January 4, 2022 • 11 mins
Sahirenys returns for another Ask Me Anything segment.
She answers questions we received from our money moves audience: how to set up a retirement fund if you dont have access to a 401k, emergency fund, the value of a 529 plan for your children, the optimal way to use your credit card, and the best ways to pay off credit card debt.
Sahirenys is the content creator behind Poised's financial literacy and lifestyle blog. She is also the creator of the High-5 Banking Method that was featured in Forbes. Using the high 5 banking method, she paid off over $99,000 of debt within 5 Years. In addition, you may have seen her fun and informative tips on the bank Greenwood social media page, where she is answering all your Financial questions.
Make sure to keep asking your questions on our social media pages.
Host: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @poisedfinancelifestyle
Guest Website: The Poised Lifestyle
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, Money Movers to the Money Moves Podcast powered
by Greenwood. We are joined once again with the founder
of Poise, Syrenise Pierce. As promised, she's here to join
us for and Ask Me Anything segment. So I hope
(00:22):
we have some incredible questions from you our Money Moves audience.
Money Movers, please welcome back Syreenise Pierce. Hi, Hey, how
are you today? Doing good? Thank you great? Well, I'm
excited to have you back today because this is one
of my favorite segments. It's our ask Me Anything segment
where we've had viewers that come in and ask questions
(00:44):
through social media on the Money Moves Podcast in the comments.
So if you're listening now, make sure you send in
your questions drop them in the comments, um, so that
we can get all your financial questions and queries answered.
So our first question, Syrenise, is how do I retire
if I do not have a four oh one k is?
(01:06):
This is this is very common. Actually a lot of
Americans in the privacy do not have access to four
o one case, especially now in the startup industry. You know,
hearing a lot of people jumping into tech and not
realizing that a lot of companies are starting off with
a four one K that's gonna happen over time because
it's very expensive to maintain or to even do so.
(01:27):
One of the best ways that we can keep control
of our finances and our retirement is to open up
an individual retirement account a k A and I r A.
And one thing that a lot of people are not
realizing or don't have access to knowing, is that there's
something called a rock I RARA and this is going
to allow us to build up our nest egg as
a tax free retirement system for us. And what a
(01:50):
lot of people are also not realizing that it's a
little different than the traditional IRA, is that you're not
going to get a tax deduction. Now you're actually gonna
skip the tax of action, pay full tax on all
of your income, like if you kick your regular paycheck,
put your money into your ROTH I r ray, invest
the money and then allow your money to compound, UH
to grow, compound growth, and being able to be pool
(02:14):
tax free during retirement. This is a huge opportunity, especially
for a minority community. A lot of the young folks
as well, who have so much time in the industry
and so much time to work and you know, let
their money grow for them and let them money really start,
you know, helping them retire with less money. Because that's
something that a lot of people don't see either, that
(02:34):
you don't need to have started investing so much money.
So I feel like a lot of people think that
that's something they should do in their fifty or sixty.
Is this something our audience should start thinking about in
their twenties. Absolutely, But the first thing you should do
before you start investing in your retirement account is making
sure that you have a budget and an emergency fund.
(02:55):
I think it's really important to realize that your retirement
should not be your first um emergency fund. You know,
it's not there for emergencies. Is there to help you retire.
And if we keep pulling from our emergency, I mean,
our our retirement during emergency situations, we're not going to
have any being left when we get to retirement age.
All right, okay, Syreny. So we've got another question for
(03:18):
you on or Ask Me Anything segment here on Money Moves.
Our next question is how do I help my kids
avoid college debt? Is that even possible nowadays? It is
one of the best ways to help your kids avoid
going to college debt is by opening up opening up
a five twenty nine plan, which is considered like a
college savings plan plan yes by nine plans sponsored by
(03:45):
every state. Every state has their own five twenty nine plan,
but it's realistically an investment account that is laid out
for you to be able to pick a few investments
that are already pre pre chosen for you, kind of
like index funds, target date funds, or or even bonds
as well, depending on the age range of your child,
which makes it very easy and consumer friendly for anyone
(04:06):
who doesn't know anything about investing. Also, there most of
them are low fees, which is very beneficial as well.
And if you start as soon as they are born,
you're gonna be able to grow that into a big
enough large pot so that they can pull from this
money to pay for college tuition, books, computers, you know,
all the things that kids are gonna need. Absolutely, they
(04:28):
need all that stuff now. And it's funny. We had
a previous guest on here on the Money News podcast
that also talked about it. There's so many incredible grant
programs and scholarship relief programs, so sometimes it's about doing
the research in addition to UM saving and being proactive
about it, because there are a lot of especially for
(04:48):
minorities and people in our community. So sometimes you just
got it and that could be a second job in
addition to going to school. But there's a lot of
programs out there as well. Absolutely, and if your kid
decides to switch UM to not do college, you can
also switch that by twenty nine plan to your other
children or even to other family members as well. So
(05:09):
there's options out there even if they have scholarships. So
it's very beneficial. Okay, great question. This is one that
I think comes up a lot for a lot of folks.
They wondered, how do I use my credit card and
not ignore credit card utilization? What is that and how
does it affect your credit? So one of the biggest
(05:29):
tips that I learned about using credit cards was to
use your credit card like a debit card. That's one
of the the that's the only thing that I learned from
my econ class in high school. A just stuck with me.
But one thing you do have to be aware of
is credit utilization. They always recommend to use less than
thirty percent of your total amount of your credit card.
But I actually recommend to do it less like ten
(05:52):
to and that means that you can't put everything on
your credit card sometimes to be a little more strategic
and a little more purposeful with what type of transactions
are going to go on that specific credit card to
make sure that you are not going overboard. So I
think that's really important, especially for young people that don't
have large balances, like college credit cards. They don't have
(06:12):
large balances. I know that from personal experience, but you
know that just keeps you more aware of Okay, I'm
gonna use this credit card to buy gas. Gas is
not too crazy because I'm only driving from you know,
my apartment down the streets to school. And just finding
different ways of how to utilize your credit card is
actually gonna help you stay out of debt but also
create credit as as well. Okay, a follow on question
(06:35):
to that doesn't make sense, then to have more than
one credit card if you use them optimally in the
way that you just described, you can definitely have more
than one credit card when you're first starting out. Though,
if you are deep credit card debt, slow it down
and take it back, get back to the basics. Yeah,
(06:56):
roll it back. See how much you're actually gonna be
spending on credit card and utilize that. One thing that
I do is I have one credit card that specifically
for groceries, I get special perks. Every time I buy groceries,
I gets six percent cash back. And for me and
my family, you know, especially during the pandemic um, that's
been very beneficial for us. That's a good cash return,
(07:18):
that is a good cash back. So and we're a
family off so that's very realistic for us. So you know,
just utilizing the credit cards and seeing what perks match
what you're actually gonna be using it for is a
good step and making sure that you're utilizing them correctly. Alright, Syrens,
I've got another great question that came in from one
of our Money Moves viewers. How do I build credit
(07:39):
if you're a college student. What is the best method
to pay off credit card debt? Snowball method or something else, Syrens,
I don't even know what the snowball method is. So
the best way to start building credit when you're a
college student is either by getting a secure credit card
which works kind of like a debit card realistic, or
a gift card you can ownly spend what you put
(08:01):
on there. So if you put five dollars on that card,
you can you can spend five hundred, you can't go
over it. So it really helps you start building up
the little skill sets that you need in order to
start using your credit card like a debit card. Another
option is using a student credit card. Most banks offer this.
This is a great way, especially if you don't already
have existing credit, which you know, when you're a college student,
(08:22):
you probably don't have any credit and you need someone
to kind of like give you trust to allow you
to use that. So that's an option that I personally
use and I really recommend. And again just making sure
that you're putting it just for like you know, gas,
something small, something realistic. But if you already have a
credit card and you've gotten into some credit card debt
(08:42):
and you want to get out of it, you really
do want to start categorizing, um, looking at your debt,
all of your debt, because it might you might have
several credit card debt, you know. That's so you need
to really start organizing that. And with the snowball method
is actually the most popular way to pay off debt
because it's the most motivate eight. You're actually paying off
the smallest det that you owe first, and once you
(09:04):
finish paying off that smallest that, you work on paying
off the next smallest day and the next smallest day,
which is a really easy way to start paying off
debt because you're knocking off things that are reasonable for real.
The hundred dollars, Yeah, it feels good, like I could
pay off that hundred dollar credit card. I could do this,
It's okay. And then when you see the next credit
card that owes two hundred dollars, you're like, Okay, now
I have a hundred dollars that I knew I could pay.
(09:26):
I just have to work a little hard and work
my budget so I can pay that off. And in
two months I'll be dune paying that one off. So
you're like, you're building up this small snowball and it
might feel small in the beginning, but it can get
really big at the end of the day. Yeah. Absolutely,
And you know that's one of the things, especially for
college students, it's so enticing, right, and you just can't
get sucked in when you go to Victoria's Secrets, like
would you like a credit card? Then you go to Macy's,
(09:47):
would you like a credit card, and so you see
how they sort of stack up. Um, do you recommend
saying no to those different store credit cards and just
stick with some main banking credit cards for the average student?
I think in the beginning, that's definitely gonna be a
good option, especially when you're not sure what you're spending
habits are. You know, in the beginning, you're kind of
(10:09):
just going for everything like, oh, I'm interested here, I'm
interesting there. You know, I want to do this, I
want to do that, And a lot of times just
getting card, a credit card that offers you like cash
back might be a better option for you, especially if
you don't feel like you're a good saver. You know,
like I said, with the cash back of the six
percent for groceries, I can now use that money for Christmas,
So I don't want to really really safe for Christmas.
(10:29):
It makes my life a little bit easier. So we
need to continuously look at the pros and cons of
every single credit card that we're looking at, and how's
this gonna benefit you with the spending triggers that you have.
So if you're obsessed with Victoria's secret, maybe you want
to pause on the Victoria's secret credit card, good advice.
Say thank you so much. You are a wealth of information.
(10:50):
Can you remind everyone where they can find you on
social media? Of course you can find me on Instagram,
Poise Finance Lifestyle, on YouTube Poise Finance Lifestyle, and my
blog The Poise Lifestyle. And of course I am doing
segment with Greenwood Ask Me Anything about money. I love
it all right, Money Movers. That's all the time we
have for today, but make sure to follow Cyrenees on
(11:12):
all of her social media handles and thank you for
being part of our ask Me Anything segment. Thanks again,
Thank you. Make sure you tune into Money Moves Monday
through Friday and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered
by Greenwe so that you too can have the keys
to the financial freedom you so rightly deserve. Thank you
so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you
(11:32):
want more or a recap of this episode, please go
to the Bank Greenwood dot com and check out the
Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I heart
radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcast on I heart radio, visit the i
(11:52):
heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from.
Welcome back, Money Movers to the Money Moves Podcast powered
by Greenwood. We are joined once again with the founder
of Poise, Syrenise Pierce. As promised, she's here to join
us for and Ask Me Anything segment. So I hope
(00:22):
we have some incredible questions from you our Money Moves audience.
Money Movers, please welcome back Syreenise Pierce. Hi, Hey, how
are you today? Doing good? Thank you great? Well, I'm
excited to have you back today because this is one
of my favorite segments. It's our ask Me Anything segment
where we've had viewers that come in and ask questions
(00:44):
through social media on the Money Moves Podcast in the comments.
So if you're listening now, make sure you send in
your questions drop them in the comments, um, so that
we can get all your financial questions and queries answered.
So our first question, Syrenise, is how do I retire
if I do not have a four oh one k is?
(01:06):
This is this is very common. Actually a lot of
Americans in the privacy do not have access to four
o one case, especially now in the startup industry. You know,
hearing a lot of people jumping into tech and not
realizing that a lot of companies are starting off with
a four one K that's gonna happen over time because
it's very expensive to maintain or to even do so.
(01:27):
One of the best ways that we can keep control
of our finances and our retirement is to open up
an individual retirement account a k A and I r A.
And one thing that a lot of people are not
realizing or don't have access to knowing, is that there's
something called a rock I RARA and this is going
to allow us to build up our nest egg as
a tax free retirement system for us. And what a
(01:50):
lot of people are also not realizing that it's a
little different than the traditional IRA, is that you're not
going to get a tax deduction. Now you're actually gonna
skip the tax of action, pay full tax on all
of your income, like if you kick your regular paycheck,
put your money into your ROTH I r ray, invest
the money and then allow your money to compound, UH
to grow, compound growth, and being able to be pool
(02:14):
tax free during retirement. This is a huge opportunity, especially
for a minority community. A lot of the young folks
as well, who have so much time in the industry
and so much time to work and you know, let
their money grow for them and let them money really start,
you know, helping them retire with less money. Because that's
something that a lot of people don't see either, that
(02:34):
you don't need to have started investing so much money.
So I feel like a lot of people think that
that's something they should do in their fifty or sixty.
Is this something our audience should start thinking about in
their twenties. Absolutely, But the first thing you should do
before you start investing in your retirement account is making
sure that you have a budget and an emergency fund.
(02:55):
I think it's really important to realize that your retirement
should not be your first um emergency fund. You know,
it's not there for emergencies. Is there to help you retire.
And if we keep pulling from our emergency, I mean,
our our retirement during emergency situations, we're not going to
have any being left when we get to retirement age.
All right, okay, Syreny. So we've got another question for
(03:18):
you on or Ask Me Anything segment here on Money Moves.
Our next question is how do I help my kids
avoid college debt? Is that even possible nowadays? It is
one of the best ways to help your kids avoid
going to college debt is by opening up opening up
a five twenty nine plan, which is considered like a
college savings plan plan yes by nine plans sponsored by
(03:45):
every state. Every state has their own five twenty nine plan,
but it's realistically an investment account that is laid out
for you to be able to pick a few investments
that are already pre pre chosen for you, kind of
like index funds, target date funds, or or even bonds
as well, depending on the age range of your child,
which makes it very easy and consumer friendly for anyone
(04:06):
who doesn't know anything about investing. Also, there most of
them are low fees, which is very beneficial as well.
And if you start as soon as they are born,
you're gonna be able to grow that into a big
enough large pot so that they can pull from this
money to pay for college tuition, books, computers, you know,
all the things that kids are gonna need. Absolutely, they
(04:28):
need all that stuff now. And it's funny. We had
a previous guest on here on the Money News podcast
that also talked about it. There's so many incredible grant
programs and scholarship relief programs, so sometimes it's about doing
the research in addition to UM saving and being proactive
about it, because there are a lot of especially for
(04:48):
minorities and people in our community. So sometimes you just
got it and that could be a second job in
addition to going to school. But there's a lot of
programs out there as well. Absolutely, and if your kid
decides to switch UM to not do college, you can
also switch that by twenty nine plan to your other
children or even to other family members as well. So
(05:09):
there's options out there even if they have scholarships. So
it's very beneficial. Okay, great question. This is one that
I think comes up a lot for a lot of folks.
They wondered, how do I use my credit card and
not ignore credit card utilization? What is that and how
does it affect your credit? So one of the biggest
(05:29):
tips that I learned about using credit cards was to
use your credit card like a debit card. That's one
of the the that's the only thing that I learned from
my econ class in high school. A just stuck with me.
But one thing you do have to be aware of
is credit utilization. They always recommend to use less than
thirty percent of your total amount of your credit card.
But I actually recommend to do it less like ten
(05:52):
to and that means that you can't put everything on
your credit card sometimes to be a little more strategic
and a little more purposeful with what type of transactions
are going to go on that specific credit card to
make sure that you are not going overboard. So I
think that's really important, especially for young people that don't
have large balances, like college credit cards. They don't have
(06:12):
large balances. I know that from personal experience, but you
know that just keeps you more aware of Okay, I'm
gonna use this credit card to buy gas. Gas is
not too crazy because I'm only driving from you know,
my apartment down the streets to school. And just finding
different ways of how to utilize your credit card is
actually gonna help you stay out of debt but also
create credit as as well. Okay, a follow on question
(06:35):
to that doesn't make sense, then to have more than
one credit card if you use them optimally in the
way that you just described, you can definitely have more
than one credit card when you're first starting out. Though,
if you are deep credit card debt, slow it down
and take it back, get back to the basics. Yeah,
(06:56):
roll it back. See how much you're actually gonna be
spending on credit card and utilize that. One thing that
I do is I have one credit card that specifically
for groceries, I get special perks. Every time I buy groceries,
I gets six percent cash back. And for me and
my family, you know, especially during the pandemic um, that's
been very beneficial for us. That's a good cash return,
(07:18):
that is a good cash back. So and we're a
family off so that's very realistic for us. So you know,
just utilizing the credit cards and seeing what perks match
what you're actually gonna be using it for is a
good step and making sure that you're utilizing them correctly. Alright, Syrens,
I've got another great question that came in from one
of our Money Moves viewers. How do I build credit
(07:39):
if you're a college student. What is the best method
to pay off credit card debt? Snowball method or something else, Syrens,
I don't even know what the snowball method is. So
the best way to start building credit when you're a
college student is either by getting a secure credit card
which works kind of like a debit card realistic, or
a gift card you can ownly spend what you put
(08:01):
on there. So if you put five dollars on that card,
you can you can spend five hundred, you can't go
over it. So it really helps you start building up
the little skill sets that you need in order to
start using your credit card like a debit card. Another
option is using a student credit card. Most banks offer this.
This is a great way, especially if you don't already
have existing credit, which you know, when you're a college student,
(08:22):
you probably don't have any credit and you need someone
to kind of like give you trust to allow you
to use that. So that's an option that I personally
use and I really recommend. And again just making sure
that you're putting it just for like you know, gas,
something small, something realistic. But if you already have a
credit card and you've gotten into some credit card debt
(08:42):
and you want to get out of it, you really
do want to start categorizing, um, looking at your debt,
all of your debt, because it might you might have
several credit card debt, you know. That's so you need
to really start organizing that. And with the snowball method
is actually the most popular way to pay off debt
because it's the most motivate eight. You're actually paying off
the smallest det that you owe first, and once you
(09:04):
finish paying off that smallest that, you work on paying
off the next smallest day and the next smallest day,
which is a really easy way to start paying off
debt because you're knocking off things that are reasonable for real.
The hundred dollars, Yeah, it feels good, like I could
pay off that hundred dollar credit card. I could do this,
It's okay. And then when you see the next credit
card that owes two hundred dollars, you're like, Okay, now
I have a hundred dollars that I knew I could pay.
(09:26):
I just have to work a little hard and work
my budget so I can pay that off. And in
two months I'll be dune paying that one off. So
you're like, you're building up this small snowball and it
might feel small in the beginning, but it can get
really big at the end of the day. Yeah. Absolutely,
And you know that's one of the things, especially for
college students, it's so enticing, right, and you just can't
get sucked in when you go to Victoria's Secrets, like
would you like a credit card? Then you go to Macy's,
(09:47):
would you like a credit card, and so you see
how they sort of stack up. Um, do you recommend
saying no to those different store credit cards and just
stick with some main banking credit cards for the average student?
I think in the beginning, that's definitely gonna be a
good option, especially when you're not sure what you're spending
habits are. You know, in the beginning, you're kind of
(10:09):
just going for everything like, oh, I'm interested here, I'm
interesting there. You know, I want to do this, I
want to do that, And a lot of times just
getting card, a credit card that offers you like cash
back might be a better option for you, especially if
you don't feel like you're a good saver. You know,
like I said, with the cash back of the six
percent for groceries, I can now use that money for Christmas,
So I don't want to really really safe for Christmas.
(10:29):
It makes my life a little bit easier. So we
need to continuously look at the pros and cons of
every single credit card that we're looking at, and how's
this gonna benefit you with the spending triggers that you have.
So if you're obsessed with Victoria's secret, maybe you want
to pause on the Victoria's secret credit card, good advice.
Say thank you so much. You are a wealth of information.
(10:50):
Can you remind everyone where they can find you on
social media? Of course you can find me on Instagram,
Poise Finance Lifestyle, on YouTube Poise Finance Lifestyle, and my
blog The Poise Lifestyle. And of course I am doing
segment with Greenwood Ask Me Anything about money. I love
it all right, Money Movers. That's all the time we
have for today, but make sure to follow Cyrenees on
(11:12):
all of her social media handles and thank you for
being part of our ask Me Anything segment. Thanks again,
Thank you. Make sure you tune into Money Moves Monday
through Friday and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered
by Greenwe so that you too can have the keys
to the financial freedom you so rightly deserve. Thank you
so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you
(11:32):
want more or a recap of this episode, please go
to the Bank Greenwood dot com and check out the
Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I heart
radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcast on I heart radio, visit the i
(11:52):
heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from.
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