September 30, 2021 • 47 mins
The LatinX Heritage Month celebration continues as Dramos dives into educating our community on their relationships with money, how historically our community has been behind others with our financial literacy and he is joined by entrepreneur Ada Rojas of the multi-million dollar brand Botanika Beauty to discuss healing our money traumas and tips for starting a business.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
He said, you live in life as Ingle, where you
question when you fit in every time you mingo, they
say you do this with not really Yes. Hello and
welcome to another episode of Life as a Gringo with
Me Dramas. Of course, we are still in the midst
(00:31):
of Latin ex Heritage Month, and as I've been doing
all month long, our Thursday episodes are specifically geared at
speaking to our community, whether that is in the form
of celebrating our community or like we're doing it today show,
which is educating our community. And this is an incredibly
(00:52):
important topic and and one that I think is beneficial
for anyone, but specifically when we're talking about the Latin community.
It's something that has plagued us for far too long,
and people of color in general in this country. And
that is the idea of money and our relationship with money,
and our lack of education when it comes to money.
(01:12):
So I'm really excited to dive into all of this
with you guys, because I'll be real, the the second
that I got my my money right, my life drastically changed.
And when I talked about getting your money right, not
just talking about making more money, I'm also talking about
educating yourself and doing the hard process of things like
repairing your credit and how to invest your money and
(01:33):
all that kind of stuff. And I'm not gonna pretend
like I'm an expert on this, but I'm gonna give
you my perspective, and I'm also going to play for
y'all the interview that I actually did a couple of
months ago that was supposed to be from my television
show and I never actually used the full interview and
full just timing wise didn't work out. But it was
probably one of my most favorite conversations that I have had,
(01:54):
and like it usually does, it came from probably one
of the more unexpected places. I mean, I love having
conversations with people who are like outside of my own
kind of world, if you will write, like, I'm not
their target audience, but there's still so much I can
learn from them, and this was one of those instances.
So I'm talking about a conversation that I had with
Ada Rojas, who is uh the founder of the million
(02:16):
dollar company but Donic Got Beauty, which she actually ended
up selling I believe this last year. She now runs
a brand called the Sena Gretur, and she's just generally
a serial entrepreneur. But her conversation with me was so
moving because she was talking about, you know, a conversation
that I feel like those sort of unspoken far too often,
(02:38):
and that is what to do once you actually start
making money, you know what I mean. And also the
idea of healing like these wounds, this trauma that many
of us have when it relates to money. I know
that I do personally, you know, remembering so many days
that I was broke, and and now as an adult
and somebody who's luckily in a place where I'm steadily
(02:59):
you know, getting a check. Uh, I still kind of
bear some of those stresses and some of that trauma
of like being broken. It it scares me until this day.
I still get nervous that, like my credit cards are
gonna decline or something like that, just for no reason.
It could be a I'm buying milk at the you know,
convenience store down the street, and I get like this
nervous feeling what if it declines, you know, just because
I've been there before and it's something that I'm trying
(03:20):
to get over. And we talked about that in this conversation,
and and as I was like thinking about what I
wanted to kind of bring to the table with with
this episode. Um, it just kept coming back to this
conversation that I felt like doesn't happen enough in our community,
and and specifically this conversation had with all of that
was just so so moving from me, Um, And I
think a lot of y'all will get a lot of
(03:41):
value out of that. So I want to make sure
I brought it to you guys, because I think a
lot of you are also newer listeners and new followers
of what I've been doing, and I want to make
sure that I was able to play kind of this
conversation that I had with her in full for for
a whole new audience. So I'm really excited for you
all to hear that. But before that, though, we'll talk
about the lack of unity in this country and their
(04:01):
relationship with money historically as we do our deep dive
in a segment we call for the people in the back,
for the people in the back, back bay, a lot
for the people in the the people in the back,
(04:26):
al right, So I am blessed that, you know, my
parents definitely passed down a lot of knowledge to me
and an overall, you know, I feel like helped me
become a pretty well adjusted human being. But one thing
they did not pass down to me was financial literacy,
financial knowledge in general. And to be quite honest, you know,
they did the best they could with with what they
(04:47):
were given, but they were trying to figure it out
themselves just as well, you know. So for me and
for our generation, my my goal is to educate us,
you know, have ourselves be educated on this so we
can break some of these generational curses that plague us. UM.
And I found this really interesting article. Uh. It's from
Urban Dot organ and they talk about four financial challenges
(05:11):
facing Hispanic Americans. And I know we're having like the
great debate about the word Hispanic and Latin and all that, um,
but that's just the name of the article and how
they describe it. So for the sake of this article,
I'm just gonna read it as is. Uh. And the
good thing about this article is that has actually written
right before the pandemic hit and and if you're and
if you've been paying attention, you know the pandemic, especially
(05:32):
hit black and brown communities in a really detrimental way.
But the reality is our finances were dot in order
even before that, generally speaking, So I want to run
through the list that they have here, uh, just to
kind of get us all on the same page. We
can kind of educate ourselves on on what the problem
is that they can order to fix something, you also
have to identify what the issue is first and foremost.
All Right, So the first thing they list is, uh,
(05:53):
Hispanic families own fewer financial assets than non Hispanic white families.
And they go on to say that though Hispanic households
hold comparable amounts of debt with non Hispanic white families,
they have fewer financial assets. The typical Hispanic or Latino
family has about twenty dollars in net Worth, where non
Hispanic families have a little over a hundred thousand dollars.
(06:17):
According to Lisa that Links senior economists at the Board
of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Holy shit, I'm like,
I'm reading this and I am fucking baffled and blown
with hold on it. So, the typical Latin family has
twenty thousand dollars in net Worth, where non Hispanic families
(06:42):
have a little over a hundred thousand dollars. We have
to do better y'all like that is fucking insane, you know.
And obviously some of it is by design the way
that that this country um operates, but at the same time,
we gotta take some responsibility in this tool. Oh my goodness.
(07:05):
It goes on to say that that data from the
Survey of Consumer Finances show that Hispanics are behind most
substantially in investments in direct stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
and in retirement savings ten thousand dollars in direct stocks, bonds,
and mutual funds and twenty two dollars in retirement savings
compared with sixty and sixty five thousand dollars respectively for
(07:29):
non Hispanics. But one thing they left out as well.
I feel like when it comes to investments and its
real estate. That was for me one of the biggest
things when I was was wanting to purchase my first home.
I didn't want to just buy a house, you know,
that I would live in. I wanted to buy a
property that I also made me money, you know. So
I ended up buying an investment property of mixed use properties.
(07:52):
So with the property that I purchased, I actually have
a tenant. I have a store from where I have
a tenant who rents that, and then I have a
residential part of it in the back where I actually
lived of and that was by design. Now, listen, would
it have been nice to like flex with the whole
house to myself, you know what I'm saying on Instagram
and all that kind of stuff, of course, but I
wanted to think for the for the long run, like
I basically have somebody else paying my mortgage for me,
(08:15):
and that means that I'm able to then save more money.
I'm able to invest now in other things. And that
was the point of getting an investment property. It's not
the sexiest looking property, I'll tell you that right now,
but I own it and it makes me money, and
that's the key. I found a way to make my
money work for me, and that's something I definitely was
not taught growing up. It was not until I started
working at the Breakfast club and you know, heard DJ
(08:37):
and be talking about all this stuff that it was
even on my radar. So you're talking the last four years, um,
and it's actually probably even less than that, uh, to
be honest with you. So that wasn't even on my radar. Now,
moving on from from assets. The next thing they talk
about is, uh, young Hispanics are adding to their student
loan debt, but not to their savings. Goes on to
(08:58):
say that since it's two thousand eight recession, the number
of Hispanic families holding educational debt increased five point three
percentage points, with one in five Hispanic households nineteen holding
some college debt in sixteen. According to Stephanie her Mom,
senior policy analysts at Unigo's US but Aman compared this
(09:21):
with the decline in the average assets held by Hispanic
families over the same period, which failed by twenty seven thousand,
eight hundreds. So we're accumulating more student loan debt and
even less assets. And I can relate to this as well,
Like I have student loans that I'm still paying off,
you know what I mean. Like my family didn't have
a college fund set up for me, you know what
I'm saying. Like nobody was preparing for the future when
(09:43):
it came to that kind of stuff. You know. Um,
the idea was, oh, when you go to college, you'll
take out a bunch of loans and that'll be how
you pay for it. And and man, yeah, first of all,
it's gonna get me started on a whole subject of
why college is not for everyone. You know, I really
paid to get very expensive piece of paper that really
has not helped me whatsoever in the job market. Um,
(10:05):
But you know, hindsight, obviously, and especially coming from my household,
the idea of not going to college wasn't really an
option for for myself or my sister, but financially did
not make sense, especially when you're talking about there was
no preparation for my parents when it came to how
the hell we were actually gonna pay for college. But again,
obviously there are the things that were not passed down,
(10:25):
knowledge that was not passed down from generation and generation. Now,
the third thing to talk about is financial literacy is
exacerbating a history of vulnerability to predatory lending. Yes, financial
literacy understanding how finances work now it says uh Now,
says Gary Are, research director at the Financial Industry Regulatory
(10:49):
Authority Investor Education Foundations, destroy that damn name of my goodness,
presented findings from the f I n r A Foundations
and National Financial Capable Ability Study okay, which shows Hispanic
people trailing non Hispanic white people in financial literacy, with
only twenty eight percent falling into the category of high
(11:10):
financial literacy, compared to forty three and thirty eight percent
for white and Asian Americans respectively. Dam So, that means
that when you talk about white people, when you talk
about Asian Americans in this study, they almost double us
in the amount of people that actually have high financial literacy,
that are actually educated on how money works, how finances work. Now,
(11:32):
it goes on to say that financial illiteracy, combined with
high numbers with limited English proficiency, may leave Hispanic Americans
susceptible to the predatory lending. Matala explained that the share
of Hispanic people who have used predatory loans in the
past five years, such as auto or pay day loans,
were double that of white people. Damn so we are
(11:53):
getting taken advantage of double that of white people because
we are not educated. And it goes on to say
that this problem is also not new. According to mom, historically,
Latinos have faced challenges and accessing safe and affordable financial
products and services. We also this explains why most of
(12:14):
us don't have an education on how the money works
and how to make it work for us, especially if
you're talking about people who are first and second generation.
Maybe your parents did not speak English fluently or spoke
English as a second language. And that's what's talking about,
is that a lot of these loans, uh took advantage
of the fact that our parents or their parents didn't
(12:35):
speak the language well enough to really understand what they
were signing up for, you know, high interest rates, all
those kinds of things that really, if you're not careful,
can get you in a hole. I mean, my mom
even tells a story that my grandmother never even had
a credit card because she didn't trust it, you know
what I'm saying, Like, so, how the funk was she
supposed to pass on, you know, financial literacy to my
(12:56):
mother when she literally didn't understand like how credit works.
She just paid cash with everything. And then on top
of that, what they ended with talking about how Latinos
have faced challenges, you know, in accessing affordable financial products
and services. Yeah, of course, because it's also been racism involved.
And who runs the banks, you know what I'm saying,
it's not Latinos handing out these loans. So we haven't
(13:17):
historically been approved for loans and been like top candidates,
you know what I mean. So we've had to succumb
to taking loans from places that knew that we were desperate,
and they took advantage of it. So it's no surprise
or no shock or why we are behind other ethnicities
in this country. Now, the last thing they say is
that Hispanics faced unique challenges to both short and long
(13:41):
term savings. On short term savings, dead links findings show
that only fift of Hispanic families have three months of
living expenses saved and easily accessible accounts, compared with for
of non Hispanic families. Yo, my goodness, non his families
in this country are doubling us in the amount of
(14:04):
people that have three months worth of savings, like three
months worth of living expenses saved in an account somewhere.
It goes on to say, and this is obvious. This
leaves Hispanic family is vulnerable during emergencies such as property
damage from a natural disaster or like we saw in COVID.
And I think, just like the overall gist of this
stuff is like, man, we just have to educate ourselves
(14:27):
better on how things fucking work, you know. And and
I'm not saying that it's all and that it's all
our fall I mean, obviously there's been so many systems
in place, especially when I was talking about like the
idea of who's getting a proof for loans and all
that stuff. But at the same time, listen, our generation,
we have no excuse, Like all the education is out there,
you know, we know about these things. It's actually a
(14:48):
part of pop culture to talk about your credit and
investments in real estate and all these different things like
that's normal, that's that's something cool quote unquote to talk
about right now, So there's no excuse. I think a
lot of times we fall victim to, you know, trying
to give off the impression of wealth instead of actually
having wealth. And I talked about that in my conversation
with Ada, but it really is like we're more concerned
(15:10):
with with looking wealthy and like pretending like we're keeping
up with the Joneses than actually taking the time to
understand what it really means to be wealthy. And with
that said, I think now is a great time to
hop into this conversation that I had with Ada Rojas
and being excited for y'all to hear this. I think
it's definitely gonna break a lot of the things that
we're talking about or a lot of things that we
all kind of struggle with. It's definitely gonna humanize it
(15:32):
a bit here, So I'm excited for y'all to hear it.
We'll get into that in just a minute, but first
let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
All right. So, as a part of this conversation about
getting your money right, as we celebrate Latin X Heritage Month,
(15:52):
let's talk to somebody who has done it, somebody from
our community who not only built a multimillion dollar business,
then went on to sell it and now it's starting
a brand new one. How you feeling, I'm good. How
are you? I'm good? Thank you. First of all, thank
you so much for propping I know you're a busy woman.
You got a million one things going on, so I
appreciate you hopping out me to thank you for having
(16:14):
me of course. So I mean, listen, I saw something
that you had posted that I found to be super
interesting where you talked about you know, we we all
see these things of like apt positive informations and you know,
trying to people telling you, oh, entrepreneurship and all this stuff,
but realizing that for you know, our our white counterparts
here in this country that looks a bit different for
us because we're also dealing with generations of trauma and
(16:36):
amongst other things. So I mean, would you mind kind
of expounding upon this work that you feel like people
of color have to do before they even start trying
to tackle this whole generational wealth concept. Yeah. So on
my Instagram I shared a pulse. I actually took a
beginner's stock market course last weekend and it just kind
of blew my mind open to all this new information,
and it made me want to shift the way that
(16:56):
I'm moving with my money and just the way that
I'm even moving in my business and I'm moving personally.
And one of the things that we discussed and in
the class, because it was led by a woman of color,
was how even before we can start discussing investing, even
before we start talking about all these mindset shifts when
it comes to just affirmations and and and scarcity mindset
versus a Thriver's mindset, we have to address the fact
(17:17):
that we have a lot of trauma that has been
passed down to us from generation to generation because we
come from poverty and because we come from scarcity, So
that that fact alone, just it's like, we have so
much work to do before we can even arrive at
the point of thinking of investing, before we can even
arrive at the point of thinking of home ownership. And
I just think it's important to address those things and
(17:38):
really work on our money wounds, work on that trauma,
do the healing, because it's just impossible for you to
even start those those steps and begin those processes without
addressing that. And it does make it harder for us,
but it doesn't make it impossible. And I think the
more that we openly talk about it and discuss it,
the more it's gonna become a thing. You know. Yeah,
I mean, what's interesting about that? And not sure if
(18:00):
this is exactly how you meant it, but you know,
having conversations with different people in my life and you know,
talking about kind of idea of chasing that hungry ghost
almost you know what I mean, You're always chasing this
thing that you never had. I think it's it's interesting,
you know when you say that, it almost you know,
kind of makes you realize, like wow, when we get money,
you know, and people of color get money, whether it's
in the entertainment inustry, all these things. We end up
(18:21):
kind of squandering a lot of times on these dumb
things that we think kind of represent wealth. And it
probably is, you know, a factor in this trauma that
we've had of seeing all these other people kind of
having these grandiose things. We've never had them. So now
we get into a position to possibly win for the
first time, and now we're just kind of squandering on
these dumb things that we really don't need because in
(18:42):
our mind, that's what actual wealth is, you know, And
we don't have the knowledge to understand not only how
to create wealth, but how to keep wealth. And and
that's another thing that we see a lot. We see
a lot with whether it's our families, whether maybe our
grandparents were entrepreneurs or created some sort of wealth from
our family, but that they pass it down to our parents,
and our parents didn't know how to manage the wealth
(19:03):
and keep it going. So there's just a lack of
information resources knowledge within our community that it's like, not
only don't we really know how to create wealth, we
don't know how to keep it within the family as well. Yeah,
and it's sadly that's not spoken about enough, right, there's
so much talk about building wealth and tactic for doing it,
but the idea of keeping it, which obviously probably isn't
I guess as sexy as the idea of getting rich,
(19:24):
but equally or if not more important, you know. I mean,
I think I was reading Thinking Grow Rich, and in
that book he talks about how a lot of times
people when they get a raised, let's say, in their
normal job, their expenses go up because they start giving
themselves more and more relished to spend more money. And
what happens with that is you never end up actually growing,
just keep staying at the same place because that extra
money is now going towards new expenses that you didn't
(19:46):
have before, and you don't necessarily need correct And it's
like we we think, oh, we've made it, so now
we we have to completely change their lifestyle. No, it
find a ways to still operate because the cool thing
or not the cool thing. But I think the innovative
thing about us pouring the way that we grew up
is that we know how to make a daughter out
of fifteen cents. We know how to be creative. It
(20:06):
forced us to be creative as how to be able
to get the same results that are white counterparts have
gotten right, and we just we know how to work hard,
we know how to make things happen, we know how
to be creative. So kind of like always holding onto
that even as you start to elevate in your life,
even as your financial status starts to elevate, and really
find ways to make your money work for you instead
of continuing to work harder, really work smarter. Yeah, I
(20:28):
mean you actually touched on something incredibly importantly, like living
in La Brega, right, Like that's like this thing that
we hold on to, Like it's this point of to
be something to be proud of, right, being able to
make something out of nothing at all times. But the
reality is, and this was from a podcast I believe
it was w N y C did it, But um,
the reality is, we shouldn't allow ourselves to get so
used to living in the struggle, you know, because then
(20:49):
we just start normalizing the struggle as if that's how
we are supposed to live, as opposed to saying, yes
we can, you know, you know, live in the struggle.
But the goal should be to never have to go
back to that, right, that should be bigger picture going. Unfortunately, instead,
we like idolize this idea that we can survive anything,
you know, absolutely, and that's where addressing your money moves
come from, and really realizing the difference between operating from
(21:10):
a scarcity mindset and a thriving mindset. So this morning,
I was actually having a great conversation with my accountant,
and I was telling him how I worked so hard
to get to this financial point in my life, Like
I've been cleaning up just a lot of message that
I've made in my early twenties because I just didn't
know any better. And now I'm also building another business
at the same time. So there's a lot of money
coming in, but that money is going out, whether it's
(21:31):
paying for taxes, whether it's paying for my inventory and
things like that, and it's scary, and I'm constantly reminding myself, Okay,
the money is going out, but there's more money coming
It's okay, Like you know, and again going back to
those the way that we were raised, that these things
have been passed down to us from generation to generations.
So it's not gonna happen overnight where you suddenly wake
up one day and you're like, my money is good,
(21:52):
my mindset is good, I'm good. No those triggers are
gonna keep coming up, and so you have to identify
them and then learn to like talk to yourself and
be like, no, you're good, there's more money coming. What's scared.
You're actually hitting on something I'm personally have been going
through because I recently just bought my my first home,
and obviously within that there's so many expenses that coming.
But I'm so scarred from not having money that any
(22:13):
time I spend it, I feel guilty. I feel like
I get anxious. I can't even enjoy this process and
having like furnishing my home and doing all these things,
because every time I spend money, I'm I get just
like this feeling of anxiety. I remember what it was
like to not have anything, to be counting every penny,
and it's like it's it's a really incredible thing that
I never even had to think about until now that
I'm realizing how much trauma trying to get over myself
percy as well. Yeah, and you know what, what has
(22:35):
health a lot, and this is I've always been a
huge advocate for mental health. I've been I've had an
amazing relationship with my therapist who's also lapping as well
for the last eight years, and this money conversation came
up in my therapy session and this week. So it's
like it's so important to have these this team, right,
you have your accounting, you have your lawyer, you have
your your therapists to really walk you through these things
(22:57):
because these are all new experiences that we've never been
through before. And that's like first, we're we're you're probably
the first homeowner in your family, right or I'm sure
like there's a lot of first that you're conquering that
your parents have property in my family for sure, yes,
And it's a whole new, new new mindset. So just
having like to be able to talk to my therapist
about these money wounds and for her to identify and
(23:18):
remind me that like, hey, like you you're not your money.
Like if something happens that you want to lose your
money overnight, guess what you have all the skills and
the talent to make that money back. And you know,
it was such a huge reminder. Yeah, no, that that
that's absolutely beautiful, and like these conversations so important because
I feel like they get lost in the whole shuffle
of what is the more fascinating thing when it comes
(23:39):
to building wealth. But you know, this whole idea of
what happens when you get it, you know, it's a
whole another conversation definitely needs to be addressed. So I mean,
as we wrap up the last thing, I want to,
you know, I want to touch on a lot of
things that you're doing. I mean, you you're obviously making
it your purpose to educate people. I mean you've had
a very you know, successful career in business thus far. Uh,
and it's beautiful to see that you're kind of giving
(24:00):
this back and trying to give back this information to
people and make it a point. So I mean, let's
kind of talk about the work that you're doing. What
are some of the things you're more excited about they're
working at right now? Well, right now, I actually exited
from my last company, which is both on in Communia.
Exited from that company this year, and I for the
last two years, I have been working on my other business,
which is Masina Katore and Massina Katore is basically a
(24:21):
maid to order collection of comfortable classes. So I wanted
to I always remember, like when my great grandmother passed,
we all fall over her bath that she would wear
at home, and I was like, damn, like, who's making
batas for us? Like, you know, like the bat that
is such like a matriarch wardrobe stable, right, and especially
with us working from home now, like I'm always in
baptist I'm always in a robe, and so I wanted
(24:42):
to make like batas for us the future matriarchs, while
honoring the woman who came before us. So that's what
we've seen A coat is about. But even with that,
I understand that again there's there's so much there's no access,
there's no knowledge about how do you really build the
business from the ground up and you have how do
you build it where you have everything in play so
that you can scale and you're not scaling into that
(25:02):
how do you build it to where it's profitable? How
do you build it to to Like so, because I've
just learned so much in my business journey, the way
that I'm building and growing this business is completely different
in the way that I've done other businesses because I
just have so much more knowledge and expertise now. So
I'm really making it a point to bring the community
with me along on this journey and sharing as many
things as I can. Um So hopefully help other entrepreneurs
(25:25):
because I know if I would have known the things
that I know now, I probably wouldn't have made as
many mistakes in my business. So, for example, recently, I
did an Instagram live with one of my lawyers, she's
a small business lawyer apple a female as well, and
we did you know, like the common mistakes that you
should be avoiding when starting your business? And I think like,
how different would my life be if I would have
came across the video like that a few years ago?
(25:47):
How different would my businesses be set up if I
knew that information? And it's basic information to someone like me,
someone like my lawyer, but it's not basic information to
someone who's just starting out their business. So I'm really
passionate it about just educating and sharing all of my
personal experiences and things that I've grown and taking really
my lessons, taking those elves, turning them into lessons, and
(26:08):
sharing those gems back with the community. No. I love
that a right, So before you get out of here,
are there like three quick things? Like anybody interested in
starting a business, are there three precursores that they should
be thinking about on their radar right now when they're
trying to make the most of this moment or trying
to bounce back right now and starting their entrepreneur journey.
So the number one thing when you're starting a business,
you always want to be solving a problem. So identify
(26:31):
where what's a problem right now in your life? Like,
is it a service problem? Is there a service that
exists that doesn't exist that you're like, this would be
a great service. Is there a product that doesn't exist
that you're like, this would be a great product, and
you already know that there's a market need for that.
Kind of identify and solve a problem right now, and
then work backwards from that, find the target audience and
and that's how you start. If you're sitting on a
(26:51):
little bit of extra money, you don't want to work
and build a business, look into the stock market. How
can you invest that money and make that money work
for you? Um, I mean there's so many things that
you're looking to make some a little bit money. Look
at what what side hustle can you pick up right
now that can make you some money, whether it's baking cakes.
In college, I used to bake Betty Crocker cakes and
sell them for twenty dollars for people's birthdays. You know,
(27:13):
I used to buy everything for four dollars and then
make that money back. So like, identified where can you
make a little better money, Even if it's like you know,
the door dash and things like that, there's money to
make right now, and so I know times are hard,
but really start to identifying what problem can you solve
if you have money, how can you make that money
work for you? Or what side hustle can you pick
up right now to make some more money? Beautiful level,
(27:35):
I appreciate you hopping on here. I would love to
catch up with you somewhere down the line and keep
hearing more about what you're working on and this new brand.
I wish your best luck with it. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it. I just love that conversation with with Ada.
Even just hearing that back from me, It's just a
good refresher on like the mindsets that I need to
begin to adjust and continue working on, because it's always
(27:55):
gonna be an ongoing process to kind of correct some
of these past traumas and experiences that we've all gone through. Um.
But yeah, I love that conversation with her. I hope
it was as helpful for y'all as it was for me.
With that said, speaking of y'all, let's take some questions
from my fellow gringos and our asked a gringos segment
before that, though, we're gonna take a quick break and
we will be right back. Ask alright, so as we
(28:24):
continue on this conversation discussing our relationship with money or
lack there of, of course, I had to pose a
question to y'all via my Instagram at the DJ dramas
if you'll want to be a part of the conversation.
I posted to my Instagram stories for each and every episode, um,
and I just kind of left this one pretty open
and uh, and it basically was just, um, your biggest
(28:47):
questions concerns, fears, or feelings surrounding money. And I got
some dope responses on here that I want to get
to a few of them on the On the show today,
the first question was from at Jack Swan and uh.
He asked, Uh, how do you save like six of
your check? This is a great question and I'm still
(29:07):
trying to figure that out myself. I know, I was
watching something today where they were talking about like billionaires
live off of like of their check or something like that. UM. Personally,
I am not in that tax bracket yet where I
can only live off of of my check. But one
thing that has been helpful for me is, UM, every
single pay check that I get. And I'm not sure
(29:29):
if I've mentioned this before on the podcast, so forgive
me if I have, But UM, every single paycheck that
I get, whatever I get paid for, I always put
aside ten percent into my savings account. UH. And that's
that's like non negotiable. There's no way going around that.
You know, UM, that ten percent always, always always goes
(29:50):
in there. As soon as I get that direct depositives
as it hits on a Friday, I transfer that money
into my savings account and I leave it alone. I
don't touch it unless, of course, as an emergency or
something like that. But the idea is that ten percent
of that check will always automatically going to savings. My
goal is to UM, definitely move up on that percentage.
I'd like to double it in the very near future.
(30:10):
And then obviously you save even more money as well
going down the road. UM, and hopefully that'll that will
work out me right now, just you know, just bought
the house this year, So a lot of expenses that
come along with that, um, the effects of the fucking
hurricane that happened. So I definitely had to dip a
bit into my savings and I'm not able to put
away as much as I wanted to. But I've definitely
tricked my brain into enjoying putting that money away. You
(30:35):
like that same high I would have gotten from going
out and buying a pair of sneakers. Um, I'm tricking
my brain to be just excited about saving that ten percent.
So I would just say to you, I mean, don't
think you have to be so drastic as to save
and listen if you're in a position where you can
do that. I mean, if there's anybody young enough here
that's listening and you're still living at home. You don't
gotta pay rent, you don't got no real bills, you know,
(30:56):
the car payment, and like that, YO, save as much
as you possibly can, uh, and you'll be thanking yourself
later on in life when you are miles ahead of
your friends. Um. But yeah, I mean, listen, you gotta
figure out what works for you when it comes to that.
For me right now, ten percent. Um. But again, you
know as things kind of slow down with the expenses,
I'm gonna try and push that even further and and
(31:18):
try and start saving even more money and cut back
on a bunch of my expenses. So, um, yeah, whatever
works for you, but but definitely set that number and
do not let yourself wiggle out of it. That money
is no longer your temper cent of my paycheck does
not belong to me. It belongs to my saviors account.
And that's the way I view it. Let's see, I
like this one from at Brand J Life Coaching. I
(31:39):
think I got your name right. Finally, I appreciate the
level of support. You've been a real one. You asked,
how do you make money not scary? That's a good
question because I've been scared and petrified of money the
majority of my entire life. I have never man had
a great relationship with money. Um, even till this day,
(32:00):
I still live with some of that. I mentioned it
in my conversation with Ada. You know, Um, even though
things are good right now, I still get this anxiety
and and it's like just you know, nervousness that um,
too much money is going out or something like that.
Even though I'm being pretty smart of the money these days, UM,
I just don't live with that same kind of kind
of fear. But I think one thing I read recently
(32:21):
and I can't remember where where it was, what book
it was, or what author it was, but uh, they
were just it was. I think it was a like
a thing on stoicism. I can't remember which exact speaker was,
but um, just talking about like, you know, money and
wealth and all that. You have to look at it
as just like a tool. You know, it's not the
be all, end all obviously in the world that we
(32:43):
live in, it's necessary to not die right and to
be able to provide for your family and to keep
food on the table and a roof over your head.
But um, again it's it's a tool to do all that.
You know, Um, it can't be the end all goal
when you do things I think, Um, it can't be
the end all priority in your life. Like it is
(33:03):
just a tool like any other tool that you have
in your life. Like we really just broke it down
like a knife and a fork in my kitchen. You
know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna be like, you know,
losing sleep over a knife and a fork in my
kitchen because I have a mindset like, yeah, that's just
a tool that I need to eat my food when
it's time to eat dinner, you know what I mean,
and and nothing more, nothing less. And obviously it's a
(33:23):
little easier said than done when it comes to something
like money, which really has such a profound impact on
our quality of life on a daily basis. But you know,
the more we can train train our mind to not
give this thing so much power over us, um, the
better off will be in the happier will be. Again,
money is in fact just a tool to do some
(33:43):
of the things that we want to do in this life,
or to provide some of the things that we need,
uh in this life to stay healthy. And I think
the more we can drill that into our brain and
remind ourselves that it's just a tool, it is not
the goal at all, um, I think the better our
relationship with money will be and they'll be a lot
less scarier. You know, when we have to maybe spend
money on some unexpected things, um that happened in everyday life,
(34:07):
you know, will be grateful that we have this tool
accessible to us, uh, in order to take care of
a problem, provide a solution. And again, I know it's
easier said than domb, but that is the healthier way
to view money. And I think as close as you
can get to training your brain to automatically go there,
the better off you'll be. All Right, let's see last
one right here at cross Underscore, Souls asked, how do
(34:32):
you start to save money? I'm terrible at it, and
I'm learning it's super important to save. Yeah, I mean
that's a that's an understatement right there. It is and
uh necessary to save. I think for me, I had
to get really clear on like what type of life
I wanted to lead, you know, Like I was tired
(34:54):
of being the dude that had on like a fresh outfit,
you know, every time he went out somewhere, but like
was budgeting, you know, how much money he could spend
at the bar that night when he was out, you
know what I mean. Where it was like, Okay, I
know I have um a hundred dollars in my checking account,
so let me make sure that my bar tab doesn't
go over eighty bucks just in case. Like, you know,
(35:17):
that's a terrible way to live, you know what I mean,
Like I was tired of living that way. I can't
remember even when like fucking uh, we would go on
these trips. Um, like my my group of friends when
I got into radio. Um, you know, we would take
these trips out for like networking and things like that.
And uh. One of the trips that we would always
take was going to Vegas. And I can remember every year,
(35:38):
once we started leading up to the time to get
to Vegas, I would have to go crazy hustling trying
to make my spending money for the trip because my
account was paycheck to paycheck. So whatever I could find
to flip during that time, anything I had around my house,
I would flip it and to make the whatever three
or four hunds that I would need to have for
my spending money for that weekend, That's what I would do.
(36:00):
But again, you I started realizing why do I want
to do this to myself that anytime I want to
do something after go into this panic mode of figuring
it out and like hustling for um, you know, the
rest of the weeks selling all my ship just to
like pay for this one thing. I would say. One
of the things that is, you know, a is the
Vegas ship really a priority to you? And if it
is like for me at that time my career where
(36:21):
it got me out there networking with a lot of
different people in the music industry, which was, um, you know,
really beneficial for my career. So obviously that was a
priority at that time, you know. Um. I then had
to think to myself, Okay, well, how do I make
this a bit easier? You know, So what am I
doing the rest of the year. So if I know
throughout the year I got one or two big trips
that are important for my career, I should be saving
(36:41):
money throughout the year. I shouldn't be waiting till the
last minute and just spending money randomly and dumb ship
throughout the rest of the year. And I also think
one of the other things that would super help for
me that um that I'll probably leave you with is
uh is setting a goal, you know what I mean?
Like I I would set financial goals for myself, like
and actually I would do it for the year. Now
I think about I haven't done this in a minute,
but um, the last time I did it was actually
(37:03):
leading up to this year, oh, when I was trying
to buy my home. But at the beginning of last year,
I told myself, I wanted to have X amount of
dollars in my savings account. And once I determine what
that number was, I then broke it down, like, you know,
how much do I need to make a month, and
then how much I need to make a week. And
that was like the number that I would put into
my savings account each and every week. So say, I
(37:26):
don't know whatever the number ended up being saved, I
needed to save four hundred dollars a week in order
to hit that number by the end of the year.
I would go every single week four hunds we get
put into my savings account. And it was non negotiable.
And that even meant like, all right, if I have
six dollars in my checking account, four is still going
into savings and I have to make that two hundred
(37:46):
dollars that's left work until I get my next paycheck.
And that's how I was. I was so dedicated to it.
And that's what we have to be. You have to
make it a game for yourself, like you gotta be
excited about Like, trust me, once you started seeing that
money stack up in your savings account, you're gonna be
very very excited and very very mood evaded to keep
it going and keep it growing. And part of that
also is cutting back on unnecessary expenses, Like do you
really need to have a subscription to five streaming services?
(38:09):
You know what I mean, Especially if you're like in
a mode where you're trying to save money and the
checks aren't coming in quick enough that you can like
sustain that lifestyle, Like it's okay to scale back a
little bit, you know what I mean, Like and understand
you're working for something for your future. That little short
term kind of rush that you're gonna get from flexing
on the Graham or at a party, whatever the case
may be, Like that really is holding you back from
(38:29):
from actually living a wealthy life in the future. Like,
like imagine if you didn't have to like clear out
your checking account just to have that dope outfit or
that dope car. Like actual rich people can buy something
expensive and not even bad an eye about it, you
know what I'm saying. Like, that's real wealth right there.
When you can actually go swipe your card and you
(38:52):
have no concern in the world that there won't be
enough money to cover it. That's real wealth right there.
It's not buying a Gucci belt and that means that
you can't afford to do anything else for the next
two months of your life, Like that's not real wealth. Cool.
You got a Glucci belt, but you can't afford to
go out to the club and be seen wearing it,
you know what I'm saying. So it just doesn't make sense.
You gotta think long term. And I and I say
that as somebody who's been on both sides of it.
(39:14):
I had that short term thinking where I saw some
of my life and I didn't care I would blow
my my last couple of bucks. I'm trying to get
it just because I knew it would look good and
it might make me feel good in the short term.
And then I've also been the flip side, where I've
invested in the long term version of myself, and I
can tell you that story plays out far, far better.
Like you might have to be a little bit more patient,
but trust me, when you actually are at that point
(39:36):
where you can completely afford these things, it's just gonna
feel that much better because you won't have that same
fear or that same guilt that comes along with spending
money that you know you shouldn't be spending. And with
that said, I think it's a good place to kind
of summarize all that we've learned in today's episode, tie
all up in a neat little bow in a segment
we call conclusion stut time. All Right, So I'm gonna
(40:03):
make this quick because I know this was a bit
of a longer episode. Um, but I think the general
consensus of it is stop spending money on dumb ship. Okay,
invest in yourself. And that doesn't mean buying cars and
shoes and whatever the bullshit bottles at the club. Like,
let's just break down. Break that down for one second.
(40:24):
Think about you're paying hundreds of dollars for a thirty
dollar bottle of vodka. It does not make fucking sense.
Stop it. You're wasting money. Stop it. And even beyond that,
for those of you who maybe are not spending money recklessly,
take the time to educate yourself on your finances, on
your investments. Like the what rich people do? They make
(40:46):
their money work for them. It doesn't just sit around,
It doesn't sit in a box. It doesn't sit, uh,
you know, underneath your mattress somewhere, Like they're investing their
money and making it work for them. Be that real
estate the stock market with bonds whatever. It is like
ship that I'm not even up on right now myself,
that I need to get up on. Um. They're figuring
out ways to make their money work for them. That's
why they're investing in companies and ship like that, you
(41:08):
know what I mean. It's not just because they're so
excited about this company. It's like not, it's a way
to make it their money work for them, because the
reality is, like you can only physically be busting your
ass at a job for but so long. You know
what I'm saying, Like, like, that's not gonna make you rich.
You know, putting in more hours at your workplace is
not what's going to make you rich or make you comfortable.
You know. It's figuring out how to be able to
(41:30):
save some money, stack some money up, and then how
to make that money work for you so it grows
on its own and you don't have to keep killing
yourself just to earn a decent living. And I say
that as somebody who has had to learn that lesson
in a very harsh way. I'm the king of having
four to five different jobs at one time. It's not
a sustainable way to think that I'm gonna be able
to do that forever. Hence why the things like the
(41:52):
type of property that I bought, you know, was one
that actually started making me money so I didn't have
to keep running myself dry every single week working all
these different jobs, that I would be able to kind
of take some time to enjoy life. And my girl
is probably listening to this right now, like he still
works all the time, and she's not wrong because that's
also part again of my my money traumas that I
(42:12):
have right this idea that the money will go away,
that the checks will stop coming in, and that's why
I have like hoard these jobs. You know what I'm saying.
That's something I'm working on to get over. So let's
make a quick list because I think I'm gonna go
off on a tangent here, but um, stop spending money
on dumb ship that doesn't matter, right. Figure out ways
to make your money work for you, being investments, stocks,
(42:34):
whatever in the case may be. Figure out a way
to make your money work for you, even starting a
small business of your own, whatever it is, figure out
a way to make your money work for you. Set
goals for yourself when it comes to your savings. Have
a finite number, a percentage of all of your money
that's going to go into a savings account. Set that
number whatever you're comfortable with, whatever you can make sense with.
(42:55):
You know, as much as you possibly could put away
without I see, you know, hurting yourself and not being
able to eat that week, or whatever the case may be.
But figure it out. Figure out you know, a goal
that you want to save for the year, or a
percentage of your salary that you want to put into savings.
And it's again non negotiable. Do not let yourself wiggle
out of that unless it's foreign emergency. And by the
(43:16):
other thing I want to talk about quickly that I
didn't get a chance to really touch on depth. Get
your credit together, Like take care of your credit. If
you have bills, pay them. I know it sucks, but
pay all that ship off. I I was that person.
I had bill collectors, I had things that were in
collection that we're just killing my credit. I had a
five dred something credit score a few years ago. You know,
(43:38):
uh and and I worked with a credit repair company
and they are out there, um nexture you find a
legitimate one. Look at the reviews and all that kind
of stuff. But I work with a credit repair company
and they would break down, you know, all the ship
that was on my credit score, and it really meant
I had to pay out all those bills that I
hadn't been paying. And my tip for this also, as
you're fixing your credit and if you have credit cards,
(44:00):
you have any bills that are coming in card payments,
whatever it is, set that ship on auto pay. This
was like, the two late things that I have in
my fucking credit score are from a credit card that
I forgot to set on auto pay for like a
month or two. And it's a credit card that I
barely used and that funked up. Like my credit score,
it shows that I have a credit card that has
like late payments on it. It's because that's the one
(44:21):
that I forgot to do auto pay on. So auto
pay is your best friends. Set that ship and you
do not have to think about it. I know that's
not the sexiest piece of advice when it comes to money,
but trust me, that will save your credit and credit.
It's something we were not taught about. But let me
tell you. As I was trying to get my first
apartment and I realized just how fucking important credit was
(44:42):
And thankfully because I fixed my credit and took the
time to do that and invest in myself and now
own a home and I was able to turn all
that around in like three years. So let that be
the inspiration needed. I went from a five hundred something
credit score to now being able to get approved to
buy a home on my own. So it sucks. I
didn't want to have to pay off all that day,
(45:03):
all that bullshit that was there that I had from
my younger days of just running up bills and credit cards.
But once I did, it was over. I swallowed the
pill and now I get to move on with my
life and enjoy the fruits of taking the time to
fix my previous mistakes. And that's that. I hope that
was helpful. Again, education, this is all your best friend.
I know this isn't the sexiest thing in the world,
(45:23):
but trust me, it will pay dividends for you in
the future. And and that's the one thing about our community.
When we talk about things that we have to correct
from the previous generations, our relationship with money has to
be one of them, and it has to be one
of the top priorities. I talked about how we are
quickly on on the way to becoming the majority in
this country. And while numbers are obviously incredibly important, we
(45:46):
all know money rules the world, and if we are
not in a position to have financial power, there isn't
gonna be a whole lot that we are gonna be
accomplished individually or as a community. So just something to
to keep in mind. With that said, thank you all
so much for the support I've been seeing. Uh baby,
I've been seeing the positive comments and the reviews that
(46:06):
y'all been giving an Apple podcast, so please keep them coming.
If you have not left a review yet, please leave
me five stars. If you have it in your heart,
leave a nice comment for the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
All that stuff really does help um and also helps
offset some of the trolls that we got on the internet.
They just love to hate for no reason because they're
just miserable about their life. So please do that. Help
(46:28):
me out leave a review and if you do, screenshot
and DM it to me on Instagram, and I'm gonna
send y'all some some merch for showing me love because
I appreciate you guys supporting me, so I do my
best to show that love in return. With that said,
have a great weekend. I will catch y'all next week,
of course, with a brand new episode Talk to y'all then.
(46:52):
Life as a Good Goal is a production of The
Michael through a podcast network and I Heart Radio
He said, you live in life as Ingle, where you
question when you fit in every time you mingo, they
say you do this with not really Yes. Hello and
welcome to another episode of Life as a Gringo with
Me Dramas. Of course, we are still in the midst
(00:31):
of Latin ex Heritage Month, and as I've been doing
all month long, our Thursday episodes are specifically geared at
speaking to our community, whether that is in the form
of celebrating our community or like we're doing it today show,
which is educating our community. And this is an incredibly
(00:52):
important topic and and one that I think is beneficial
for anyone, but specifically when we're talking about the Latin community.
It's something that has plagued us for far too long,
and people of color in general in this country. And
that is the idea of money and our relationship with money,
and our lack of education when it comes to money.
(01:12):
So I'm really excited to dive into all of this
with you guys, because I'll be real, the the second
that I got my my money right, my life drastically changed.
And when I talked about getting your money right, not
just talking about making more money, I'm also talking about
educating yourself and doing the hard process of things like
repairing your credit and how to invest your money and
(01:33):
all that kind of stuff. And I'm not gonna pretend
like I'm an expert on this, but I'm gonna give
you my perspective, and I'm also going to play for
y'all the interview that I actually did a couple of
months ago that was supposed to be from my television
show and I never actually used the full interview and
full just timing wise didn't work out. But it was
probably one of my most favorite conversations that I have had,
(01:54):
and like it usually does, it came from probably one
of the more unexpected places. I mean, I love having
conversations with people who are like outside of my own
kind of world, if you will write, like, I'm not
their target audience, but there's still so much I can
learn from them, and this was one of those instances.
So I'm talking about a conversation that I had with
Ada Rojas, who is uh the founder of the million
(02:16):
dollar company but Donic Got Beauty, which she actually ended
up selling I believe this last year. She now runs
a brand called the Sena Gretur, and she's just generally
a serial entrepreneur. But her conversation with me was so
moving because she was talking about, you know, a conversation
that I feel like those sort of unspoken far too often,
(02:38):
and that is what to do once you actually start
making money, you know what I mean. And also the
idea of healing like these wounds, this trauma that many
of us have when it relates to money. I know
that I do personally, you know, remembering so many days
that I was broke, and and now as an adult
and somebody who's luckily in a place where I'm steadily
(02:59):
you know, getting a check. Uh, I still kind of
bear some of those stresses and some of that trauma
of like being broken. It it scares me until this day.
I still get nervous that, like my credit cards are
gonna decline or something like that, just for no reason.
It could be a I'm buying milk at the you know,
convenience store down the street, and I get like this
nervous feeling what if it declines, you know, just because
I've been there before and it's something that I'm trying
(03:20):
to get over. And we talked about that in this conversation,
and and as I was like thinking about what I
wanted to kind of bring to the table with with
this episode. Um, it just kept coming back to this
conversation that I felt like doesn't happen enough in our community,
and and specifically this conversation had with all of that
was just so so moving from me, Um, And I
think a lot of y'all will get a lot of
(03:41):
value out of that. So I want to make sure
I brought it to you guys, because I think a
lot of you are also newer listeners and new followers
of what I've been doing, and I want to make
sure that I was able to play kind of this
conversation that I had with her in full for for
a whole new audience. So I'm really excited for you
all to hear that. But before that, though, we'll talk
about the lack of unity in this country and their
(04:01):
relationship with money historically as we do our deep dive
in a segment we call for the people in the back,
for the people in the back, back bay, a lot
for the people in the the people in the back,
(04:26):
al right, So I am blessed that, you know, my
parents definitely passed down a lot of knowledge to me
and an overall, you know, I feel like helped me
become a pretty well adjusted human being. But one thing
they did not pass down to me was financial literacy,
financial knowledge in general. And to be quite honest, you know,
they did the best they could with with what they
(04:47):
were given, but they were trying to figure it out
themselves just as well, you know. So for me and
for our generation, my my goal is to educate us,
you know, have ourselves be educated on this so we
can break some of these generational curses that plague us. UM.
And I found this really interesting article. Uh. It's from
Urban Dot organ and they talk about four financial challenges
(05:11):
facing Hispanic Americans. And I know we're having like the
great debate about the word Hispanic and Latin and all that, um,
but that's just the name of the article and how
they describe it. So for the sake of this article,
I'm just gonna read it as is. Uh. And the
good thing about this article is that has actually written
right before the pandemic hit and and if you're and
if you've been paying attention, you know the pandemic, especially
(05:32):
hit black and brown communities in a really detrimental way.
But the reality is our finances were dot in order
even before that, generally speaking, So I want to run
through the list that they have here, uh, just to
kind of get us all on the same page. We
can kind of educate ourselves on on what the problem
is that they can order to fix something, you also
have to identify what the issue is first and foremost.
All Right, So the first thing they list is, uh,
(05:53):
Hispanic families own fewer financial assets than non Hispanic white families.
And they go on to say that though Hispanic households
hold comparable amounts of debt with non Hispanic white families,
they have fewer financial assets. The typical Hispanic or Latino
family has about twenty dollars in net Worth, where non
Hispanic families have a little over a hundred thousand dollars.
(06:17):
According to Lisa that Links senior economists at the Board
of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Holy shit, I'm like,
I'm reading this and I am fucking baffled and blown
with hold on it. So, the typical Latin family has
twenty thousand dollars in net Worth, where non Hispanic families
(06:42):
have a little over a hundred thousand dollars. We have
to do better y'all like that is fucking insane, you know.
And obviously some of it is by design the way
that that this country um operates, but at the same time,
we gotta take some responsibility in this tool. Oh my goodness.
(07:05):
It goes on to say that that data from the
Survey of Consumer Finances show that Hispanics are behind most
substantially in investments in direct stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
and in retirement savings ten thousand dollars in direct stocks, bonds,
and mutual funds and twenty two dollars in retirement savings
compared with sixty and sixty five thousand dollars respectively for
(07:29):
non Hispanics. But one thing they left out as well.
I feel like when it comes to investments and its
real estate. That was for me one of the biggest
things when I was was wanting to purchase my first home.
I didn't want to just buy a house, you know,
that I would live in. I wanted to buy a
property that I also made me money, you know. So
I ended up buying an investment property of mixed use properties.
(07:52):
So with the property that I purchased, I actually have
a tenant. I have a store from where I have
a tenant who rents that, and then I have a
residential part of it in the back where I actually
lived of and that was by design. Now, listen, would
it have been nice to like flex with the whole
house to myself, you know what I'm saying on Instagram
and all that kind of stuff, of course, but I
wanted to think for the for the long run, like
I basically have somebody else paying my mortgage for me,
(08:15):
and that means that I'm able to then save more money.
I'm able to invest now in other things. And that
was the point of getting an investment property. It's not
the sexiest looking property, I'll tell you that right now,
but I own it and it makes me money, and
that's the key. I found a way to make my
money work for me, and that's something I definitely was
not taught growing up. It was not until I started
working at the Breakfast club and you know, heard DJ
(08:37):
and be talking about all this stuff that it was
even on my radar. So you're talking the last four years, um,
and it's actually probably even less than that, uh, to
be honest with you. So that wasn't even on my radar. Now,
moving on from from assets. The next thing they talk
about is, uh, young Hispanics are adding to their student
loan debt, but not to their savings. Goes on to
(08:58):
say that since it's two thousand eight recession, the number
of Hispanic families holding educational debt increased five point three
percentage points, with one in five Hispanic households nineteen holding
some college debt in sixteen. According to Stephanie her Mom,
senior policy analysts at Unigo's US but Aman compared this
(09:21):
with the decline in the average assets held by Hispanic
families over the same period, which failed by twenty seven thousand,
eight hundreds. So we're accumulating more student loan debt and
even less assets. And I can relate to this as well,
Like I have student loans that I'm still paying off,
you know what I mean. Like my family didn't have
a college fund set up for me, you know what
I'm saying. Like nobody was preparing for the future when
(09:43):
it came to that kind of stuff. You know. Um,
the idea was, oh, when you go to college, you'll
take out a bunch of loans and that'll be how
you pay for it. And and man, yeah, first of all,
it's gonna get me started on a whole subject of
why college is not for everyone. You know, I really
paid to get very expensive piece of paper that really
has not helped me whatsoever in the job market. Um,
(10:05):
But you know, hindsight, obviously, and especially coming from my household,
the idea of not going to college wasn't really an
option for for myself or my sister, but financially did
not make sense, especially when you're talking about there was
no preparation for my parents when it came to how
the hell we were actually gonna pay for college. But again,
obviously there are the things that were not passed down,
(10:25):
knowledge that was not passed down from generation and generation. Now,
the third thing to talk about is financial literacy is
exacerbating a history of vulnerability to predatory lending. Yes, financial
literacy understanding how finances work now it says uh Now,
says Gary Are, research director at the Financial Industry Regulatory
(10:49):
Authority Investor Education Foundations, destroy that damn name of my goodness,
presented findings from the f I n r A Foundations
and National Financial Capable Ability Study okay, which shows Hispanic
people trailing non Hispanic white people in financial literacy, with
only twenty eight percent falling into the category of high
(11:10):
financial literacy, compared to forty three and thirty eight percent
for white and Asian Americans respectively. Dam So, that means
that when you talk about white people, when you talk
about Asian Americans in this study, they almost double us
in the amount of people that actually have high financial literacy,
that are actually educated on how money works, how finances work. Now,
(11:32):
it goes on to say that financial illiteracy, combined with
high numbers with limited English proficiency, may leave Hispanic Americans
susceptible to the predatory lending. Matala explained that the share
of Hispanic people who have used predatory loans in the
past five years, such as auto or pay day loans,
were double that of white people. Damn so we are
(11:53):
getting taken advantage of double that of white people because
we are not educated. And it goes on to say
that this problem is also not new. According to mom, historically,
Latinos have faced challenges and accessing safe and affordable financial
products and services. We also this explains why most of
(12:14):
us don't have an education on how the money works
and how to make it work for us, especially if
you're talking about people who are first and second generation.
Maybe your parents did not speak English fluently or spoke
English as a second language. And that's what's talking about,
is that a lot of these loans, uh took advantage
of the fact that our parents or their parents didn't
(12:35):
speak the language well enough to really understand what they
were signing up for, you know, high interest rates, all
those kinds of things that really, if you're not careful,
can get you in a hole. I mean, my mom
even tells a story that my grandmother never even had
a credit card because she didn't trust it, you know
what I'm saying, Like, so, how the funk was she
supposed to pass on, you know, financial literacy to my
(12:56):
mother when she literally didn't understand like how credit works.
She just paid cash with everything. And then on top
of that, what they ended with talking about how Latinos
have faced challenges, you know, in accessing affordable financial products
and services. Yeah, of course, because it's also been racism involved.
And who runs the banks, you know what I'm saying,
it's not Latinos handing out these loans. So we haven't
(13:17):
historically been approved for loans and been like top candidates,
you know what I mean. So we've had to succumb
to taking loans from places that knew that we were desperate,
and they took advantage of it. So it's no surprise
or no shock or why we are behind other ethnicities
in this country. Now, the last thing they say is
that Hispanics faced unique challenges to both short and long
(13:41):
term savings. On short term savings, dead links findings show
that only fift of Hispanic families have three months of
living expenses saved and easily accessible accounts, compared with for
of non Hispanic families. Yo, my goodness, non his families
in this country are doubling us in the amount of
(14:04):
people that have three months worth of savings, like three
months worth of living expenses saved in an account somewhere.
It goes on to say, and this is obvious. This
leaves Hispanic family is vulnerable during emergencies such as property
damage from a natural disaster or like we saw in COVID.
And I think, just like the overall gist of this
stuff is like, man, we just have to educate ourselves
(14:27):
better on how things fucking work, you know. And and
I'm not saying that it's all and that it's all
our fall I mean, obviously there's been so many systems
in place, especially when I was talking about like the
idea of who's getting a proof for loans and all
that stuff. But at the same time, listen, our generation,
we have no excuse, Like all the education is out there,
you know, we know about these things. It's actually a
(14:48):
part of pop culture to talk about your credit and
investments in real estate and all these different things like
that's normal, that's that's something cool quote unquote to talk
about right now, So there's no excuse. I think a
lot of times we fall victim to, you know, trying
to give off the impression of wealth instead of actually
having wealth. And I talked about that in my conversation
with Ada, but it really is like we're more concerned
(15:10):
with with looking wealthy and like pretending like we're keeping
up with the Joneses than actually taking the time to
understand what it really means to be wealthy. And with
that said, I think now is a great time to
hop into this conversation that I had with Ada Rojas
and being excited for y'all to hear this. I think
it's definitely gonna break a lot of the things that
we're talking about or a lot of things that we
all kind of struggle with. It's definitely gonna humanize it
(15:32):
a bit here, So I'm excited for y'all to hear it.
We'll get into that in just a minute, but first
let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
All right. So, as a part of this conversation about
getting your money right, as we celebrate Latin X Heritage Month,
(15:52):
let's talk to somebody who has done it, somebody from
our community who not only built a multimillion dollar business,
then went on to sell it and now it's starting
a brand new one. How you feeling, I'm good. How
are you? I'm good? Thank you. First of all, thank
you so much for propping I know you're a busy woman.
You got a million one things going on, so I
appreciate you hopping out me to thank you for having
(16:14):
me of course. So I mean, listen, I saw something
that you had posted that I found to be super
interesting where you talked about you know, we we all
see these things of like apt positive informations and you know,
trying to people telling you, oh, entrepreneurship and all this stuff,
but realizing that for you know, our our white counterparts
here in this country that looks a bit different for
us because we're also dealing with generations of trauma and
(16:36):
amongst other things. So I mean, would you mind kind
of expounding upon this work that you feel like people
of color have to do before they even start trying
to tackle this whole generational wealth concept. Yeah. So on
my Instagram I shared a pulse. I actually took a
beginner's stock market course last weekend and it just kind
of blew my mind open to all this new information,
and it made me want to shift the way that
(16:56):
I'm moving with my money and just the way that
I'm even moving in my business and I'm moving personally.
And one of the things that we discussed and in
the class, because it was led by a woman of color,
was how even before we can start discussing investing, even
before we start talking about all these mindset shifts when
it comes to just affirmations and and and scarcity mindset
versus a Thriver's mindset, we have to address the fact
(17:17):
that we have a lot of trauma that has been
passed down to us from generation to generation because we
come from poverty and because we come from scarcity, So
that that fact alone, just it's like, we have so
much work to do before we can even arrive at
the point of thinking of investing, before we can even
arrive at the point of thinking of home ownership. And
I just think it's important to address those things and
(17:38):
really work on our money wounds, work on that trauma,
do the healing, because it's just impossible for you to
even start those those steps and begin those processes without
addressing that. And it does make it harder for us,
but it doesn't make it impossible. And I think the
more that we openly talk about it and discuss it,
the more it's gonna become a thing. You know. Yeah,
I mean, what's interesting about that? And not sure if
(18:00):
this is exactly how you meant it, but you know,
having conversations with different people in my life and you know,
talking about kind of idea of chasing that hungry ghost
almost you know what I mean, You're always chasing this
thing that you never had. I think it's it's interesting,
you know when you say that, it almost you know,
kind of makes you realize, like wow, when we get money,
you know, and people of color get money, whether it's
in the entertainment inustry, all these things. We end up
(18:21):
kind of squandering a lot of times on these dumb
things that we think kind of represent wealth. And it
probably is, you know, a factor in this trauma that
we've had of seeing all these other people kind of
having these grandiose things. We've never had them. So now
we get into a position to possibly win for the
first time, and now we're just kind of squandering on
these dumb things that we really don't need because in
(18:42):
our mind, that's what actual wealth is, you know, And
we don't have the knowledge to understand not only how
to create wealth, but how to keep wealth. And and
that's another thing that we see a lot. We see
a lot with whether it's our families, whether maybe our
grandparents were entrepreneurs or created some sort of wealth from
our family, but that they pass it down to our parents,
and our parents didn't know how to manage the wealth
(19:03):
and keep it going. So there's just a lack of
information resources knowledge within our community that it's like, not
only don't we really know how to create wealth, we
don't know how to keep it within the family as well. Yeah,
and it's sadly that's not spoken about enough, right, there's
so much talk about building wealth and tactic for doing it,
but the idea of keeping it, which obviously probably isn't
I guess as sexy as the idea of getting rich,
(19:24):
but equally or if not more important, you know. I mean,
I think I was reading Thinking Grow Rich, and in
that book he talks about how a lot of times
people when they get a raised, let's say, in their
normal job, their expenses go up because they start giving
themselves more and more relished to spend more money. And
what happens with that is you never end up actually growing,
just keep staying at the same place because that extra
money is now going towards new expenses that you didn't
(19:46):
have before, and you don't necessarily need correct And it's
like we we think, oh, we've made it, so now
we we have to completely change their lifestyle. No, it
find a ways to still operate because the cool thing
or not the cool thing. But I think the innovative
thing about us pouring the way that we grew up
is that we know how to make a daughter out
of fifteen cents. We know how to be creative. It
(20:06):
forced us to be creative as how to be able
to get the same results that are white counterparts have
gotten right, and we just we know how to work hard,
we know how to make things happen, we know how
to be creative. So kind of like always holding onto
that even as you start to elevate in your life,
even as your financial status starts to elevate, and really
find ways to make your money work for you instead
of continuing to work harder, really work smarter. Yeah, I
(20:28):
mean you actually touched on something incredibly importantly, like living
in La Brega, right, Like that's like this thing that
we hold on to, Like it's this point of to
be something to be proud of, right, being able to
make something out of nothing at all times. But the
reality is, and this was from a podcast I believe
it was w N y C did it, But um,
the reality is, we shouldn't allow ourselves to get so
used to living in the struggle, you know, because then
(20:49):
we just start normalizing the struggle as if that's how
we are supposed to live, as opposed to saying, yes
we can, you know, you know, live in the struggle.
But the goal should be to never have to go
back to that, right, that should be bigger picture going. Unfortunately, instead,
we like idolize this idea that we can survive anything,
you know, absolutely, and that's where addressing your money moves
come from, and really realizing the difference between operating from
(21:10):
a scarcity mindset and a thriving mindset. So this morning,
I was actually having a great conversation with my accountant,
and I was telling him how I worked so hard
to get to this financial point in my life, Like
I've been cleaning up just a lot of message that
I've made in my early twenties because I just didn't
know any better. And now I'm also building another business
at the same time. So there's a lot of money
coming in, but that money is going out, whether it's
(21:31):
paying for taxes, whether it's paying for my inventory and
things like that, and it's scary, and I'm constantly reminding myself, Okay,
the money is going out, but there's more money coming
It's okay, Like you know, and again going back to
those the way that we were raised, that these things
have been passed down to us from generation to generations.
So it's not gonna happen overnight where you suddenly wake
up one day and you're like, my money is good,
(21:52):
my mindset is good, I'm good. No those triggers are
gonna keep coming up, and so you have to identify
them and then learn to like talk to yourself and
be like, no, you're good, there's more money coming. What's scared.
You're actually hitting on something I'm personally have been going
through because I recently just bought my my first home,
and obviously within that there's so many expenses that coming.
But I'm so scarred from not having money that any
(22:13):
time I spend it, I feel guilty. I feel like
I get anxious. I can't even enjoy this process and
having like furnishing my home and doing all these things,
because every time I spend money, I'm I get just
like this feeling of anxiety. I remember what it was
like to not have anything, to be counting every penny,
and it's like it's it's a really incredible thing that
I never even had to think about until now that
I'm realizing how much trauma trying to get over myself
percy as well. Yeah, and you know what, what has
(22:35):
health a lot, and this is I've always been a
huge advocate for mental health. I've been I've had an
amazing relationship with my therapist who's also lapping as well
for the last eight years, and this money conversation came
up in my therapy session and this week. So it's
like it's so important to have these this team, right,
you have your accounting, you have your lawyer, you have
your your therapists to really walk you through these things
(22:57):
because these are all new experiences that we've never been
through before. And that's like first, we're we're you're probably
the first homeowner in your family, right or I'm sure
like there's a lot of first that you're conquering that
your parents have property in my family for sure, yes,
And it's a whole new, new new mindset. So just
having like to be able to talk to my therapist
about these money wounds and for her to identify and
(23:18):
remind me that like, hey, like you you're not your money.
Like if something happens that you want to lose your
money overnight, guess what you have all the skills and
the talent to make that money back. And you know,
it was such a huge reminder. Yeah, no, that that
that's absolutely beautiful, and like these conversations so important because
I feel like they get lost in the whole shuffle
of what is the more fascinating thing when it comes
(23:39):
to building wealth. But you know, this whole idea of
what happens when you get it, you know, it's a
whole another conversation definitely needs to be addressed. So I mean,
as we wrap up the last thing, I want to,
you know, I want to touch on a lot of
things that you're doing. I mean, you you're obviously making
it your purpose to educate people. I mean you've had
a very you know, successful career in business thus far. Uh,
and it's beautiful to see that you're kind of giving
(24:00):
this back and trying to give back this information to
people and make it a point. So I mean, let's
kind of talk about the work that you're doing. What
are some of the things you're more excited about they're
working at right now? Well, right now, I actually exited
from my last company, which is both on in Communia.
Exited from that company this year, and I for the
last two years, I have been working on my other business,
which is Masina Katore and Massina Katore is basically a
(24:21):
maid to order collection of comfortable classes. So I wanted
to I always remember, like when my great grandmother passed,
we all fall over her bath that she would wear
at home, and I was like, damn, like, who's making
batas for us? Like, you know, like the bat that
is such like a matriarch wardrobe stable, right, and especially
with us working from home now, like I'm always in
baptist I'm always in a robe, and so I wanted
(24:42):
to make like batas for us the future matriarchs, while
honoring the woman who came before us. So that's what
we've seen A coat is about. But even with that,
I understand that again there's there's so much there's no access,
there's no knowledge about how do you really build the
business from the ground up and you have how do
you build it where you have everything in play so
that you can scale and you're not scaling into that
(25:02):
how do you build it to where it's profitable? How
do you build it to to Like so, because I've
just learned so much in my business journey, the way
that I'm building and growing this business is completely different
in the way that I've done other businesses because I
just have so much more knowledge and expertise now. So
I'm really making it a point to bring the community
with me along on this journey and sharing as many
things as I can. Um So hopefully help other entrepreneurs
(25:25):
because I know if I would have known the things
that I know now, I probably wouldn't have made as
many mistakes in my business. So, for example, recently, I
did an Instagram live with one of my lawyers, she's
a small business lawyer apple a female as well, and
we did you know, like the common mistakes that you
should be avoiding when starting your business? And I think like,
how different would my life be if I would have
came across the video like that a few years ago?
(25:47):
How different would my businesses be set up if I
knew that information? And it's basic information to someone like me,
someone like my lawyer, but it's not basic information to
someone who's just starting out their business. So I'm really
passionate it about just educating and sharing all of my
personal experiences and things that I've grown and taking really
my lessons, taking those elves, turning them into lessons, and
(26:08):
sharing those gems back with the community. No. I love
that a right, So before you get out of here,
are there like three quick things? Like anybody interested in
starting a business, are there three precursores that they should
be thinking about on their radar right now when they're
trying to make the most of this moment or trying
to bounce back right now and starting their entrepreneur journey.
So the number one thing when you're starting a business,
you always want to be solving a problem. So identify
(26:31):
where what's a problem right now in your life? Like,
is it a service problem? Is there a service that
exists that doesn't exist that you're like, this would be
a great service. Is there a product that doesn't exist
that you're like, this would be a great product, and
you already know that there's a market need for that.
Kind of identify and solve a problem right now, and
then work backwards from that, find the target audience and
and that's how you start. If you're sitting on a
(26:51):
little bit of extra money, you don't want to work
and build a business, look into the stock market. How
can you invest that money and make that money work
for you? Um, I mean there's so many things that
you're looking to make some a little bit money. Look
at what what side hustle can you pick up right
now that can make you some money, whether it's baking cakes.
In college, I used to bake Betty Crocker cakes and
sell them for twenty dollars for people's birthdays. You know,
(27:13):
I used to buy everything for four dollars and then
make that money back. So like, identified where can you
make a little better money, Even if it's like you know,
the door dash and things like that, there's money to
make right now, and so I know times are hard,
but really start to identifying what problem can you solve
if you have money, how can you make that money
work for you? Or what side hustle can you pick
up right now to make some more money? Beautiful level,
(27:35):
I appreciate you hopping on here. I would love to
catch up with you somewhere down the line and keep
hearing more about what you're working on and this new brand.
I wish your best luck with it. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it. I just love that conversation with with Ada.
Even just hearing that back from me, It's just a
good refresher on like the mindsets that I need to
begin to adjust and continue working on, because it's always
(27:55):
gonna be an ongoing process to kind of correct some
of these past traumas and experiences that we've all gone through. Um.
But yeah, I love that conversation with her. I hope
it was as helpful for y'all as it was for me.
With that said, speaking of y'all, let's take some questions
from my fellow gringos and our asked a gringos segment
before that, though, we're gonna take a quick break and
we will be right back. Ask alright, so as we
(28:24):
continue on this conversation discussing our relationship with money or
lack there of, of course, I had to pose a
question to y'all via my Instagram at the DJ dramas
if you'll want to be a part of the conversation.
I posted to my Instagram stories for each and every episode, um,
and I just kind of left this one pretty open
and uh, and it basically was just, um, your biggest
(28:47):
questions concerns, fears, or feelings surrounding money. And I got
some dope responses on here that I want to get
to a few of them on the On the show today,
the first question was from at Jack Swan and uh.
He asked, Uh, how do you save like six of
your check? This is a great question and I'm still
(29:07):
trying to figure that out myself. I know, I was
watching something today where they were talking about like billionaires
live off of like of their check or something like that. UM. Personally,
I am not in that tax bracket yet where I
can only live off of of my check. But one
thing that has been helpful for me is, UM, every
single pay check that I get. And I'm not sure
(29:29):
if I've mentioned this before on the podcast, so forgive
me if I have, But UM, every single paycheck that
I get, whatever I get paid for, I always put
aside ten percent into my savings account. UH. And that's
that's like non negotiable. There's no way going around that.
You know, UM, that ten percent always, always always goes
(29:50):
in there. As soon as I get that direct depositives
as it hits on a Friday, I transfer that money
into my savings account and I leave it alone. I
don't touch it unless, of course, as an emergency or
something like that. But the idea is that ten percent
of that check will always automatically going to savings. My
goal is to UM, definitely move up on that percentage.
I'd like to double it in the very near future.
(30:10):
And then obviously you save even more money as well
going down the road. UM, and hopefully that'll that will
work out me right now, just you know, just bought
the house this year, So a lot of expenses that
come along with that, um, the effects of the fucking
hurricane that happened. So I definitely had to dip a
bit into my savings and I'm not able to put
away as much as I wanted to. But I've definitely
tricked my brain into enjoying putting that money away. You
(30:35):
like that same high I would have gotten from going
out and buying a pair of sneakers. Um, I'm tricking
my brain to be just excited about saving that ten percent.
So I would just say to you, I mean, don't
think you have to be so drastic as to save
and listen if you're in a position where you can
do that. I mean, if there's anybody young enough here
that's listening and you're still living at home. You don't
gotta pay rent, you don't got no real bills, you know,
(30:56):
the car payment, and like that, YO, save as much
as you possibly can, uh, and you'll be thanking yourself
later on in life when you are miles ahead of
your friends. Um. But yeah, I mean, listen, you gotta
figure out what works for you when it comes to that.
For me right now, ten percent. Um. But again, you
know as things kind of slow down with the expenses,
I'm gonna try and push that even further and and
(31:18):
try and start saving even more money and cut back
on a bunch of my expenses. So, um, yeah, whatever
works for you, but but definitely set that number and
do not let yourself wiggle out of it. That money
is no longer your temper cent of my paycheck does
not belong to me. It belongs to my saviors account.
And that's the way I view it. Let's see, I
like this one from at Brand J Life Coaching. I
(31:39):
think I got your name right. Finally, I appreciate the
level of support. You've been a real one. You asked,
how do you make money not scary? That's a good
question because I've been scared and petrified of money the
majority of my entire life. I have never man had
a great relationship with money. Um, even till this day,
(32:00):
I still live with some of that. I mentioned it
in my conversation with Ada. You know, Um, even though
things are good right now, I still get this anxiety
and and it's like just you know, nervousness that um,
too much money is going out or something like that.
Even though I'm being pretty smart of the money these days, UM,
I just don't live with that same kind of kind
of fear. But I think one thing I read recently
(32:21):
and I can't remember where where it was, what book
it was, or what author it was, but uh, they
were just it was. I think it was a like
a thing on stoicism. I can't remember which exact speaker was,
but um, just talking about like, you know, money and
wealth and all that. You have to look at it
as just like a tool. You know, it's not the
be all, end all obviously in the world that we
(32:43):
live in, it's necessary to not die right and to
be able to provide for your family and to keep
food on the table and a roof over your head.
But um, again it's it's a tool to do all that.
You know, Um, it can't be the end all goal
when you do things I think, Um, it can't be
the end all priority in your life. Like it is
(33:03):
just a tool like any other tool that you have
in your life. Like we really just broke it down
like a knife and a fork in my kitchen. You
know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna be like, you know,
losing sleep over a knife and a fork in my
kitchen because I have a mindset like, yeah, that's just
a tool that I need to eat my food when
it's time to eat dinner, you know what I mean,
and and nothing more, nothing less. And obviously it's a
(33:23):
little easier said than done when it comes to something
like money, which really has such a profound impact on
our quality of life on a daily basis. But you know,
the more we can train train our mind to not
give this thing so much power over us, um, the
better off will be in the happier will be. Again,
money is in fact just a tool to do some
(33:43):
of the things that we want to do in this life,
or to provide some of the things that we need,
uh in this life to stay healthy. And I think
the more we can drill that into our brain and
remind ourselves that it's just a tool, it is not
the goal at all, um, I think the better our
relationship with money will be and they'll be a lot
less scarier. You know, when we have to maybe spend
money on some unexpected things, um that happened in everyday life,
(34:07):
you know, will be grateful that we have this tool
accessible to us, uh, in order to take care of
a problem, provide a solution. And again, I know it's
easier said than domb, but that is the healthier way
to view money. And I think as close as you
can get to training your brain to automatically go there,
the better off you'll be. All Right, let's see last
one right here at cross Underscore, Souls asked, how do
(34:32):
you start to save money? I'm terrible at it, and
I'm learning it's super important to save. Yeah, I mean
that's a that's an understatement right there. It is and
uh necessary to save. I think for me, I had
to get really clear on like what type of life
I wanted to lead, you know, Like I was tired
(34:54):
of being the dude that had on like a fresh outfit,
you know, every time he went out somewhere, but like
was budgeting, you know, how much money he could spend
at the bar that night when he was out, you
know what I mean. Where it was like, Okay, I
know I have um a hundred dollars in my checking account,
so let me make sure that my bar tab doesn't
go over eighty bucks just in case. Like, you know,
(35:17):
that's a terrible way to live, you know what I mean,
Like I was tired of living that way. I can't
remember even when like fucking uh, we would go on
these trips. Um, like my my group of friends when
I got into radio. Um, you know, we would take
these trips out for like networking and things like that.
And uh. One of the trips that we would always
take was going to Vegas. And I can remember every year,
(35:38):
once we started leading up to the time to get
to Vegas, I would have to go crazy hustling trying
to make my spending money for the trip because my
account was paycheck to paycheck. So whatever I could find
to flip during that time, anything I had around my house,
I would flip it and to make the whatever three
or four hunds that I would need to have for
my spending money for that weekend, That's what I would do.
(36:00):
But again, you I started realizing why do I want
to do this to myself that anytime I want to
do something after go into this panic mode of figuring
it out and like hustling for um, you know, the
rest of the weeks selling all my ship just to
like pay for this one thing. I would say. One
of the things that is, you know, a is the
Vegas ship really a priority to you? And if it
is like for me at that time my career where
(36:21):
it got me out there networking with a lot of
different people in the music industry, which was, um, you know,
really beneficial for my career. So obviously that was a
priority at that time, you know. Um. I then had
to think to myself, Okay, well, how do I make
this a bit easier? You know, So what am I
doing the rest of the year. So if I know
throughout the year I got one or two big trips
that are important for my career, I should be saving
(36:41):
money throughout the year. I shouldn't be waiting till the
last minute and just spending money randomly and dumb ship
throughout the rest of the year. And I also think
one of the other things that would super help for
me that um that I'll probably leave you with is
uh is setting a goal, you know what I mean?
Like I I would set financial goals for myself, like
and actually I would do it for the year. Now
I think about I haven't done this in a minute,
but um, the last time I did it was actually
(37:03):
leading up to this year, oh, when I was trying
to buy my home. But at the beginning of last year,
I told myself, I wanted to have X amount of
dollars in my savings account. And once I determine what
that number was, I then broke it down, like, you know,
how much do I need to make a month, and
then how much I need to make a week. And
that was like the number that I would put into
my savings account each and every week. So say, I
(37:26):
don't know whatever the number ended up being saved, I
needed to save four hundred dollars a week in order
to hit that number by the end of the year.
I would go every single week four hunds we get
put into my savings account. And it was non negotiable.
And that even meant like, all right, if I have
six dollars in my checking account, four is still going
into savings and I have to make that two hundred
(37:46):
dollars that's left work until I get my next paycheck.
And that's how I was. I was so dedicated to it.
And that's what we have to be. You have to
make it a game for yourself, like you gotta be
excited about Like, trust me, once you started seeing that
money stack up in your savings account, you're gonna be
very very excited and very very mood evaded to keep
it going and keep it growing. And part of that
also is cutting back on unnecessary expenses, Like do you
really need to have a subscription to five streaming services?
(38:09):
You know what I mean, Especially if you're like in
a mode where you're trying to save money and the
checks aren't coming in quick enough that you can like
sustain that lifestyle, Like it's okay to scale back a
little bit, you know what I mean, Like and understand
you're working for something for your future. That little short
term kind of rush that you're gonna get from flexing
on the Graham or at a party, whatever the case
may be, Like that really is holding you back from
(38:29):
from actually living a wealthy life in the future. Like,
like imagine if you didn't have to like clear out
your checking account just to have that dope outfit or
that dope car. Like actual rich people can buy something
expensive and not even bad an eye about it, you
know what I'm saying. Like, that's real wealth right there.
When you can actually go swipe your card and you
(38:52):
have no concern in the world that there won't be
enough money to cover it. That's real wealth right there.
It's not buying a Gucci belt and that means that
you can't afford to do anything else for the next
two months of your life, Like that's not real wealth. Cool.
You got a Glucci belt, but you can't afford to
go out to the club and be seen wearing it,
you know what I'm saying. So it just doesn't make sense.
You gotta think long term. And I and I say
that as somebody who's been on both sides of it.
(39:14):
I had that short term thinking where I saw some
of my life and I didn't care I would blow
my my last couple of bucks. I'm trying to get
it just because I knew it would look good and
it might make me feel good in the short term.
And then I've also been the flip side, where I've
invested in the long term version of myself, and I
can tell you that story plays out far, far better.
Like you might have to be a little bit more patient,
but trust me, when you actually are at that point
(39:36):
where you can completely afford these things, it's just gonna
feel that much better because you won't have that same
fear or that same guilt that comes along with spending
money that you know you shouldn't be spending. And with
that said, I think it's a good place to kind
of summarize all that we've learned in today's episode, tie
all up in a neat little bow in a segment
we call conclusion stut time. All Right, So I'm gonna
(40:03):
make this quick because I know this was a bit
of a longer episode. Um, but I think the general
consensus of it is stop spending money on dumb ship. Okay,
invest in yourself. And that doesn't mean buying cars and
shoes and whatever the bullshit bottles at the club. Like,
let's just break down. Break that down for one second.
(40:24):
Think about you're paying hundreds of dollars for a thirty
dollar bottle of vodka. It does not make fucking sense.
Stop it. You're wasting money. Stop it. And even beyond that,
for those of you who maybe are not spending money recklessly,
take the time to educate yourself on your finances, on
your investments. Like the what rich people do? They make
(40:46):
their money work for them. It doesn't just sit around,
It doesn't sit in a box. It doesn't sit, uh,
you know, underneath your mattress somewhere, Like they're investing their
money and making it work for them. Be that real
estate the stock market with bonds whatever. It is like
ship that I'm not even up on right now myself,
that I need to get up on. Um. They're figuring
out ways to make their money work for them. That's
why they're investing in companies and ship like that, you
(41:08):
know what I mean. It's not just because they're so
excited about this company. It's like not, it's a way
to make it their money work for them, because the
reality is, like you can only physically be busting your
ass at a job for but so long. You know
what I'm saying, Like, like, that's not gonna make you rich.
You know, putting in more hours at your workplace is
not what's going to make you rich or make you comfortable.
You know. It's figuring out how to be able to
(41:30):
save some money, stack some money up, and then how
to make that money work for you so it grows
on its own and you don't have to keep killing
yourself just to earn a decent living. And I say
that as somebody who has had to learn that lesson
in a very harsh way. I'm the king of having
four to five different jobs at one time. It's not
a sustainable way to think that I'm gonna be able
to do that forever. Hence why the things like the
(41:52):
type of property that I bought, you know, was one
that actually started making me money so I didn't have
to keep running myself dry every single week working all
these different jobs, that I would be able to kind
of take some time to enjoy life. And my girl
is probably listening to this right now, like he still
works all the time, and she's not wrong because that's
also part again of my my money traumas that I
(42:12):
have right this idea that the money will go away,
that the checks will stop coming in, and that's why
I have like hoard these jobs. You know what I'm saying.
That's something I'm working on to get over. So let's
make a quick list because I think I'm gonna go
off on a tangent here, but um, stop spending money
on dumb ship that doesn't matter, right. Figure out ways
to make your money work for you, being investments, stocks,
(42:34):
whatever in the case may be. Figure out a way
to make your money work for you, even starting a
small business of your own, whatever it is, figure out
a way to make your money work for you. Set
goals for yourself when it comes to your savings. Have
a finite number, a percentage of all of your money
that's going to go into a savings account. Set that
number whatever you're comfortable with, whatever you can make sense with.
(42:55):
You know, as much as you possibly could put away
without I see, you know, hurting yourself and not being
able to eat that week, or whatever the case may be.
But figure it out. Figure out you know, a goal
that you want to save for the year, or a
percentage of your salary that you want to put into savings.
And it's again non negotiable. Do not let yourself wiggle
out of that unless it's foreign emergency. And by the
(43:16):
other thing I want to talk about quickly that I
didn't get a chance to really touch on depth. Get
your credit together, Like take care of your credit. If
you have bills, pay them. I know it sucks, but
pay all that ship off. I I was that person.
I had bill collectors, I had things that were in
collection that we're just killing my credit. I had a
five dred something credit score a few years ago. You know,
(43:38):
uh and and I worked with a credit repair company
and they are out there, um nexture you find a
legitimate one. Look at the reviews and all that kind
of stuff. But I work with a credit repair company
and they would break down, you know, all the ship
that was on my credit score, and it really meant
I had to pay out all those bills that I
hadn't been paying. And my tip for this also, as
you're fixing your credit and if you have credit cards,
(44:00):
you have any bills that are coming in card payments,
whatever it is, set that ship on auto pay. This
was like, the two late things that I have in
my fucking credit score are from a credit card that
I forgot to set on auto pay for like a
month or two. And it's a credit card that I
barely used and that funked up. Like my credit score,
it shows that I have a credit card that has
like late payments on it. It's because that's the one
(44:21):
that I forgot to do auto pay on. So auto
pay is your best friends. Set that ship and you
do not have to think about it. I know that's
not the sexiest piece of advice when it comes to money,
but trust me, that will save your credit and credit.
It's something we were not taught about. But let me
tell you. As I was trying to get my first
apartment and I realized just how fucking important credit was
(44:42):
And thankfully because I fixed my credit and took the
time to do that and invest in myself and now
own a home and I was able to turn all
that around in like three years. So let that be
the inspiration needed. I went from a five hundred something
credit score to now being able to get approved to
buy a home on my own. So it sucks. I
didn't want to have to pay off all that day,
(45:03):
all that bullshit that was there that I had from
my younger days of just running up bills and credit cards.
But once I did, it was over. I swallowed the
pill and now I get to move on with my
life and enjoy the fruits of taking the time to
fix my previous mistakes. And that's that. I hope that
was helpful. Again, education, this is all your best friend.
I know this isn't the sexiest thing in the world,
(45:23):
but trust me, it will pay dividends for you in
the future. And and that's the one thing about our community.
When we talk about things that we have to correct
from the previous generations, our relationship with money has to
be one of them, and it has to be one
of the top priorities. I talked about how we are
quickly on on the way to becoming the majority in
this country. And while numbers are obviously incredibly important, we
(45:46):
all know money rules the world, and if we are
not in a position to have financial power, there isn't
gonna be a whole lot that we are gonna be
accomplished individually or as a community. So just something to
to keep in mind. With that said, thank you all
so much for the support I've been seeing. Uh baby,
I've been seeing the positive comments and the reviews that
(46:06):
y'all been giving an Apple podcast, so please keep them coming.
If you have not left a review yet, please leave
me five stars. If you have it in your heart,
leave a nice comment for the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
All that stuff really does help um and also helps
offset some of the trolls that we got on the internet.
They just love to hate for no reason because they're
just miserable about their life. So please do that. Help
(46:28):
me out leave a review and if you do, screenshot
and DM it to me on Instagram, and I'm gonna
send y'all some some merch for showing me love because
I appreciate you guys supporting me, so I do my
best to show that love in return. With that said,
have a great weekend. I will catch y'all next week,
of course, with a brand new episode Talk to y'all then.
(46:52):
Life as a Good Goal is a production of The
Michael through a podcast network and I Heart Radio
Host
DJ Dramos
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