read my blog, you know I am not a huge fan of credit cards, but they could be a useful tool on your financial journey.  I will attempt to breakdown some of the pros and cons of doing a balance transfer.

What is it?
A balance transfer is when you take a high-interest credit card balance and transfer it to a lower interest rate card.  Most of the time, you will be able to find a 0% interest rate special to transfer the balance, but we'll talk more about that later.  It could be a beneficial strategy for those that have a lot of credit card debt.  Let's dive into the Pros!

Pros
Low or no interest for a set amount of time 
Interest is what makes it so hard to dig out of credit card debt, especially when the national average rate is 12.77%.  I have seen cards with interest rates at almost 30%!  Balance transfers...

Recorded live at FinCon 2019, Tiffany and Eugenie talk ancestry and how that plays a pivotal role in your finances.  Trauma from previous generations can carry through to the current and future generations.  Being aware of the trauma is your first defense against carrying it on.  Listen as we dig deep!

About Our Guest
Eugenie George, MBA, CFEI, is a financial educator, author, founder and host of Money and Flow, a podcast to help with listeners with finance questions. She is also a keynote speaker on equity and Millennial money engagement in the workplace. As a former teacher, she brings excitement to the stage with engaging stories and data that can help multigenerational bridge together the Millennial gap.

Eugenie (u-jin-nay) uses her 10+ plus years’ experience in tech, education, and finance to lead high-achieving women and women of color to understand their money habits. Eugenie uses non-traditional ways of understanding business and personal goals because no...