I really love talking about money. My journey with money inspired me to create this platform to share the lessons I have learned in hopes that they can be helpful to others on their own journey, especially other women of color.
I’m a nerd, former shopaholic who loves technology, social justice, gardening rock climbing and roller derby (and my very sexy husband). I have worked hard to build a life where I can enjoy the things that I love but that took some time and some struggle along the way.
i knew nothing about money for a long time and after getting myself in to some debt I decided that something had to change.
In my 20’s I accumulated $11,000 in credit card debt. When I had to borrow money from my mom to visit my younger sister in Japan I decided to take action. I got a loan from a local credit union to pay off my credit card at a lower interest rate and over the course of the year paid off that debt.
That was the first time I learned to actually budget my money and be more conscious about how I was spending it.
That was just the start of my journey, but first read on to learn more about where I came from…
I grew up in Los Angeles. My mother is an immigrant from Honduras and we never had much. She was on disability throughout my whole childhood and my father jumped from job to job never really bringing in stable income.
My parents filed for bankruptcy during my childhood and we were constantly in debt.
With disability not paying my mom enough to support us without my father we felt stuck in what was an abusive relationship with my father. Like many people we didn’t have the financial freedom to leave and at many times it got quite scary.
Luckily when I was 18 years old we managed to get out, but growing up without money and in the environment that I did meant I wasn’t taught how to manage it.
In spite of growing up really poor, I was privileged to go to college paid mostly by financial aid and scholarships so I graduated with only about $15,000 in student debt.
I also landed a great job right out of college but without the knowledge of how to manage my money things went south pretty fast.
After I paid off my credit card debt I thought things were great, until I needed to take some time off from work for health reasons and ran out of money.
I realized then that I made way too much money to not have the freedom to take a break from work.
Luckily during that time I found the Mr. Money Mustache blog and devoured almost all of the blog posts within a month.
I merged what I learned from his blog with what I learned from the zero waste movement and used those tools to slowly gained financial freedom. That year I paid off the last of my student loans and car note and saved around $20,000.
During that year I also met my now partner/husband who is one of the most frugal people I know who also taught me that I don’t need to spend money to feel beautiful or have fun.
I learned where I could save money so that I could spend it on the things that I wanted (like my fancy Alexa speakers and new plants for my garden).
Now I enjoy free walks in my neighborhood, playing board games with friends, reading books from the library and a good Netflix marathon. I still spend plenty of money but I work to spend it intentionally in ways that will bring me joy while at the same time making sure my future is secure.
✓ Helped my husband pay off $40,000 of student loan debt.
✓ Cash flowed our $11,000 wedding.
✓ Paid for multiple trips including our European honeymoon and vacation to Vietnam all paid for without taking on any more debt.
✓ Saved up over $40,000 and invested over $8,000 in a little over a year.
