Atorneys Ursula Woods & Monika Johnson

We're "Asking the Experts" with Attorney Ursula Woods and Attorney Monika Johnson on The Bev Johnson Show on WDIA Radio.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Memphis probably presents the Ben Johnson Show.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let me say Beth.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Me first, let me you say.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
She's gone Memphis.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Okay, No matter of the problem, she can have me.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
So all the phone and the normans on your mind.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
She understand to me ad in the hair by charming
you to just keep them fing where I go.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm picking up Bim Johnson show goes. Got something game happy.

Speaker 6 (00:57):
You can hear every day you d I ain't.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
My bell got me a missed talking?

Speaker 5 (01:48):
Good morning, Good morning, good morning, and welcome in to
w d i A The BB Johnson Show. It is
in deed a pleasure I have with us once again
on this Monday, June twenty third, twenty twenty five. Enjoy

(02:08):
this fabulous day to day wherever you are. If it's hot,
be careful.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Drink some water.

Speaker 6 (02:14):
Check on, folks, it's hot.

Speaker 5 (02:17):
It's summertime officially well as always.

Speaker 6 (02:22):
Get ready put your ears on.

Speaker 5 (02:25):
As we share the good news once again back in
the house from the bankruptcy firm preferred titled an escrow
nine oh one carred dot Com. We'll be talking with
Attorney Ursula Woods. It's an attorney Monika Johnson will be

(02:45):
in to answer all your questions. Yeah, this day when
it's your turn to talk, you know you can. All
you need to do is dial these numbers nine zero, one, five, three, five,
nine three four two nine zero one five three five

(03:06):
nine three four two eight hundred five zero three nine
three four two eight hundred five zero three, nine three
four two eight three three five three five nine three
four two eight three three five three five nine three
four two will get you in to us. And if

(03:32):
this day, this day, Monday, June twenty third, twenty twenty five,
is your birthday. Happy birthday to each and eighth of
one of y'all out there who may be celebrating a
birthday on this day. You know what we say, Go out, y'all,

(03:54):
go out and celebrate your life.

Speaker 6 (03:58):
You better, yeah, you bet it. When we come back,
we'll talk with Attorney.

Speaker 7 (04:06):
Ursula Woods next with me Bev Johnson on the Bev
Johnson Show only on Devil d i A.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Good morning and welcome back to the Heart and Soul
of Memphis w.

Speaker 6 (05:31):
D i A.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
We are asking the experts today. The experts are back.
They out of court.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
They made it.

Speaker 6 (05:37):
They made it. They was in court, they made it.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
Attorney Ursula Woods attorney Monika Johnson is here.

Speaker 6 (05:44):
Good morning, sistars.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Good morning, sisters, Good morning, Good morning y'all.

Speaker 5 (05:51):
So glad, so glad to be here, y'all looking y'all
looking like sunshine.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh wow, we need weekends more often? Yeah, ye do,
don't we.

Speaker 8 (06:01):
You kind of feel what Bernie Sanders is saying right now.
He's talking about a four day work week, so that
you know you have more.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Quality of life.

Speaker 8 (06:11):
Yes, I think I give more when I have that
time to be away and reflect.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Don't you. Yeah, I agree, it's I'm actually so I'm running.
You said that right now? When I'm doing is. I
came off of vacation when we went down the seaside
a couple of weeks ago, and so I realized how
calm I was. So then my goal for the last
two to three weeks has been very conscious about when
does that come, Just leave me what's happening in that moment,

(06:41):
and then I breathe my way back down to a
piece of calm, to a place. This is not the
soap box, but it is very helpful when you do that. Right, So,
even if you're in the face of chaos or somebody
is screaming or yelling or has an issue at work
or something. I breathe through that to remain in a
place to come all right, So you want to know

(07:02):
why why. It's a very vain reason. It's a very
vain reason because I read that your stress hormones closes
out the hair fol it will Okay, do not quote
me on this, but the way that from my understanding
from the post, there's your stress hormones feels your hair follicles.

(07:24):
I cannot think of the name of the chemical, but
then it blocks your hair growth. So that's the reason
why when people are stressed out, women in particular, then
their hair fall out or thins out. So I was like,
let me get my life together. I'm a woman of
a certain age, and so I want to make sure
that I have a healthy hair, and I hair things
as we age anyway, and I was like, let me

(07:45):
get rid of the stress. So that's one of the
reasons why.

Speaker 5 (07:48):
So smart all right, gods, so as we as always,
we're ready for that famous box.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Okay, so bev and Moniqua. Before the show started to
I was trying to figure out should I do one
or two? So we're gonna do two soap boxes. Today,
and it's just so we're gonna have a little fun
to this. So the first one is something that Monique
and I were discussing and I want to bring it up,
and it's about essentially bringing the community together. Now is

(08:19):
the season in which we should be in community, meaning
that you're not just working with arbitrary professionals, you're not
just being friends with everybody and anybody. Now we are
in uncertain times. When you're in uncertain times, you need
certainty within your private and professional life. So we are
building community. So when you're talking about spending your black dollars,

(08:43):
you want to be able to circulate those black dollars
within your community because you want to build up your community.
Attorney Johnson and I have talked about for years. It's
like a micro economy in a way. So you know,
like say, for instance, we're in Memphis, Tennessee, and I
only used fed X. The reason why I use fed

(09:04):
X is because the hub of Federal Express is based
in Memphis and Tennessee, and the employees of fed X
used my services and Monikua services. So in turn, we
create a micro economy by also using fed X. Well,
today I was in my office and someone came in
and their realtor made a mistake. Okay, on the scale

(09:26):
of one to ten, it was a mistake that was
probably like a five, okay, ten being the worst one
being very minimal, it was probably a five. And as
a result of that mistake, instead of the client simply saying, well,
let me call or or allowing me to call to
correct the mistake the clients.

Speaker 8 (09:43):
I think you should say that the mistake did not
cost the person any money, right the mistake.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
That is important to say the cost of the mistake
did not cost any money, and the mistake was fixable.
It was just a matter of meeting her instead of
at one location, you got to meet or now at
another location. And that person responded and said, see, that's
the reason why I don't like doing business with black people, okay.

(10:11):
And the reason why I want to address that is
because you work every day. And this is to my
African Americans. You work every single day, okay, and when
you go to work every single day, it is thirty days,
so you probably will work twenty out of the thirty days.
You cannot tell me that you don't make a mistake.
You sit there with your righteous indignation right as though

(10:35):
no one else can fall short, and as soon as
they do, you want to put a blanket over them
and say, well, I don't want to do business with
them because they're black. Now, for those that are sitting
there right now personally, second, somebody who's sitting there right
now saying, uh, because somebody took me for ten thousand, Okay,
don't call up here talking about some atrocious situation that happened.

(10:59):
I am not saying that bad cannot happen in black businesses,
because whether it's a black owned business or a white
owned business or a Hispanic owned business, anything horrific can happen.
And also anything small can happen. So I just wanted
to put that what we're going to.

Speaker 8 (11:14):
Say before, I was just gonna say that it's it's
I think we sometimes forget, you know, how important it
is to support our own Right now, we are living
in a time where our history is literally being erased,
right and I don't know what that's gonna mean for

(11:35):
future generations. And what I do know are the things
that were positive and that worked. One thing that worked
during the Civil rights movement was that Montgomery boycott. You
know that that was a bus boycott for almost like
three hundred and eighty something days, that that black people

(11:58):
decided as a collective, we.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Will not spend our money with.

Speaker 8 (12:02):
You, and you treat us like this mission three three
hundred and eighty something days, what would it like. We
need to do what we can do, and what we
can do right now is we can support our own businesses.
Right now, my sorority is for the month of June,
we're doing Black Dollar Days where we you know, buy black,

(12:26):
you know, and support black and green.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
I think that it's also important for our black business owners.
When you are struggling, in order to seceed and better
serve your customers, you need to take the appropriate classes
to how to manage your staff. You need to take
accounting classes on how to manage your bank accounts. You
need to take courses on how to uplift and have
buy in from your employees. Over the last two years,

(12:52):
I have teamed up with other professionals to be able
to train my staff and myself to be able to
improve our customer service. Returning telephone calls is horrible when
it comes to customer service because most people have dire
need for things and so we had to improve in
the area of communication and details. And so to my
black business owners, you have the Black Business Association as

(13:15):
well as a Chamber of Commerce, as well as YouTube
and other free courses. I think Harvard, if I'm not mistaken,
opened up their classes. They have classes that teach business
owners how to develop their business. Goldman Sachs has a
program for black and white owned businesses and you can
look it up the Goldman Sachs Cohart. It's like a
million businesses or something like that. They teach you how

(13:38):
to run a business. So you cannot use that as
an excuse that you don't know how to properly run
a business. Monika touched on the boycotts and so I'm
not sure if you're going there regarding Target, and this
is no reflection of our Heart Radio, but even if
we're going to boat boycott Target, we need to do

(13:59):
that in unity. It can be one off. Somebody said, well,
I'm just gonna run in here and get some toothpastes.
Absolutely not. What are your thoughts, Well.

Speaker 8 (14:07):
One of the things you said was, you know, taking
those courses and the black businesses and the entrepreneurs doing
the things that we need to do.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
To continue to.

Speaker 8 (14:16):
Grow and serve our client base or our customers. Well,
one part of that that I think that we miss,
and this is going back to the community, is really
that mentorship. You know, there should be a situation and
I think you talked about it last week, or maybe
we talked about it off air about the Cambonian, the

(14:38):
refugee who came over in the seventies to California and
he ended up working in this donut shop, and he
worked in the donut shop and the owner of the
donut shop taught him the business, taught him how to
make donuts. And the next thing, you know, every time
an immigrant came in town, he would teach them how

(15:00):
to what make donuts because that's what teach them the business.
Before you know it, in South La all the donut
shops are owned by this, you know, by all of
these individuals. But what happened in their community by people
of the same.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Community, what did they do? They invested in each other.

Speaker 8 (15:19):
So in addition to buying from each other, you know,
getting our goods and services from each other, we need
to pass the information down to the other generations so
that they should not be struggling to know how to
do certain things if we already know how to do it.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well then and I commend Attorney Johnson and myself. We
both have mentees, our staff members. We are training them.
Both of us trained lawyers. We train law students become attorneys.
One day, I'm going to add how many law students
have our produced? But Monika just produced I think your first,

(15:59):
didn't you need? Diana?

Speaker 8 (16:00):
Diana Hurt and my daughter right now. She you know,
she's a new dentist that just came out. She's working
with an eighty two year old seasoned dentist African American
who is going to look out for her and is
showing her the ropes like we have to invest because
if she's in a different environment she may not get

(16:21):
that right.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
And she has doctor forger too. I just thought about that,
we could have introduced them to her. So yeah, so
mentorship is important and not just busy work. I'm talking about.
Monika had her intern actually drafting documents, responding to communication,
and the same thing with me. These are not light internships,
so you want to be able to foster that for

(16:42):
the next generation. So I just want to encourage everyone
to bring community together, make sure that you shop black.
And if you cannot shop black, definitely shop local. You know,
before we go to a big chain, buy something that's local.
When you're looking at getting your landscaping done, try the
local companies before where we go to the national brands.
Where you're talking about getting hair hair products, try to

(17:04):
local companies before you go to the national. So I
just want to carriash that my second is a high
value man, high value man, high value man. So my
first sow box says, let's make sure we stay in
community and circulate these black dollars. The second is a
high value man. I just want to talk to my
men and encourage you if a few years ago, there

(17:26):
was a speaker that was out Kevin Samuels, who popularized
the phrase a high value man. Within that phrase is
the literal sense of a man that is of high value.
Kevin Samuels described a high value man as a man
of being over sixty three six foot three inches. He
described a high value man who also made at the

(17:48):
minimum ten thousand dollars a month and has done so
for the last three to five years. And this same man,
in order to be considered high value, also had to
have the respect from his other brothers in his community.
That's what made a high value man. But I want
to challenge that particular definition. I want to challenge that, okay,

(18:10):
because there's only I think, if I'm not mistaken, let's
say less than ten percent of people that make ten
thousand dollars a month, let alone African American, let alone
having an African American man that's six 'y three who's
heterosexual that's interested in you. I mean, what are the odds? Right?

(18:30):
So because of that, I'm not really well, not just
that reason, because there's a scarcity, but I just don't
believe that that's only that's where a man's value is.
Because if we look at shun Puff Daddy Combs, who
is allegedly committed some atrocities, well, you know, let's just
give him sixty three. He's not, but let's just give
it to him. But he's definitely financially secure. But look

(18:53):
what he did with his money. So it's not about
what you make, but it is what you do what
you make, And sometimes it's not even what you do
what you make, but the content of your character. Who
are you? Are you a giving soul? I was just
sharing a story about how my boyfriend and I this weekend,
we were out and about and he just picked me
some wildflowers. I loved the wildflowers. Right, Well, then what

(19:16):
are we to do if he's not making one hundred
and fifty thousand plus, Does that make him a low
value man? But does he pick me some wildflowers? No,
that was a kind of act. And then Monika share
about the high value man.

Speaker 8 (19:29):
That, Yeah, I think I definitely have a high value man.
Not only do I have one, but his friends. You
know that he surrounds himself, you know, And I love
that because I see, you know, I hear all the negativity.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
But this weekend I went.

Speaker 8 (19:45):
To a vow renewal service of a couple who's been
married forty years.

Speaker 6 (19:51):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (19:51):
And when I say they are still young, they just
got back from the Dominican Republic. They still love each other.
And their theme was I still choose you. You know, Yes,
I made that high valued. I mean, he took care
of his family. We talked about that, you know during
some of the services. You know, you should see his children.

(20:13):
You know, he's respected in the community. He's not out
here cheating on his wife and everybody, poor poor wife. No,
he has a good reputation. You know, you start going
back to the word of God and you look for
men who fit that description. Those are your high value men,
not just because you have money. And then it's a
quid pro quo. I got to give you something for

(20:36):
you to give to me. No, I desire to have
a giver. And what I have ursula I believe. And
my man is a giver and it really and and
he studies me. You know, he knows when something is off,
you know, knows when I need encouraging and.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
That freely gives that love and that encouragement and patience.
That's a high value. And sometimes there's correction.

Speaker 6 (21:02):
Absolutely, yeah, always.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well and we all need it. And you know what,
it's nothing worse than a friend who does not tell
you the truth because you already can't see yourself and
you mean to tell me. You sit there and you
see me failing, you see me making mistakes, and because
you really you won't say anything, and you say, well,
I don't want to hurt her feelings. You're lie. You

(21:25):
don't want to hurt your own feelings because you should
be speaking the truth and not just sitting there letting
somebody make mistakes. Well, I'm not gonna say anything. Well,
I'm gonna leave it. No. No, you're not a good friend.
That's what you're not. But so need to attach with
a man who can be that transparent with you. That's beautiful,
but it'd beautiful. We could do that in all of
our friendships. That's to me is a high value man

(21:47):
and a woman.

Speaker 9 (21:48):
So that's that.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Soap boxing.

Speaker 6 (21:50):
I love it, I love it, I love the box.
It's fabulous. Thanks.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
Well, we will take this break and when we come back,
we'll get into the business of your all's business. The
Woods is here, Attorney Monika Johnson is here.

Speaker 6 (22:06):
I'm BEB Johnson. I'm here as well.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
We're asking the experts right here on dou w d
i A.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
We're asking the experts on the Bev Johnson Show. Only
on w d i.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
A, The Bev Johnson Show, No over THERD to break

(22:57):
you outday.

Speaker 5 (23:20):
And on this day, Monday, June twenty third, twenty twenty five,
we're talking with our experts.

Speaker 6 (23:26):
Attorney Ursula Woods.

Speaker 5 (23:27):
Attorney Monika Johnson is in the house an attorney Ursula.
What do you all want to talk about today? I
know you all always have an assortment of things to
talk about.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
We are we're going to talk about a few things.
We're going to talk about bankruptcy because there are a
lot of people out there that are struggling or that
are losing jobs, and I want to discuss how we
can talk about that, because I mean, it's really about garnishments.
A lot of people right now are getting their checks garnished.
I'm getting lots of questions about that. And then we're now,

(24:00):
I think we're ending this season where you can appeal
for your property taxes, and so they're going to have
property tax sales. They're going to start back, and we
want to talk about it in advance of it, so
that we can discuss how to get your property back.
Attorney Johnson, you want to kick it off with talking
about property redemptions and what does that mean? How do

(24:20):
they get there? Yes.

Speaker 8 (24:21):
And one of the reasons why I, you know, wanted
to discuss this is because one of my clients just
received a notification that he is two years behind on
his taxes and that it is on the list for
the tax sale. Of course, he was appalled, and you

(24:42):
know because for some reason, and you know, people make mistakes,
he had not received his tax bill, so you know
he did.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Not pay it.

Speaker 8 (24:52):
It's still your responsibility whether or not you receive the
bill and the mail or not, you're still responsible for
your annual tax and he understood that, but you know,
he was concerned about, oh my god, have they sold
my property? And I, you know, assured him that even
if they had sold the property, that we have the

(25:14):
ability if we act fast, to redeem that property back
from the tax cell. So I don't know if others
are getting that same communication, but if you get a
communication that says that your property is on the list
for delinquent taxes and it will be sold. They did
not even provide a date, I don't believe on his correspondence,

(25:38):
but we knew to immediately get on top of it.
So I just want to encourage, you know, anyone out
there who may have forgotten to pay their taxes, may
not have gotten the notice or was just having a
difficult time paying because it's been a difficult time, don't
ignore it, you know, deal with it now. You know,
we can help you with payment arrangements if that's what

(26:00):
you need to do, you know, negotiate some type of
settlement agreement with with the county or the city for
your taxes or worst case scenario, we can, you know,
file a petition to redeem those that property back out
of the tax cell, but you usually have a very short,

(26:20):
limited period of time to do that, and so I
encourage you if you're facing that situation and you need
some help, go ahead and give us a call. That's
something that you know, we enjoy doing. We believe that
that is part of your legacy. You know, owning property
is one of the biggest investments that we make in

(26:40):
our lifetime, and it's also one of the biggest inheritance
that we receive in our life time. So we don't
want to just give up the legacy. Let's go ahead
and take care of those taxes in a way that
is sufficient for you considering your circumstances.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
So I think that the property redemption. One thing that
I want people to remember is you don't have to
go through this by yourself. Get in a letter telling
you that your house has been sold in a tax
cell can be shocking to the system. Or either you
are one of the heirs and you're like, you don't
know what to do. Oh my god, this is big

(27:23):
Mama's house where do we go next? How do we
straighten this out? That is what Attorney Johnson and I do.
This is truly our passion. It's something you know. Not
a lot of people like property law in law school,
but we were the ones that actually, at least I
know I did. I thrived in property law. So I
want to encourage you that if you've inherited a house,

(27:44):
or if there's a house that's out there that oh
this is Grandmama house, everybody you know have been taking
it over and the grass is run over, maybe we
should let it go. I think auntie them handling it.
Get involved and find out what's happening with your inheritance,
because there's one thing to say that you don't know,
but there's another to at least do to research to
find out and get the answer. Don't allow the property

(28:07):
is just going to tax sale because you all can't
figure out who should get it and how to divide
the money. The core can decide that to and that
something Attorney Johnson can look at and correct. So if
you're having any issues with your property taxes, property redemption
is an option. And let's say, for instance, you say, well,
so I'm still going to have to you know, I'm

(28:28):
ten years behind or I'm five years behind. Well, then
bankruptcy is an option. Foiling the Chapter thirteen wage earner
will allow us to stop that particular foreclosure process with accounting,
allow you to retain your house and allow you to
repay all of those back taxes over the period of

(28:48):
sixty months. We can do three to five years on repayment.
You can become totally debt free, and then you can
move forward. So one of the things I want to
talk about is we are mid year. You are mid year.
That means that we all know winter is coming, Christmas
is coming, right, Christmas is gonna be here. Oh, he

(29:09):
wants the com he wants the what is the Gi
Joe with the kumfu grip? That was the comedy. The
comedian used to say that you have to save up
for that. So when you say, well, I don't have
enough money at Christmas to buy this, and I don't
have them enough money at Christmas to get that, well
why not plan for it? And now is the time
to plan. We're in July, so that means we have July, August, September, October, November,

(29:32):
and December. That means that we have six months. So
let's say, for instance, you're gonna spend excuse me, I
apologize everyone. Let's say, friends, you're gonna spend five hundred
dollars on your child's Christmas, right, that is eighty three
dollars and thirty three cents a month. Eighty three dollars

(29:53):
and thirty three cents. Multiply that times five. I'm sorry,
that's four sixteen at another e eighty three dollars, and
then you have us at five hundred. So I want
to say that to say, make sure if you save
eighty three dollars a month for the next six months,
then you will have five hundred dollars in December to
be able to buy whatever this is that you want

(30:15):
to get for your child. So no, the money the
items are not in layoway, but you need to have
a savings account. Put back ninety dollars a month. Then
you may say, E WILLM, I gonna get ninety dollars
all right? Stop spending something. You going out with your friends,
You eating out every day? Eating out? Yea, can we
take we need to do a soapbox. I swear every

(30:37):
time I go somewhere it is eighty dollars you know,
like if you have two people men pressing, you know,
coffee breakfast spot. I won't name it because I'm not
complaining in that way, but I just did not realize
how expensive it is out it is and don't buy
an alcoholic beverage while you're eating out. Your bill will

(30:57):
be doubled. Oh I didn't even think, right, Okay, so guys, okay,
a lot of people may not notice it. I don't
even drink. That is very true, because we went to
dinner that was one hundred and four dollars and I thought,
good lord, I mean, these were not major purchases that
were making at dinner, and I'm thinking, what is somebody
doing if they're drinking alcohol? I can so okay, So anyway,

(31:19):
so eighty three dollars a month. I got another way
that you could save money. Go to the liquor store
and buy your liquor and quit paying twenty and twenty
five thirty dollars when y'all go. And I know women
want per glass, and I know women y'all say, I
don't want no cheap man. Look now, you want that
brother to be able to buy you something.

Speaker 6 (31:37):
You want that high value.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
You want that high value man, Attorney Johnson, don't we
talk about that a high value man may not be
the guy that's buying at the club. He's not the
one that's buying at the bar. He's the one saving so.

Speaker 8 (31:48):
In sometimes he's very responsible and frugal with with the
money right.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
And encouraging you to be fudey. So all right, So
then that's one thing that we want to look at.
Another thing we want to look at when we're talking
about saving money, because we're midyear, is that look at
your deductions on your payroll. Where are you with that?
Are you taking out too much or are you taking
out too little? Where are you with that process? Some

(32:13):
of you, if you own a house, you had escoral
analysis and so your payment for your monthly mortgage payment
has increased. What are you doing to offset that increase?
You know that December is coming, and you know it's
already a struggle for you to make ends meet. So
now's the time for us to think about a side hustle,

(32:34):
for us to think about a side job. You may say, okay, ursulo,
how am I going to figure out what can I
do to make more money? Because I don't have any
additional skill sets? Why not develop one? Why not pursue
your passion. Do you have a passion for cooking? If so,
take some classes, begin to practice, host cooking classes. One
of my girlfriends used to teach cooking classes. Teach them

(32:55):
every month. Do a different class on baking cakes, making cookies.
Make it the meal you know, call it my man
fifty grand meal. I don't know, but come up with something.
If you say that you sow when, then start making
some scarves, start making something. The prayer clause that go
Do they still were those? The girl across the woman's laugh.

Speaker 6 (33:14):
I don't, Oh, you don't wear those?

Speaker 2 (33:17):
You know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 6 (33:19):
What you're talking about?

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Do you wear them at church?

Speaker 6 (33:22):
And you don't wear them?

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (33:23):
No, MA said, well you need it just in case
you fall out at church, they'll put they'll put. So
another side gig that you can if you can sing,
start taking make me some weekend gigs. But I just
want to share that you should do something to make
additional income to be able to cover the additional expenses.

(33:44):
At this point, we should have at the minimum one
thousand dollars in our bank account for just because things,
your tire blew out, your breaks.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
You didn't realize that. You thought you had six more
months on your break. No, it's the breaks. Now you
have upkeep for your yourself. Oh my god, it broke
my tooth. I don't want to look crazy out here.
Go get that tooth fixed. Only way you can do
that is if you save. We're always saying somebody not
trying to help us, but sometimes we should be helping ourselves,
which brings me to my final point when it comes

(34:14):
to budget. Okay, I used to talk about this a lot,
and it was kind of controversial in the beginning, but
it's but the bottom line is, do not co sign
for your children car. I do not believe in co
signing for a child's car. I'm got tell you why,
because if your child cannot afford that twenty twenty four?
What they what do they call that? Those fast cars?

(34:36):
I had a client who had a ninety three thousand
dollars car. What was that? What those a HMMI oho?
I soaund so old right now? A lot of a
charger charger, Yeah, yeah, some of them, some of them.
I can't think it's a hellcat, A hall cat, I
think that's the name of it. Ninety three thousand dollars

(34:57):
do not cost sign if you're first off. In my
humble opinion, it's not that humble. In my opinion, your
nineteen year old should not be driving a hell Cat. Okay,
your frontal lob does not finish developing until you're twenty five.
Your front toal load on your brain is your cognitive ability.

(35:17):
It's impulsivity. That's the reason why kids, young adults make
impulsive decisions. Right, So now you're putting them behind a
machine that can drive as fastest as one of the
fastest vehicles you know for that price point. And then
now you're putting not only your child at risk, but
me too because I'm on these mean Memphis streets. And

(35:38):
so then I do not believe in co signing. The
reason why I don't believe in co signing is because
your child cannot afford that cardin, and then now you
will be responsible for that card not and then that
puts you further behind. If the only thing that your
child can afford is a is a Nissan CenTra, that's
a twenty nineteen, then that child needs to be drying

(36:00):
a twenty nineteen niee Son CenTra until they can get
responsible enough with their credit to afford a twenty twenty
four or twenty twenty five. So don't you surf that process,
because then you will be the one who will have
to bear the burden when that child falls out. So
many times people come to me and say, well, my
name is second. Well, I am here to tell you
that when you co sign, it does not matter if

(36:23):
your name is first or second. If your name is
on there as a co signer, you are responsible. And
then you need to ask yourself, are you raising children
to be solely dependent upon you? And if so, why
what is so missing inside of you that you need
to be needed on that level. I'm not saying look,

(36:43):
I want to be needed to do not get me wrong,
I wish my boys would come down and be like, mom,
I want to hang out with you today. They do not.
But you want to raise independent children, I would complain
of mold all the time my mom. My mom definitely
raised me to be independent, but sometimes I miss that
level of mothering that a traditional mother would have. But
then MO always say, well, but you got the independent piece,

(37:05):
now you can survive. So I just want to say
that we should all give the a little of that
to our children. So that they can function without us.

Speaker 6 (37:14):
I love it.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
We are talking this day. Hold on callers, Hold on listeners.
We are talking with Attorney Monika Johnson and Attorney Ursula Woods.
If you have a question or two for the ladies
nine zero one five three five, nine three four two
eight hundred five zero three nine three four two eight

(37:36):
three three five three five nine three four two will
get you in to us. Can't call Email us your question.
Bev Johnson at iHeartMedia dot com. Bev Johnson at iHeartMedia
dot com. We're going to the other side of the
Bev Johnson Show on w d IA.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Whether you're in Tennessee or Mississippi on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Thank you for listening to the Bev Johnson Show on
do w d I A Memphis.

Speaker 10 (38:11):
The Bev J Justin Show, Justin Show, Jos Memphis Talkie

(38:54):
Home Away.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
How you Go?

Speaker 4 (38:57):
You go?

Speaker 7 (38:58):
So?

Speaker 6 (38:59):
Getting ready?

Speaker 11 (39:06):
Let's go?

Speaker 4 (39:08):
Doesn't we make you.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Fine?

Speaker 9 (39:12):
You d.

Speaker 12 (39:17):
Listen to what to Say?

Speaker 10 (39:19):
You know It's time The bel To Fish Show, Aunt Show,
Lucky Let's Go.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
We are rocking and rolling on this Monday, June twenty third,
twenty twenty five. As we asked the experts are experts.
Are attorney Monika Johnson, attorney Ursula Woods. Ladies, I'm going
to our phone lines to talk to some of our listeners.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Thank you for waiting.

Speaker 6 (39:48):
Hey, Clyde, job.

Speaker 12 (39:51):
You got it clad listen now you can't do.

Speaker 6 (39:58):
They doing fine, Clyde.

Speaker 12 (40:00):
But and I just want to say, those type of
ladies right then you got on your show.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Now, that's all them, the type of ladies you take
home the mama right there believe in.

Speaker 12 (40:11):
Messing off money. And that's what happened. Now. I wanted
them to explain about the entity.

Speaker 13 (40:19):
In your home equity okay, because I had a problem
in his house was paid for, but he took he
got I guess the loan.

Speaker 12 (40:29):
Got what he got a I guess he got a
loan on the entity in the house.

Speaker 14 (40:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (40:37):
And but she didn't know nothing about it that he
passed away. But she knows no about it. She argued
to me the mail at the house. And I just
wanted to explain.

Speaker 11 (40:46):
The people that that's the loan.

Speaker 12 (40:48):
It ain't just the money you go get in me.
You got to pay it back.

Speaker 14 (40:52):
And I just want that.

Speaker 12 (40:53):
I'm gonna sit back all good question.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
Yeah, and equity loan.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
That's that's actually at a great starting point. So let's
talk about equity in the house. So equity in the
home is the appreciated value in the home. So the
way you determine equity is you take the value of
your house. So if you go to the Shelby County
Assessor office, you will see the assessed value, or if

(41:21):
you look at redfin or Zillo, you will see the
value of your home. And from that value you subtract
out the payoff on the mortgage on the house. So
let's say, for instance, if you have a two hundred
thousand dollars house to payoff on, the mortgage is one
hundred and fifty thousand, You go to assessor, the house
is worth two hundred. Go to the assessor website. You

(41:43):
see that your house is assessed at two hundred thousand.
Your payoff on your mortgage is one hundred and fifty.
That difference between one hundred and fifty payoff of the
mortgage and the two hundred thousand dollars value is fifty
thousand dollars. Therefore, you would have fifty thousand dollars in
in that home. So if you were to sell that home,
you would receive fifty thousand dollars. If you were to

(42:06):
refinance at home, you would receive fifty thousand dollars. If
you were going to get an equity line of credit,
you would get fifty thousand dollars. You have to repay
that money back if you refinance or get an equity
line of credit. And to my seniors, if you do
a reverse mortgage, right, if you do a reverse mortgage,

(42:32):
that's the situation where you have all the equity in
your home, meaning that you don't owe anybody any money
because you've paid off your mortgage. So then now you
do a reverse mortgage. Let's do the same scenario. Your
house is worth two hundred thousand. That company is not
going to give you two hundred thousand dollars. They're not, No,

(42:54):
because the mortgage company on a reverse mortgage wants the
equity in your home.

Speaker 6 (42:59):
Gotcha.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
So that's the reason why when people call up here
and they say, hey, I got a question about equity,
I'm sorry reverse mortgages. I'm like, hey, I want you
to give me a call. And here's the reason why.
Because when you have equity in your house, and most
African Americans, I'm not trying to pick on us. I'm
black too. We don't. We are not in subdivisions traditionally,

(43:21):
we're not in subdivisions that are worth let's say a
million dollars and then we have five hundred thousand dollars
in equity. It just does. It's just not because if so,
then I want you to sell your house, not give
it to the bank. I want you to sell your
house and then just simply downsize. Right, you know, you
go from a million dollar house to a five hundred
thousand dollar house. That's a pretty good option, but most

(43:45):
of us are not in million dollar houses to wear
downsize and makes sense. Most of us are in a
house that's six hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, right, three
hundred thousand. Yes, you can downsize. However, if you do,
then you're going to have a lifestyle adjustment. Going from
a six hundred thousand dollars neighborhood to one hundred thousand

(44:05):
dollars neighborhood can be a shock to the system for
most of us. So then because of that, you want
to do a reverse mortgage, I discourage against it because
why give away the equity in your home? Instead? You
could either sell that house and you go get a condo,
or you can refinance, pull the equity out and then
use that to repay the loan as well as do

(44:27):
some other things with it. But the bottom line is
a gentleman wanted me to explain a that if you
do have an equity line of credit, that you do
have to pay it back reverse mortgages. You do not,
but your family will. But Attorney Johnson, let's take the
the caller selling the line. He's gone, okay, And let's
take that same scenario. So we have a husband who

(44:49):
had a house. Obviously he has some financial issues and
or he just wanted to expand or pay for some
things and he had a line of credit. What do
you think he could have done a state planning wise
to take care and protect his wife, well, a couple
of things.

Speaker 8 (45:03):
It sounds like his wife was unaware that there was
I'm going to assume that it was what we call
a he lock a home equity line of credit, which
is like a credit card, so your mortgage company and
you need to know that it is also a secured loan.

(45:24):
So what that means is it is secured by the house.
So you might have a first mortgage that is also secured.
So if for instance, someone passes away and they have
a first mortgage and then they have a helock, what
their heirs or their beneficiaries are inheriting, well, you're in

(45:47):
essence inheriting always is the equity. You always have a
right to the equity in the home. But if there
is a lean or there's a security interest in the
home because of the mortgage or.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
The he lock, that has to be dealt with.

Speaker 8 (46:02):
Even as the inheritor the person who the heir or
the beneficiary, you're gonna either have to decide whether you're
going to refinance the house, whether you're going to continue
to make the mortgage payments, or whether you want to
sell it and get your equity out. But what you
are inheriting is the equity.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
So to.

Speaker 8 (46:23):
Just kind of, you know, hammer in on the point
that you made about not giving away all of your
equity before you pass away, that is actually what your
loved ones are going to inherit. So the more debt
that you have on that home, the less your your
heirs or beneficiaries are going to inherit. And you need
to consider that when you're taking out.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
The loan, right and I'm not against home equity line
or credit at all, but I just think that if
we're when we're talking about a state planning, we could
either get life insurance, you know, for your wife or
your husband, so when you pass away, you can pay
that particular insurance off. I'm sorry you didn't pay off
that particular mortgage. So then that way your wife her

(47:06):
husband can go into their later years dead free. All right,
that's a very fish that's a very good idea. Good
back to our phone line to talk with you. Thank
you for waiting.

Speaker 6 (47:15):
Hi, Raymond, Yes, yes, your question.

Speaker 13 (47:21):
Okay, I was calling. I've been trying to get money.
I was licensed, and they saying that they got here
in Memphis. It's a whole I guess owner at how
I patrol saying that I got a ticket showing in
Mississippi back in nineteen ninety one. Well, in ninety one,
I did get stopped by the police. I'm I had

(47:42):
a job to do down there, and I paid the
ticket off that particular morning, just any morning. But now
they say that in Mississippi they don't show me in
the computer anywhere, because actually I didn't go to jail.
It was like a room I went to but here,
what's the biggest problem. This is the problem having When
I go to the high I will patrol and try
to see about getting my I had a lot of

(48:02):
tickets over like two thousand dollars that all paid off,
and I wanted to go out here and get my
driver license. They say, you can't get the license because
you still got to for you showing that you owe
a ticket in Mississippi. So I go to South Hay
and Mississippi to both of the courthouses. They don't even
show my name anywhere there. Even the lady went back
in the back room of one of the places to

(48:25):
find secret is.

Speaker 9 (48:26):
So.

Speaker 13 (48:26):
But what I'm saying is the main thing is I
can't get my license because of something that's holding on
me here in Memphis, saying that it's a ticket showing
that I owe a ticket in Mississippi that I don't
even owe and I don't know.

Speaker 12 (48:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (48:41):
Do you do you still have your receipt where you
paid that ticket in Mississippi.

Speaker 13 (48:45):
Oh no, that was back in ninety one. No, No,
I don't have that. I don't have a receipt. I said.
I was at work that morning and all I was
trying to do, so what I did.

Speaker 5 (48:54):
When I want so we won't understand. So you they
are not letting you get a Tennessee driver's license.

Speaker 13 (49:00):
That's what I'm saying, because of that, and I fixed
over the courthouses there.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Yeah, Unfortunately that's not my area of law. I practice
in real estate, bankruptcy, verser entry, wills in estate. So
call a Mississippi criminal attorney. I know you're not a criminal,
but usually they handle traffic tickets as well.

Speaker 6 (49:24):
You probably need a Mississippi the Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Because Tennessee is the one.

Speaker 6 (49:29):
Who's trying to get a Tennessee license.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Yeah, and then they're saying that because of a ticket
in ninety one from Mississippi. So you need somebody who
may be license in both and we share several what's
your suggestion, Attorney Johnson. He needs an attorney.

Speaker 8 (49:41):
Who's going to be able to the reason you need
a criminal attorney is because that attorney can work with
the prosecutor and actually pull your driving record so that
they can do the investigation and the research and see
where the hold is, you know, and then go all
the way back with that docket number. See, they won't
have any of that unless they're able to pull your

(50:04):
actual driving record. And that is why she's, you know,
recommending that you speak with them, someone who focuses on
criminal Yeah.

Speaker 13 (50:12):
Because this lawyer you're speaking about, do I need to
get one from Mississippi?

Speaker 2 (50:18):
I would want to like, where do you?

Speaker 13 (50:20):
Where do you?

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Where is the whold you in?

Speaker 2 (50:24):
What county?

Speaker 13 (50:25):
Do you know?

Speaker 2 (50:25):
What county that that Tennessee?

Speaker 13 (50:28):
All I know is South Haven?

Speaker 4 (50:30):
I don't know.

Speaker 9 (50:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (50:33):
I would start with the Mississippi attorneys so that they
can pull the DeSoto records and then if you need
a Tennessee attorney to assist you after that. But you
got to first get the investigat you got to investigate
what happened to that ticket from nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Yeah, because maybe they can get a letter from the
judge that said I'm sorry, this may even not that area.

Speaker 5 (51:00):
All right, thank you, Raymond, But yeah, checking Disoda County
for an attorney. Okay, thank he's going, okay, all right,
all right, all right, much success on that. W D
I A Hi, Beverly, Hey bam, how aren't you doing
well today?

Speaker 6 (51:19):
And yourself?

Speaker 11 (51:21):
I'm doing and find this a morning to the attorney
into where the attorney.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Good morning, morning after ball.

Speaker 11 (51:31):
You don't mind, First off, I won't say hatched off
to Norman red Wings on that bingo extravaganza yesterday. Black
tastic bingo blatastic. Yeah, that's what it was, was Bay definitely
black pastic.

Speaker 12 (51:47):
Okay, normal real Wing got it going on.

Speaker 11 (51:52):
He's such a good job over in that area, and
he had such good connection. I mean, the prizes were awesome,
not no ing stuff.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
What were the prizes?

Speaker 11 (52:12):
Hey, he had gift calls for Mahogany.

Speaker 8 (52:17):
Yes, about mister red Wing, he is all about community.
He supports us, he supports black businesses, even even in
buying the gift card to another black business, Mahogany.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
He's very intention He's intentional about community. So shout out
to Norman. I echo those sentiments, ma'am. Norman red Wing
definitely is somebody within our community that believes in supporting
the community and giving back, and he gives good gifts.

Speaker 11 (52:47):
Yes, yes, it was wonderful. Should have been they should
have been there. It was wonderful. Wonderful big prize okay,
big one. Okay, Now onto your discussion this morning. What
prompted me to call also is about when you talk
about saving money and eating out. You know, we love

(53:13):
to get you call it, you know, make ourselves feel
good or treat ourselves. That's the word I'm trying to say,
you know, to go out and eat you know sometimes
and I do too. But I'm gonna tell you something
that I used to observe a lot when I was
working at Obama. I would come in to work and
I would see some people sitting in the cafeteria eating breakfast.

(53:40):
Then I would go that they had bought any cafeteria.
Then I would go to lunch and I would see
some of those same people eating lunch that they bought
in the cafeteria. And sometimes some of those people, between
breakfast and lunch, they would go to those high price

(54:02):
vending machines and buy soda, pops and chips. And then
in between after lunch and going home, they back to
the bending machine. And I'm like, now, how much money
a day are they spending on that? And then my
second question was are they participating in the four O

(54:26):
three be.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Good questions?

Speaker 11 (54:32):
That was my I'm like, how much do you have
saved for retirement? Are you participating in the match? Because
at Lavanna they our match was dollar per dollar up
to six percent. So if you put in five dollars,

(54:52):
they put in five dollars.

Speaker 15 (54:54):
Wow, one plus you would get you know, your earnings
off of whatever you know you were invested in, so
you can end up, you know what a nice people change.

Speaker 11 (55:06):
But I wonder those people who are spending all that
money in the cafeteria and feeding those vending machines.

Speaker 15 (55:13):
I just wondered.

Speaker 11 (55:14):
You know, there's a scripture in the Bible that says
some food and his money says soon depart. And I'm
not calling those people food, but you know that's the description.
Also it says my people perish for lack of knowledge,
and so true.

Speaker 12 (55:29):
So you know, we do need to be.

Speaker 11 (55:31):
Mindful of how we spend our money.

Speaker 16 (55:34):
It's okay to treat yourself, you know, but in just
you some restraining, you got to set your priorities. And
I just wanted to say that because that's what changed
in my mind when you mentioned about you know, people
you know, going out.

Speaker 11 (55:48):
Spending a lot of money eating out all the.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Time, those vending machines. That's so one to add to
where in July, you guys watch those vending machines, and
I agree with her. I spayed two dollars one time
for something that I know cost fifty cents. So the
vending machines are not our friends at work.

Speaker 9 (56:07):
I think.

Speaker 8 (56:07):
I think one of the biggest issues, just you know,
piggybacking on that, is that most of us don't have
a budget.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Oh we don't even realize, you know, we're not.

Speaker 8 (56:19):
You were cognizant of the fact that you saw them
breakfast lunch, you saw them at the vending machines. We're
not even cognizant of how much money we're spending in
every area. But when we sit down and actually do
the budget, and you have to be real with yourself,
and when you look at what I did last month,

(56:40):
and I spent you know, five hundred dollars eating out,
and I'm upset because I don't have three hundred dollars
left to get my tire fixed, you know, I might
have to ask myself for next month. You know, now
that I know, I'm and then we have we have
the other thing that we have are happy, you know,

(57:01):
and we we think that we're not spending a lot
of money on those. But you know, if you have
a you know, you smoke cigarettes or you drink, you know,
a case of beer a day, or I mean, whatever
your habit is, you get your you know your.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
I'm gonna tell you one. TJ Max and home goods
is a habit. Oh yeah, I have to stay I
have a habit. I have to stay out. I cannot
go not buy anything, so I don't caller. I'll go
in there, like is the vindamin sheill? Oh it's just
a ten dollar candle. Oh, I'm going in there for
the seven ninety nine candles. I told you I'm a junkie.
I go in there for the seven ninety nine candle.
But then I'll see one that's twelve ninety nine or fifteen,

(57:37):
and I'm like, oh, it's not that bad. But that
kind of stuff adds up. It adds up.

Speaker 8 (57:42):
So what I would encourage those people to do not
only just match you know in the four O one
K and make those good four one three B or
make those good decisions, but to also create your budget.
Look at your last three months of your bank account
and see where you're spending money, and then do your

(58:04):
budget and see where you would like to spend your money.
And I'm gonna if you haven't or if you don't
know about Operation Hope.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Oh my god, they are amazing. Hold on, so I'm sorry, Colin,
I'm sorry. I wanted to ask more questions about it.
Did you have any more questions?

Speaker 16 (58:23):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (58:24):
No, I just want to want to share that.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
What were you saying about? What were you just saying?

Speaker 8 (58:33):
With Operation Hope, you know they will teach you. It's
about how to do a budget. They start with you
can't even get to credit till you start with the budget.
You would be surprised that most people don't have a budget.
They don't even realize the income and the outgo. So
the first thing that they'll do, and this is a
free service, okay, the first thing they'll do is they

(58:56):
will assist you. They'll look at your last three month
of your bank statements and analyze it and show you
where you're spending your money. Then, you know, help you
come up. Now, you can still choose to spend your
money in those areas. But if you're then talking about
your credit and they want to give you recommendations on

(59:16):
how to, you know, increase your credit score, which is
likely going to mean you know, putting that in your budget,
you want to have that information. Operation Hope is an
amazing organization, nonprofit organization that not only in a focus
on our community, making sure that we have the education,

(59:38):
the credit, because all of that matters. When you're purchasing
a home, when you're trying to ensure that your legacy
is left forever, you have to think about that your
credit matters.

Speaker 13 (59:52):
It does.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
So I'm gonna say this, Poverty is a mindset, right.
Poverty is not just a state of your income. My
father was a serial business owner, and people had talked
about in his younger years how he had fed, how
he succeeded and failed so many times before he just
got on this trajectory of having successful businesses. And I

(01:00:15):
say that to say, you can take somebody and give
them ten million dollars like the lottery winners, and then
they're broke within a year. Right, So I want to
also talk to my Christians that are out there and
even just my manifestors, make sure that you speak discipline
over yourself. I talked about this before, about maybe five

(01:00:37):
to eight years ago. I wanted to know how to
become more disciplined because I just was procrastinate, procrastinating and
not being on top of my business the way I
needed to, and I went to YouTube and I was like,
how do you become more disciplined? And the bottom line
is you have to do the thing that you don't
want to do. Discipline is like a literally like a muscle,

(01:00:59):
like you're working out. So then the more times you
do the things that you need to do versus what
you want to do, than it makes you stronger person. Right,
that's just really the bottom line to it. So then
do the same thing with your finances. To add the
Christian piece to it, or to manifest in a universe.
You tell your finances you are disciplined, you will come

(01:01:19):
under my authority, my mind, my thoughts, and my goals
will be won. So if I know that I want
to be a homeowner, I know that I want to
have ten thousand dollars liquid cash saved, then speak that
over yourself and over your finances. Same thing about your actions.
We say, okay, well I want to have ten thousand
dollars in the bank. No no, no, no, come back down.

(01:01:41):
I want to be able to save ninety dollars every month.
That's what you need to do and before so for
you to get to a point to know how much
you need to save like, Okay, well, I need to
stay away from the vending machine because when you see
that vending machine, what you see is you have a
need that needs to be satiated, and you have the
money in your pocket and you're not thinking about anything else.

(01:02:01):
You're not thinking about five dollars a day and what
that equals up to if you at worked. Let's just say,
for instance, twenty twenty days. Five times twenty, that's one
hundred dollars. That's twelve hundred dollars for the year. So
when you saying that you short on twelve hundred dollars, well,
that's because you spending five dollars a day. Right. You're
not looking at it as oh, I'm spending twelve hundred.
Oh no, you're spending twelve hundred. You spending twelve hundred easy.

(01:02:25):
And the reason why you're short is because of the
five dollars a day. So when you're talking about that,
one of the biggest predictors of successful people is long
term thinking long term. So many people want to say, oh,
I just do this, and I just think long term.
I'm gonna save. I'm going to not buy out a
devending machine. So I like our Midyear Finance Show. All right, WDIA,

(01:02:49):
hi caller.

Speaker 9 (01:02:52):
Hey Bev Monique, and I still.

Speaker 11 (01:02:55):
He no.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Bev, no hard car. How are you we're doing?

Speaker 5 (01:03:02):
Are you.

Speaker 11 (01:03:04):
Listen?

Speaker 9 (01:03:05):
My husband and our cruise in here in this hot
weather in Chicago, and.

Speaker 11 (01:03:10):
He is like, really, yeah, we have a heat in
that seven hundred and five today.

Speaker 9 (01:03:15):
We just got in the concept Ooh but it's air.

Speaker 13 (01:03:18):
Conditions, so he'll be all right.

Speaker 9 (01:03:19):
But I'm enjoying all of the topics from the beginning,
from the soapbox, you know, with the guys, and I
don't have to have a ten thousand, are right?

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
What did your husband think about it? Pat?

Speaker 9 (01:03:37):
Listen, he's just he's skins and grands because you know,
you got a good thing here with me. Funny, we're
just doing the doggone thing in our seventies. We enjoy life, good,
free and I just wanted to command you ladies on
your topics today. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and
God bless you you. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:03:59):
Pat, y'all be safe in Chicago.

Speaker 8 (01:04:03):
All right, Tweedie, love y'all, love you, Bye bye, okay,
w D I A hi caller.

Speaker 6 (01:04:10):
Hey Bell, I'm Norman. What's up? Black Tasting I'm blackcasting.

Speaker 12 (01:04:15):
Billy'll know.

Speaker 6 (01:04:18):
I'm doing well today. Norman, you I'm black taxing Bell. Bell.

Speaker 14 (01:04:22):
You got some black tasting sisters in the living room today, right, man, No,
sisters are always blackcasting. I'm telling you the truth. Well,
listen to gentle man.

Speaker 12 (01:04:33):
I have a question.

Speaker 14 (01:04:33):
I know we run out of time. Uh what do
we do? For example, I don't have some money. I
want to invest in my children and I want to
do a trust fund. But the fear and I'm just
you know, putting this out there, the fear of putting
the money in the account, especially if you receive and

(01:04:54):
say like Social Secure the disability. Will that affect the children?
How does at work? Because that's that's one of my words.
I don't want them to take much of his money.
I want them to be able to have their money
and go to coffe to do what they need. So
how does that work? How can I protect their money?

Speaker 6 (01:05:13):
That's a great question.

Speaker 14 (01:05:14):
So first off, thank miss Beaver and thank y'all for
the shout out.

Speaker 8 (01:05:18):
Okay, well, we wanted to know if we were bragging
on you today, that's what we wanted to tell you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
We are well.

Speaker 14 (01:05:29):
Thank y'all so much. You guys have always been very
supportive and there. Thank you because the majority of the
people there were your crowds there and they just laughed
and just had We just had a wonderful time. But
bb I can't take credit for it because they are
wonderful people like you, so to ears for money and
all of you guys black business, they support what we do.

(01:05:50):
Doctor Harper came by just so after you left your show,
came by there and dropped us off, you know. I mean,
so we got wonderful people out there. So thank y'all
so much for what you do. You make it, if
you make it happen, man, it's just real, kay.

Speaker 6 (01:06:04):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:06:04):
So it's such a good question's mind, I'm worried about that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Okay, that's a very good question.

Speaker 8 (01:06:10):
And I think that your thought processes are on the
right track.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
If if you create a trust.

Speaker 8 (01:06:20):
Fund for your children and you name them as the
beneficiaries to receive those funds, whether that be you know,
over time or lump sums. However that however you design
the trust, that means all of that property is in

(01:06:41):
this new entity that you created a trust, and it
is no longer in your name or your children's names.
When we talk about losing benefits. For example, he mentioned,
you know, social Security. We have situations where let's say

(01:07:02):
someone is on disability and or in order for them
to receive.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Their Social Security disability.

Speaker 8 (01:07:11):
Payments, they have to qualify and they can't have too
many assets. And so invariably what we would do is
if they owned a home, for example, is we would
transfer that home into the trust. Now they still you know,
you know, are the beneficiaries of the trust, but now

(01:07:34):
they no longer own the home, and they can benefit
from those Social Security benefits. And so the trust is
an entity that will assist you in your estate plan,
ensuring that your children's funds are protected not just from

(01:07:54):
you know, creditors and from you know, scary spouses that
they might have, you know, that want to take all
of their inheritance, or even from you know, just people themselves.
You know, sometimes our children aren't ready to receive their
inheritance and they make bad decisions. And so the trust

(01:08:16):
allows you not just to qualify for those benefits, but
then it also allows you we call it a spendthrift trust.
It allows you to protect your children from your themselves,
from creditors, there are so many tax benefits when you
create a trust for your children.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
For instance, if.

Speaker 8 (01:08:37):
You have a home and you want to leave that
home to your children and you put that in a trust,
its advantageous for them because more than likely that home
has appreciated over time. And if you purchase the home
for fifty thousand dollars in nineteen fifty and it's now

(01:08:58):
worth one hundred thousand dollars in twenty twenty five, then
your children, if they sell it or they pull the
equity out, they're going to have to pay capital gains
taxes on the fifty thousand dollars appreciation.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
Not so if you put it in a trust.

Speaker 6 (01:09:15):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:09:16):
So if you put it in a trust, you're you're
again you're protecting your children because the trust, the value
of your home is determined at the time the granteur
of the trust passes away.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
So at the time that you pass away.

Speaker 8 (01:09:30):
And it now becomes your children's home, that's when we
look at the value of the home. So it's worth
one hundred thousand dollars. If they sell it, they owe
no taxes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Wow, so there are a number of benefits.

Speaker 14 (01:09:43):
How need you make an appointment with you guys, so
I can go ahead and get this started right away.

Speaker 8 (01:09:46):
That's right now, all right, when mister red Wing I
think we have your number, I will have my team.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Reach out to you. We would be happy to assist.

Speaker 14 (01:09:54):
Yes, ma'am always, always, And thank y'all so very much.
You guys are just unbelievably black tassing. Man, y'all come
on here and now come into our living room and
do this thing. Man, and you educate us. You give
us some hope and wisdom and power, and it means
so much you just won't believe. And I know there
are thousands of people out there listening and benefiting so much.

(01:10:15):
So I just love you guys, and thank you so much.
Miss Beverley, Miss Beverly is a beautiful woman. Have you
ever seen her before?

Speaker 6 (01:10:21):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (01:10:21):
I am yeah, she Beverly and her husband has has
cruised with me before.

Speaker 14 (01:10:26):
All right, well she's a beautiful woman. She really is,
that wonderful lady. All right, thank y'all again, so very much,
you know.

Speaker 5 (01:10:33):
Thank you, bye bye bye bye. Hold on callers, as
we ask the experts. Attorney Monika Johnson is here. Attorney
Ursula Woods is here. Nine zero one five three five
nine three four two eight hundred and five zero three
nine three four two eight three three five three five
nine three four two. You're listening to the Heart and

(01:10:55):
Soul of Memphis w d I.

Speaker 10 (01:11:00):
The Bev Johnson Show.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
You're listening to the Bev Johnson Show. Here's Bev Johnson
and back.

Speaker 6 (01:11:49):
To our phone lines to talk with Frank.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Hi, Frank, Hi, Frank, you have a question today.

Speaker 6 (01:11:57):
I'm doing well today, Frank and yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Boy good good. Let me let me let me say
this first, and because they people are so messy, but
I just want to clarify legends. Miss Johnson. You know
I have never met you personally. I have seen you

(01:12:22):
off distant at Lucilla. You was getting in your car
and I was headed to my car, but I never spoke.
I've never seen you. But I want to say this
as a legend. Jerry Rice was a legend, and anybody

(01:12:42):
that has came behind Jerry Rice, they have it broke
his legends at all. Now, people got to understand it's
no reason to get jealous or try to remove let legend.
You can't. That's something that they have done throughout their

(01:13:05):
life with pride, with honor, and all the above. And
with Johnson, you have done all of that and songs,
and people can do the same thing if they just
stay focused on what they're doing and wouldn't nobody be

(01:13:29):
able to move them in their area whatever it is.
Let's not be jealous of legends and thinking people getting
paid or people just saying something when people give people
that honor, and you can see it every time you

(01:13:49):
call the radio station, she's the same. And I've been
listening to this station a very long time, and she
bring on every things that she can positive and she
keeps a positive mindset, so people stop being foolish and

(01:14:12):
stop being with this negative ana. A legend is just
a legend that that worked hard. You don't believe. We
couldn't even imagine the place that this lady have been
and gone. And I know personally because I know that

(01:14:34):
the people that she brings on this show, that tells
you right there, she's got to be in somewhere because
you just can't bring these people on these show, the
ones that she brings on you, and it's been many
legends that she brought on it. I just want to
say that.

Speaker 6 (01:14:53):
I appreciate that, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
That as ma'am, now to you you, lady, you all
have a very good thing going. What I would love
to see y'all consistent. Maybe open up a school or
what what whether upcoming future of children, teaching them how

(01:15:17):
to open a checking account, how to budget their money,
how to if this is something that need to be consistent,
and then you can slash with the grown folks, helping
them to understand how about their home, how to buy home,
what to look for. This is something that can be

(01:15:39):
consistent because children and people is not going nowhere, and
and and I promise you if you all would think
about it and move forward and put the hours together,
but do not quit if get start.

Speaker 6 (01:16:00):
Thank you, Frank A good suggestion.

Speaker 5 (01:16:02):
These ladies they work up, but they have a lot
of workshops and stuff going on.

Speaker 6 (01:16:06):
W D I a hi, common.

Speaker 12 (01:16:08):
Man, Damn, damn, damn.

Speaker 5 (01:16:17):
Come up.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Right for my birthday? I know you know?

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
What'd you say?

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
I said, I'm thirty days away from my birthday, so
don't come on here cutting up.

Speaker 12 (01:16:30):
I got I got a whole calendar. I got a
calendar with nothing but the Mother of July. It's all
twelve pages.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
But just sounds like we're on the same.

Speaker 12 (01:16:44):
Right any one of and it's got your days mark
right there.

Speaker 6 (01:16:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 12 (01:16:48):
Hey, look yeah, listen, I'll try to be quick. I
know y'allready go now. First of all, thank you, thank you,
and attorney, I'm a color but yeah, but laws right
toward giving y'all example of a man of value. Because

(01:17:12):
I was saying to myself, to each his own you know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:17:17):
Also you was speaking about independency and uh coast saying
and being independent. That's something I've always talked to my
children about because I think it's important for them to
understand what it means to be independent and earn your
own way, not rely or depending on nobody else. This
world is. You know, it's word out there and you've

(01:17:38):
got to be willing to face it. And you can't
depend on other people, even when it comes to co saying.
And we know the cash is king. And my baby
girl after college, that's all she wanted to do is
run places with the money, with the money, with the money.
And I told her the money is good to have
and spend, but established yourselves some credit because you can't
depend on people to be co saying for you. When

(01:18:00):
you got like I asked, I said, what you're gonna
do when you get ready get a house. You can't
depend on nobody coaching you trying to get a house. Yeah,
she's picked that value up and they're doing really good
with it. Uh you know, and I'm really I'm really
happy about how they're coming along, you know, And so
I want to tell you that and uh, they're doing

(01:18:21):
really good. And Bill, she's about a year from having it.
Uh that master's in psychology.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
To you too, Yeah, Dad, good job.

Speaker 12 (01:18:33):
Yeah yeah. Yeah. So you know, I want to call
you out and say that that independency and that uh,
you know, established your stablishing yourself for this word out here.
You can't depend on other people.

Speaker 9 (01:18:46):
Take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Thank you, all right, thank you?

Speaker 6 (01:18:52):
Be safe.

Speaker 5 (01:18:52):
Yeah, I think, I think. I think, ladies, we've had
a good discussion today. To wrap up, and I'll start
with Attorney Monika Johnson, what you'd like to say to
our listeners.

Speaker 8 (01:19:03):
Well, I was just thinking about one of the things
that common man was talking about with his daughter or
you know, teaching independence. Let me just say, as a parent,
I understand that we want to do for and give
our children everything that we didn't have, Right, I understand

(01:19:25):
that concept, but we are who we are because life
taught us lessons and we are not allowing our children
to learn the lessons of life. We're rescuing them from it,
which is causing them to be more independent on us
for longer periods of time. When you look at the

(01:19:47):
statistics now, they're showing that more adult children are living
with their parents than ever before. Yeah, you know it's
expensive to you know, purchase a home to move out
and do it. But I think the other p problem
is we've allowed them to be too comfortable right without.
You know, we weren't that comfortable necessarily. You know, we

(01:20:09):
knew that we had to get out here and do
something and make something of ourselves. You know, our parents
can take care of us forever. Well, because this next
generation seemingly has done a little better than the previous generation,
we think it's great to give our children everything. Let
me just say that some lessons you really do have
to learn from life, Yes, and we should not continue.

(01:20:32):
They won't be independent unless we allow them to learn
from life, and that means learning what it feels like
to get a really high interest rate when you go
out here and try to get a car too early,
right right, Learning how to take care of your Sometimes
there are hard lessons. We can try to teach them,
direct them, but allow life to teach them. If not, otherwise,

(01:20:55):
you will be creating what Attorney Woods said, dependent children
for a lifetime.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
That's all, Bab. I'm just happy to be here. I'm
glad to see you.

Speaker 6 (01:21:05):
Gad to see you as well. That's good.

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
Yeah, Attorney Ursler Woods, thank you, beb for always having
us and always being so generous to share with the community.
We talked about creating community, supporting community, and you have
always and consistently been about the community. On Beautiful People Radio.
To just echo the sentiments of our last call erres

(01:21:31):
Plural that teaching life skills is essential. Tory crush Field
sent to us something about that last night. She's over
at a gope just about educating our black men because
the disparity between educated black men and uneducated black men
is growing growing, and she was like, let's do something
about this. Well, I have two sons and I'm definitely

(01:21:52):
doing something about it every single day. And it is
a task because as African Americans, we have an additional
issue of number one discrimination and that shows up in
forms of hiring education. In addition, to police stops and
things like that. You say, well, well they can still
get educated. Well it's another barrier. Okay, too much for

(01:22:15):
us to go into it this hour. But my point is,
moms and dad, it's imperative that we stay with our
black men, our young black men. We keep out on
them so that the streets won't take them, that they
will remain in school. And if you don't have all
the answers, you push for the answers. You have to
be an advocate for your child.

Speaker 9 (01:22:31):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
It's not the time to get so stressed out by
what society is occurring that you're not taking care of
what's occurring at home. So even though we can't always
be and I'm not saying this as a shot, but
even though all of us can't be like a Norman
red wing, you know, we can't all go out and
take care of the community on a massive scale. But
I have nieces that I look after, yes, to make

(01:22:52):
sure that they're getting educated, that they're in law school. Well,
I have some niece in law school. And even though
they're in law school, the support doesn't stop and start
with hey, you can do this, it's hey, what classes
are you taking Okay, it's tough, all right, let me
show you what happened when it was tough for me. Hey, well,
who are you getting your outlines from. It's offering some
level of mentorship even to your children and your children's

(01:23:16):
friends or either their friends. And if you don't like
sometimes you gotta find somebody. Okay, my child want to
go to medical school. I'm not in medical schools, but
I know somebody who is. Ye trying to you know,
make that bridge. All right. So anyway, that's that's my
little public service piece. But as you know, I'm Attorney
Ursula Woods. I practice bankruptcy, real estate and personal injury.

(01:23:36):
So if you hurt, call attorney Earths. If you need
a wheel estate planning attorney Monika Johnson. Our number is
nine zero one five four to one. Help. That's five
four one four three five seven. And the next time
we're on the air, I will be one year older,
I know, right, So we will see you guys on

(01:23:58):
July fourteenth. Will be back on the BEV Johnson Show.

Speaker 6 (01:24:01):
I love it.

Speaker 5 (01:24:02):
I love it, and let me as you mentioned public
service announcement and Norman, you would love this. I wanted
to let I got this information on this evening.

Speaker 7 (01:24:09):
You all.

Speaker 5 (01:24:10):
The Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators will have their
twenty twenty five legislative town hall series going on this
evening at the National Civil Rights Museum, four point fifty
Mulberry Street. It is starting at five to six thirty.
Y'all want to see y'all black legislators from Nashville and

(01:24:32):
Memphis here.

Speaker 8 (01:24:33):
There gonna state representatives, Tennessee Congressional Black I see Black
Caucus State lat They will be at the National Civil
Rights Museum this evening five to six thirty PM.

Speaker 5 (01:24:48):
They're going to talk about civil rights, education, diversity, equity, inclusion.
You know, d Ei, go these folks you voted for,
Go see them, Go talk to them questions. They will
be at the Civil Rights Museum this evening y'all, beginning
at five o'clock.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
That's good, And take your children. When we talk about
life skills, sometimes it's about exposing your children to certain things.
Even if you don't have a question. Is this a
free event? So if it's free and open to the public,
grab your teenager, grab your junior high I know they're
not gonna want to go. It's boring. They're not gonna
want to go, but just having them in the room

(01:25:29):
and exposed. Let's let's let's let's let's come there decent.
Let's not have on bunnets. Let's make sure we have
on something. I'm not saying you got to have on
Sunday's best, but I'm just saying, clean shirt, clean pants, shoels.
It can be sneakers, but let's make sure we're clean
and your hair does not. I'm not saying you have
to go and get your hair done. You can always

(01:25:50):
lay those edges down and slick it back and put
on a headband and keep it moving or half for
our men caps all day long.

Speaker 6 (01:26:00):
I take my scars with me so I can tie my.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Hair up, tie your hair up. Not and not a bunnet.

Speaker 6 (01:26:05):
No bunnet.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
You know, we're with it. And the reason why I
say that is because it's about respect. We have to
under the position of those that are in power unless
at least do that by respecting what we wear.

Speaker 5 (01:26:17):
Yeah, and so the Black Caucus of Legislators, they're looking
for you all this evening, five o'clock, five o'clock National
Civil Rights Museum. Yeah, and it's free and open to
the public. Thank you ladies, and you for getting us out.

Speaker 6 (01:26:32):
That's sist. I see you all next month, see you
next month.

Speaker 5 (01:26:38):
I want to thank you callers, I want to thank
you listeners for joining us this day on the BEV
Johnson Show.

Speaker 6 (01:26:45):
We do, we really do appreciate you.

Speaker 5 (01:26:49):
So until tomorrow, please be safe, keep a cool head, y'all,
don't let anyone steal your joy. Until tomorrow, I'm Bev Johnson,
and y'all keep the faith.

Speaker 12 (01:27:06):
The views and opinions discussed on The BEB Johnson Show
are that of the hosts and callers and not those
of the staff and sponsors of wd I a