From working-poor immigrant kid to first-gen millionaire

7 ways I learned about money from male mentors, and why I am now co-hosting a course focused on women’s financial literacy.

Photo credit: Robert Bye on Usplash

Wealth is often generational, but for those of us without inheritance or a safety net, we must learn to build wealth from $0. It’s not easy, probable, or even taught in our schools or workplaces. We live in a capitalist society, yet for first-gen risers, we are never taught the importance of building, managing and investing our own financial capital. Here’s my story, and how I hope to inspire other breadwinning women, and first-gen earners to find economic security and financial independence so we can retire on our own terms (lest we want to stay on a paycheck-to-paycheck treadmill into our ’70s, SMH…).

About me: I’m just a busy working mom, a first-gen Mexican-American woman, a primary breadwinner wife with a two year old toddler. I’m a tech product manager by day, but like Notorious B.I.G, “I’ve often got my mind on my money, and my money on my mind.”

While I grew up in a lower income family, in a tiny apartment in East Los Angeles, receiving free lunch in elementary school, I spent the last decade collecting fancy degrees at Stanford, and the most elite corporate stamps on my resume. But that’s not how I fueled my now million dollar-plus diversified investment portfolio.

Instead, I had to step outside the halls of Ivy League schools and corporate meetings rooms to actually learn how to grow and invest my money. Through self-sourced money mentors, financial advisors, and savvy friends, I have learned how to turbo-charge my retirement accounts, stock holdings, real estate passive income, and even break into alternative assets like the wealthy do — including syndicate angel investing deals, and yes, of course a little cryptocurrency for the thrill of it.

While I have a handful of really savvy female friends I can confide in, the majority of these mentors have been men in my professional and social network (I have no rich uncles to call on!). I credit largely men in my life who have helped me seize high reward opportunities and emerge out of financial crises even stronger–especially this past year.

Despite my best efforts, and with a few exceptions, it has been challenging to create safe spaces for women and mom friends to open up and share money lessons with each other. Why? Because women who talk about money are too often stigmatized as power hungry, unladylike, brash, vain, or gold-diggers. I had to work through these stigmas and it is now my mission to help all women break down the scars that hold them back financially.

Therefore, I am partnering with Chairman Mom to create a six-week program called Boss up your Financial Game to share everything I’ve learned and create the community that I’ve always wished existed for women to discuss personal finance. I will share my personal stories, lessons and failures along the way, so other independent and first-gen women don’t have to reinvent the wheel alone.

But before you go sign up or share this course with women friends who stand to benefit, let’s dig into why this problem is systemic, but also deeply personal for me.

The wealth gap is systemic, leaving women and people of color behind.

We all know the significant earnings gap where white women earn <80% of what their white male counterparts make (just 61% for Black women, 56% for Hispanic women). The earnings gap starts to grow at age 29, right around when women start to grow their families.

However, the wealth gap is even larger. The net estimated earnings for women with a bachelor’s degree is $1.32M, versus $2.2M for men! We’re significantly less likely to be on track for retirement, less likely to be millionaires in our own right, and less likely to have enough resources to last 25+ years into retirement (despite the fact that women live longer).

We cannot just defer these decisions to our husbands, fathers, male family members, HR advisors, or financial planners–we must own our financial decisions & outcomes in our own hands.

As a first gen student, I made improbable leaps in upward mobility, but never learned financial literacy from even the most elite universities.

My story begins as the daughter of a hard-working Mexican immigrant father who worked two blue-collar trucking jobs to barely live above the poverty line. Seeing my parents’ financial stress to barely afford fresh groceries or new clothing, I felt the pain of not having economic security at a young age, and that instilled an early hunger for me to gain earning power. By 10, I was re-packaging women’s Avon make-up to sell at the local East Los Angeles swap meet, and I remember the rush of power holding several twenty dollar bills in my tiny hands from my own hard work. I felt the power of earning — which my mom encouraged even though she couldn’t do it herself.

Despite the systemic odds, I was lucky and made improbable leaps by earning a needs-based scholarship to Stanford, eventually earning a top-tier MBA at Stanford as well. It is ironic that I studied corporate finance & accounting in school, but never learned a single lesson on personal finance.

I then spent the past decade climbing through the ranks of management and product roles working at the most competitive top tech and fortune 500 companies of our generation. These jobs have given me immense benefits and earning power relative to my parents, but never was I formally taught how to manage, optimize and invest money (beyond superficial 401k enrollment forms). How does that make any sense?

Instead, my biggest financial education has been through mentors, peers, friends and informal advisors — and the majority of my money mentors have been men.

It’s common sense that kids usually learn money habits from their parents or extended family network. A study by T. Rowe Price found that young adults are 50% more likely to be smart about money if their parents discussed financial topics at home at least once a week. What about those of us who don’t have money savvy parents, or if our parents assume as women we shouldn’t worry about money?

Yes, there are great books out there like “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “I will teach you to be Rich” by Ramit Sethi, but in my experience, it’s live conversations with mentors and friends who have helped me pull myself up by my bootstraps. For better or worse, most of my transformational money coaches have been men. Here are a few examples:

1. Investing: Learning more about the stock market as a college freshman from my friend’s dad Stan (not in Econ 101 or any college courses). And pinging my Personal Capital advisor Jeff to navigate all the 401k, IRA, SEP IRA, Roth Mega-backdoor complexity that my generic HR contact would never answer.
2. Earning: Learning the growth and tax benefits of equity (versus cash) compensation from my advisor Martin.
3. Saving: Getting inspired by my friend McLane to aggressively cut my living expenses and cash burn rate, to increase my monthly savings from 10% post tax to over +50%.
4. Negotiating: Learning offer negotiation tips from my friend Raudel, and increasing my equity compensation package by +33%.
5. Syndicate angel investing deals: Gaining access to place small dollar bets in early-stage companies through my classmate Peter and mentor Paige, to experience the potential for outsized returns like wealthy venture capitalists.
6. Real estate passive income: Building a portfolio of rental income property, and investing in value-added projects with my business school mentor Dan.
7. Crypto: Waking up to the power and disruption of crypto, after my friend Adam answered my 100 questions on Bitcoin, and gave me the confidence to slowly build my exposure in Bitcoin to 5% of my portfolio.

In sum, >75% of my investment gains this year have been directly from advice or guidance from men — women have not been as much in the picture for me (and I know I am not alone in that).

Having access to male money mentors has been a game changer for me. But we need to create access to these lessons for women to improve their economic security and create a collective impact. That’s why I’m co-hosting this course.

There’s one community that came to mind when I sought to create a safe community for women to talk about money…..it’s Chairman Mom.

Chairman Mom is a safe, trusted community for women to talk about work, life, and everything in between. I’ve been a proud Chairman Mom member for years, and this community saved me during the darkest pandemic days of working motherhood. Now from a position of strength, and after making some radical money moves myself in the last six months to better provide for my family, I’m excited to pay it forward, and co-host this community learning circle with Serafina Miller, a Partner at Mercer, and a fellow badass mom who is a benefits and compensation expert. See our DIY video trailer here.

This next month, we’ll start a light-touch learning format of self-guided curriculum program & professionally-facilitated small Zoom/Slack groups covering the topics of:

1. 💸 Earning power (closing the earnings gap through negotiations, meaningful side hustles & passive cash flow, and optimizing your mix of cash and equity, because income is the fuel for wealth building)
2. 📈 Investing power and retirement planning (closing the wealth gap, to make our money work for us, so we don’t outlive our assets. We’ll think about defining our “target retirement / savings number”, reflecting on our net worth, and discussing personal strategies to close the gap)
3. ✍️ Budgeting & saving power (“it’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep”)
4. 🏠 Real estate power (“Smart real estate investments can fund your future with passive income, but bad ones can starve you of cash”)
5. 🎰 Risky assets like crypto (it’s not just for dudes anymore!).

If you want to learn more before enrolling, or if you have friends who might be interested, please register for this free informational Zoom event next Tuesday, April 13 at 6 pm PT. We will also be offering a Clubhouse Room next Wednesday, April 14th at 5 pm PT. You don’t need to be a Chairman Mom member, a mom, or even a woman to participate. We just want to create a safe space for women to feel welcome, heard, and at of our learning.

The six-week course has an enrollment fee, which covers the cost of the all-women team of video editors, producers, and community admins who run the program. But I do have 20% off discount codes, ping me for details. :)

Parting thoughts for a post COVID era, and here’s the bottom line on why women should be investing in themselves, now more than ever.

Just this week, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon in his annual letter just projected a new period of economic expansion and a “boom that could easily run into 2023” given the combination of national savings rate, government stimulus savings, the growth of retail investing, and post-COVID consumer optimism. But my biggest question is whether and how much women will stand to gain from the growth as investors (not just consumers). It takes space and time to invest in ourselves and our financial gameplan, so that we can win like the men. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission literally and figuratively to invest in ourselves. Join us!

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Disclaimer: This course is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a CFA, CFP or licensed investment advisor, and this forum is not for specific investment, financial or legal advice. There is no commercial incentive nor recommendations to buy or sell any specific security. This program is for us to share our personal experiences, to learn and grow together. Please contact your financial advisor for advice on specific investment decisions.