When I worked in corporate America, I was serious about my savings and retirement accounts. I needed them to have commas and a minimum number of digits in them. When I left corporate America for a creative career, my commas eventually left me. I've since embarked on a scavenger hunt to find them.
But seriously, though. I'm always interested in ways to generate income and grow my money. And despite my age, I'm not risk-averse. I'm OK with a bit of volatility because I want to maximize my return. I'm also open to investing funds outside of a traditional savings account, 401(k) or IRA as long as I'm not scammed because, like I mentioned, a sis does not play about her money.
That brings me to a few types of financial products we've been hearing a lot about these days, namely Forex, individual investment apps like Robinhood, and most recently, the group economics savings club called sou-sou.
Here's the scoop on all three:
The Tea On Forex
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Forex is shorthand for foreign exchange, which is simply the process of buying one currency while simultaneously selling another one, but in this case, the goal is to make a profit. We're all familiar with the foreign exchange market, especially if we travel internationally or make international purchases. It's the world's most traded market with a daily turnover of $5.1 trillion. (The U.S. trades about $257B per day.) That's the easy part, understanding what it is.
The difficult part, at least for 60% of forex traders, is that it's extremely risky and you can lose all of your money quickly. It would take some real research to know what you're doing. For one, you need to be especially skilled in speculating the direction currencies are likely to take in the future. And two, you'll need to be pretty knowledgeable in the spot market.
The good news is that when you're ready, you can start trading with a minimal amount of money, sometimes as little as $5 to $10. However, some forex brokers require a minimum account deposit of $500 to $1,000. Forex.com has a downloadable guide that introduces you to trading currencies and walks you through your first trade.
Buying stocks as an individual may be a bit safer than forex––or at least it should be. And we should see our money add up, with a few dips and rebounds, over time.
The Tea On Robinhood
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We've heard of apps like Acorns, Stash, Robinhood, and even Cash App where we can buy stocks or buy into portfolios directly from our phones. It's called micro-investing, which means we're only owning a fraction of a stock to begin with because the amount we're investing is much less than the full share price. Micro-investing also means micro results, as Dave Ramsey personality Chris Hogan says. Since you're putting in so little, say the spare change from your morning frappuccino, the return is small. And let's not forget to account for any monthly maintenance fees (not to be confused with $0 commission fees.)
Micro-investing is great for beginning investors who want to educate themselves but it's not a good way to build a retirement fund.
What's particularly interesting, or scary, about Robinhood and apps like it is that some critics consider it to be riskier than gambling, especially for young users, because it allows users to engage in margin trading. Margin trading is an investment option where you use "borrowed" money to trade. NPR recently reported that a 20-year-old may have lost upwards of $730,000 in margin trades. Mind you, a few of these apps have attracted mainly millennials and novice investors with free stock during this pandemic. They just kept on trading with no money. So again, it's important to know the terminology, how much you're spending and how much is physically in your account.
Another thing worth noting about Robinhood is its leaderboard, or a snapshot of the company stocks most Robinhood investors own, can be somewhat misleading or it provides an incomplete picture. It doesn't mean these are hot stocks investors should buy. For example, Hertz car rental was on the leaderboard but that was because tons of inexperienced investors were buying it. Hertz is actually in bankruptcy and had bet on another company buying them. It didn't happen so now Hertz has to scramble for even more funds in order to cover those stock purchases. Any shares Hertz issued after receiving permission from the bankruptcy courts is now worthless. And those Robinhood investors have simply lost their money.
The Tea On Sou-Sou Savings Clubs
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If you're at a point where you say, "To heck with the foreign exchange market and those stocks, I'll stick with cash right now," then let's talk about the sou-sou that everyone's suddenly considering.
The sou-sou originated in West Africa but is widely practiced in African, Caribbean, Latino, and Asian immigrant communities as a way to raise quick money as a group and distribute lump sums to individuals to launch businesses, send kids to college, etc, upfront. I've even heard of an adapted version in the form of a birthday club, where members receive cash on their birthdays, and it's worked well for years.
How it works is that the group appoints one person to collect a set amount of funds from each member (including the collector.) The pool is paid out on a rotating basis to each member on a predetermined schedule. For example, if five individuals contribute $100 every week, then one person receives $500 every week and the cycle starts over after five weeks. It's particularly beneficial to the person who receives the initial payout if they needed it right away; they would've put in $100 and received the first $500 the following week. Granted they would need to put in the second $100 at that point, too, but you get my drift.
In the 2020 version, which surfaced after the rise of the Rona, the rules have changed. This more modern sou-sou requires a $500 contribution plus the introduction of two friends, who will also invest $500 each. In four weeks, the initial investor will receive $4,000.
To many people, this is where it begins to sound a little Ponzi-ish. In fact, The Washington Post posted a story in early August stating that the sou-sou is an illegal pyramid scheme. The article points out that "Eventually, the whole enterprise collapses and the last folks coming in — the wide base of the pyramid — lose their money."
At least in the traditional sou-sou, the math works but in the modern sou-sou, it seems that all of the funds aren't distributed and it raises the questions of who gets that money and what happens when investors leave the group — especially when they get their $4,000 — or no new ones join before current members get their return on their investment? That's both risky and unfair to say the least.
The best and safest way to reap the intended benefits of a sou-sou, in my opinion, is to go in with well-trusted individuals and not a group of iffy or flaky strangers.
Working as a freelance creative forces me to find different ways to earn money. Living in the thick of a pandemic forces us all to find ways to save and grow our money. Trust, I get that the uncertainty of it all does tempt us to want to try clever ways to maintain or reclaim those commas in our bank accounts. But it's also important for us to fully understand the pros and cons of these financial products if we want to keep those commas coming.
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While speaking to xoNecole, Eva shares that she’s a lot like the beloved 1994 character in many ways. “Lyric is so me. She's the odd flower. A flower nonetheless, but definitely not a peony,” she tells us.
“She's not the average flower you see presented, and so she reminds me of myself. I'm a sunflower, beautiful, but different. And what I loved about her character then, and even more so now, is that she was very sure of herself.
"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
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Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Fortunately, five simple words have simplified my dating process and ushered in clarity faster: “Would my husband do this?”
A couple of years ago, I met an entertainment lawyer who was tonguing down a twenty-something-year-old woman for breakfast while I slurped my green smoothie and chomped on a flatbread sandwich. Okay, Black love, I grinned and thought as I sauntered out of the Joe & The Juice. As soon as I stepped down from the front door, a torrential downpour of Miami summer rain cascaded and throttled me back inside to wait out the storm.
I grabbed a hot green tea and vacillated between peering out the wet door and anxiously checking my watch. My lengthy agenda started with attending the Tabitha Brown and Chance Brown’s “Black Love” panel, and I was already late. That’s when the lawyer introduced himself to me, after he made a joke about neither one of us wanting to get soaked by the rain. His female companion had braved the storm, leaving us to find our commonalities.
We both lived in L.A. and had traveled to the American Black Film Festival to expand our network. He represented various artists, including entertainment writers, while I was working as a writer/creative producer in Hollywood.
While there is no shortage of internet advice on how to strategically meet a prominent man at conferences, if I spend my hard-earned funds on career growth, I have tunnel vision, and that doesn’t include finding Mr. Right. So, I stowed his contact details away as strictly professional.
Keep It Cute Love And Hip Hop GIFGiphyAs the humidity and mosquitoes were rising around L.A., two months later, another suitor-turned-terrible match cooled off after three unimpressive dates and a bevy of red flags. I posted what some of my friends called a thirst trap, but it was really me wearing a black freakum jumpsuit with a plunging neckline to my friend’s 35th birthday soiree despite feeling oh, so unsexy and bloated on my cycle.
I’d been waiting to post a sassy caption and finally had the perfect picture to match: “You not asking for too much, you just asking the wrong MF.”
That’s when the entertainment lawyer swooped into my DMs and asked me to dinner. I was quite confused. Is he asking me on a date? Or is this professional? Common sense would’ve picked the former. Once it clicked that this would in fact be a date, I told my mentor, who’s been happily married for over twenty years and has often been a guiding light and has steered me away from the wrong men.
Upon telling him about how we met, he emphatically stated, “He ain’t it.” He followed up with a simple question, "You have to ask yourself: Would my husband do this? Would you tell others that you met your husband, tonguing down another woman, and later married him?"
Aint It No Way GIF by UFCGiphyOuch. The thought-provoking question cleared any haze. Prior to going out with the lawyer, the first thing I inquired about was the woman.
“You saw that?” He said, taken aback that I’d witnessed his steamy PDA. Surely, anyone with two open eyes peeped him caressing her backside as he kissed her in the middle of the coffee shop.
He brushed her off as a casual someone he’d gone on a couple of dates with but had since stopped talking to. He said he hadn’t been in a serious relationship in over three years. Though I was still doubtful, dating in L.A. is treacherous and ephemeral. Making it past three months is considered a rarity.
With my antennae alert, I dined with him at a cozy beachside steakhouse restaurant where we were serenaded by a live jazz band. I’d emphasized forming a platonic friendship first.
Break Up Friendship GIF by TLCGiphy“I’ll come to you,” he obliged. I liked that he had made me a priority by driving over 50 miles to see me. I also liked the effort he made to check in with me daily. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he initiated on a professional pretense and then alley hooped through the back door on a romantic venture, which bombarded me with confusion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my dating life, God is not the author of confusion; any man who brings confusion, rather than clarity, is simply not The One. It doesn’t matter how many boxes he checks–eventually, that confusion will manifest itself into bigger problems, in time.
After diving into deeper conversations on the phone, post our first dinner date, I quickly realized this man was indeed not The One for me. But I’m grateful for the valuable lesson I learned.
I don’t expect some unattainable fairytale of a husband; we all have our own flaws and conflict is inevitable, but after dating for two decades, through failure and success, I’ve realized that the person I ultimately marry must mirror the values I exert into the world. He must reciprocate kindness, patience, and respect. He must be quick to listen and slow to respond. He needs to be forgiving and trustworthy, practice healthy communication, and be a man of his word at the bare minimum.
If I’d had “Would my husband do this?” in my toolbox when I was dating and floundering in stagnant relationships, in my twenties, it would’ve saved me a lot of precious time. But now that I’m equipped with the reminder, it’s allowed me to ground myself in my non-negotiables and set/maintain the standard for the special person, I’ll one day say, “I do,” to.
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