Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kim Azzarelli. Welcome to this brand new season
Speaker 1: of Seneca's Conversations. In this season, we're launching a special
Speaker 1: five part series on young women's financial wellness in partnership
Speaker 1: with Secret Deodorant. It's called Secret Money Tips. We recently
Speaker 1: hosted the Young Women's Financial Wellness Form at the New
Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange in partnership with Secret, renowned financial experts
Speaker 1: gave young women their best advice about budgeting, saving, and
Speaker 1: investing financial empowerment one oh one. Now we're bringing that
Speaker 1: advice to every young woman through this series. Today, I'm
Speaker 1: pleased to welcome Gigi Gonzalez, founder of the First Gen Mentor.
Speaker 1: The First Gen Mentor helps first generation students and young
Speaker 1: professionals of color entering the workplace confidently manage their money. Gigi,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hi, Kim, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: So tell us briefly about your personal money journey, starting
Speaker 1: from the time you were a girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, growing up in an immigrant household, money was
Speaker 2: not discussed at all. Any sort of conversations we ever
Speaker 2: did hear about money was we don't have enough of it,
Speaker 2: so don't bother us asking so from a young age,
Speaker 2: I just learned to never bring up the topic or
Speaker 2: to ask for any money. We used to go on vacations,
Speaker 2: but usually those vacations were pretty low key, like, you know,
Speaker 2: we'd go to the neighboring town. We'd probably grab like
Speaker 2: lunch out of seven eleven. So that means that when
Speaker 2: I went to college and I embarked into adulthood, I
Speaker 2: didn't have any tools on how to navigate money, which
Speaker 2: meant I had to go through a lot of personal
Speaker 2: hardship surrounding money in my early twenties until I finally
Speaker 2: decided to self educate in my late twenties.
Speaker 1: What was the big lesson that you took away early
Speaker 1: on that you realized you could do something about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mentioned earlier that in my twenties, I
Speaker 2: went through a lot of financial hardships. So to kind
Speaker 2: of give you a little more context, is, you know,
Speaker 2: I was caught in some bad roommate situations. I was
Speaker 2: caught in some toxic workplaces that caused me to burn out,
Speaker 2: and I found that the common denominator was a lack
Speaker 2: of money. And that was incredibly frustrating to find out
Speaker 2: because I thought, okay, well, I went to college, I
Speaker 2: did the quote unquote right thing. Why am I still
Speaker 2: struggling with money? And that's when I realized this because
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to manage the little money.
Speaker 1: That I did have.
Speaker 2: So I started to self educate and I learned that
Speaker 2: I wasn't being intentional with my money. So I was
Speaker 2: going to work, putting in my eight hours, but I
Speaker 2: was not tracking where that money was going. I didn't
Speaker 2: have any goals. So once I learned how powerful it
Speaker 2: was to be intentional with my money and how creating
Speaker 2: those goals tracking that money, it was a complete game
Speaker 2: changer for me.
Speaker 1: Wow, I wish I'd talked to you a lot earlier.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people feel that way
Speaker 1: that they wish they had known these tips much earlier
Speaker 1: in life. So from all of that, what are the
Speaker 1: favorite tools that you like to use?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when I was going through my financial journey,
Speaker 2: I had a lot of debt, nose savings, very minimal investments.
Speaker 2: What really helped me stay on track was a free
Speaker 2: app called Budget, and it was just a way to
Speaker 2: track exactly.
Speaker 1: Where my money was going.
Speaker 2: One that I would recommend as well is called Envy
Speaker 2: and that's one that my husband currently uses and he
Speaker 2: swears by it. He uses it all the time. That
Speaker 2: one is not free, but it's a one time three
Speaker 2: dollars payment.
Speaker 1: So I know you at one time taught money classes
Speaker 1: or finance classes pro bono at the Why Is that
Speaker 1: a good place to learn about finance?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, And the reason for that is because the
Speaker 2: why make sure to only recruit financial professionals in the area,
Speaker 2: So you're going to get people that actually know what
Speaker 2: they're talking about. They've worked in finance, and on top
Speaker 2: of that, they're donating their free time to teach others
Speaker 2: financial literacy, which means they have a passion for financial literacy.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what you want to learn from people
Speaker 2: who genuinely want to teach it to help others.
Speaker 1: So that's you now. So from your journey and from
Speaker 1: your experience, you really became a financial expert. And we're
Speaker 1: thrilled that you're on the show and that you're part
Speaker 1: of this overall secret program. You have four actionable to
Speaker 1: dos that every young woman can do. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us what those four to dos are? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Of course. So it really boils down to these four
Speaker 2: points when anybody is getting started. So Number one, you
Speaker 2: first need to set goals for yourself. It's hard to
Speaker 2: get somewhere if you don't know where you're trying to go.
Speaker 2: So visualize what kind of lifestyle do you want to have?
Speaker 2: What city do you want to live in? Do you
Speaker 2: want to be able to afford vacations comfortably? Do you
Speaker 2: want to buy a house some day? These are all
Speaker 2: things that are going to require money, and the clearer
Speaker 2: you get on what you want out a life, the
Speaker 2: easier it's going to be to move towards those financial goals,
Speaker 2: especially when the going gets tough. Number two, Please spend
Speaker 2: some time understanding your relationship to money. And I say
Speaker 2: that because we all have different experiences with money. What
Speaker 2: comes to mind is my husband's relationship to money. You
Speaker 2: know what's funny is that he's married to a financial educator,
Speaker 2: but growing up, he had a negative relationship to money
Speaker 2: because his parents fought about money all the time. So
Speaker 2: even though I taught him all the ropes of the
Speaker 2: technicalities of how works, it still wouldn't stick for him
Speaker 2: because he had that money trauma. So it's very important
Speaker 2: to understand if you have a negative relationship with money,
Speaker 2: understand where it came from, and then try to get
Speaker 2: some help to cope with those feelings. Thirdly, I would
Speaker 2: encourage anybody to self educate. And this is important because
Speaker 2: money isn't taught in school. It's usually not taught at home,
Speaker 2: especially if you come from an immigrant background. So it's
Speaker 2: going to be important for you to be proactive and
Speaker 2: your financial journey and teach yourself how money works. And lastly,
Speaker 2: once you've learned how money works, it's going to be
Speaker 2: super important for you to track, monitor and adjust as needed.
Speaker 2: Your financial journey is not going to be just reading
Speaker 2: a couple of books or listening to a couple of
Speaker 2: podcasts and figuring it out. It probably took me two
Speaker 2: years to truly understand how money works, so you got
Speaker 2: to be patient with yourself.
Speaker 1: Well, those are great tips. Again, set your goals, understand
Speaker 1: your own relationship to money, self educate, and then track
Speaker 1: and adjust as necessary. You know, one of the factors
Speaker 1: for young women, especially young women of color, is this
Speaker 1: pay gap which doesn't seem to go away. You have
Speaker 1: some advice about that. What is your advice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, first, I would love any young woman listening
Speaker 2: to this recording to understand that the pay gap exists.
Speaker 2: I'd like to walk through some cuist statistics. So, according
Speaker 2: to lean In, women overall make sixteen percent less than
Speaker 2: white men, and as you break this down by women
Speaker 2: of color, the statistic does get worse. So, for example,
Speaker 2: Asian women make eighty six cents for every dollar that
Speaker 2: a white male makes. White women make seventy three cents,
Speaker 2: Black women sixty four cents, Latinas fifty four cents, and
Speaker 2: Native women fifty one cents.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is unfortunate, I know, at least for
Speaker 2: latinas a number to get worse last year. So it's
Speaker 2: important to understand that the game is very much rigged
Speaker 2: against us from the beginning. But while we're working to
Speaker 2: make those systemic changes at the individual level, we need
Speaker 2: to do the best we can with our own situation.
Speaker 2: So what we can do is we need to learn
Speaker 2: how to negotiate. A lot of us aren't taught that
Speaker 2: that's even possible. Anytime that you get some sort of
Speaker 2: job offer, please negotiate. The recruiter is expecting you to negotiate,
Speaker 2: So if you don't negotiate, you are leaving money on
Speaker 2: the table. As you have this job, please document your
Speaker 2: wins and communicate your value to your supervisor because that's
Speaker 2: going to come real handy when you need to negotiate.
Speaker 1: For a raise.
Speaker 2: And then lastly, I wish I would have learned this
Speaker 2: one sooner. If you do all those things and you're
Speaker 2: still not being paid accordingly, please go where you are valued.
Speaker 2: I wasted so much time thinking I just had to
Speaker 2: work harder because I wasn't being recognized or compensated appropriately.
Speaker 2: But really I was working at a place that was
Speaker 2: never going to see my value, so it was really
Speaker 2: a waste of my time and efforts. It is harder
Speaker 2: to find those companies that truly value diverse talent, but
Speaker 2: I can promise you they exist.
Speaker 1: This is amazing advice, and you know, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of what this whole series is about, and this
Speaker 1: whole program, to your point, is really getting the knowledge
Speaker 1: and the information you need to then go out and
Speaker 1: do what you have to do. Again, of course, on
Speaker 1: a systemic level, we're all working together to change things,
Speaker 1: but as you said, it's really important to take control
Speaker 1: the extent that you can on an individual level. And
Speaker 1: to that end, you have a new book coming out
Speaker 1: later this year full of great money tips. Tell us
Speaker 1: the title and what it's about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. So my upcoming book is called Gutura
Speaker 2: in Cash Money Lessons from the First Gen mentor for
Speaker 2: Managing Finances and Cultural Expectations. And this book was really
Speaker 2: inspired by my own personal finance journey. So I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: I wasn't taught how money works. So what I did
Speaker 2: is I self taught myself by reading over fifty personal
Speaker 2: finance books.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But yeah, although I did learn a lot about how
Speaker 2: money works. I learned all the technicalities of budgeting, investing,
Speaker 2: all that good stuff, what I found were that these
Speaker 2: ymail authors didn't account for how I'd be navigating money
Speaker 2: as a bicultro Latina. So the problems that I would come
Speaker 2: across is that I would use the teachings I would
Speaker 2: get from these books, and then when I use it
Speaker 2: with my family, I got a lot of resistance yor like, hey,
Speaker 2: this isn't how we do things, or you're being selfish,
Speaker 2: or you're being cheap, or you're being ungrateful. So I
Speaker 2: wanted to have a book to highlight those stories and
Speaker 2: share others how to navigate a bicultural world.
Speaker 1: Well, we are really thrilled about this book coming out,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to make a huge contribution. Again,
Speaker 1: thanks for everything you're doing for all of us, and
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us on the show. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Gigi. Let's recap some of what we
Speaker 1: learned today. First, one of the most powerful tools you
Speaker 1: can have is to be intentional with your money. It's
Speaker 1: not enough to earn a decent paycheck to truly create
Speaker 1: your future, says Gig. You need to track where your
Speaker 1: money's going and what you want to do with it. Second,
Speaker 1: self educate. Read all you can on personal finance. You
Speaker 1: can take courses at places like The Why, and watch
Speaker 1: for Gigi's personal finance book coming out later this year. Finally,
Speaker 1: a tip from Gigi to help equalize the pay gap
Speaker 1: as you progress in your career. When you get a
Speaker 1: job offer, always think about negotiating. If you don't, she says,
Speaker 1: you'll probably end up leaving money on the table. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this special five part series, Secret Money
Speaker 1: Tips in partnership with Secret Deodorant on Seneca's Conversations. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening, and please share today's podcast episode with
Speaker 1: others in your Life. This is Kim Azarelli, co author
Speaker 1: of Fast Forward and co founder of Seneca Women. Seneca's
Speaker 1: Conversations is a production of the Seneca Women podcast network
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the
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