Violeta Sandoval: 0:02

Welcome to the Money Chisme Podcast, a fun and safe space for personal finance, investing and entrepreneurship tips, where we get the chisme on all things money with sass and humor. I am your host, violeta, a first generation Mexican immigrant, a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and I am here to help you kick ass in the financial game. Each week, I not only bring you expert tips, but also share the financial freedom and entrepreneurship journeys from our own community, because you know, representation is important. So grab un cafecito or, si quieres, an adult beverage and let's get into this week's money chisme. Hola, welcome to another episode of the money chisme podcast.

Violeta Sandoval: 0:57

I am Violeta, your host, and everyone has a pretty unique personal finance journey and for the typical person, when you start that journey, it's pretty intimidating and scary. So with me today to share her own journey and give us some tips and tricks to help us navigate our own journey is Jessica Peron, ceo and founder of Her Financial IQ. Hi, jessica, thank you so much for joining me today. Hello, thank you so much for having me. Awesome, I'm excited for this conversation, but I always like to hear how I mentioned that we have pretty unique stories of how we fall into learning personal finance and trying to get our money together, so I want to hear about your story. How did that go?

Jessica Perrone: 1:50

Well, you're absolutely right. Everyone does have their own money journey, and it's interesting because a lot of people have assumptions, when they see me, that I must have grown up in an affluent household with all the wisdom that I have about personal finance and investing. And, believe it or not, I grew up the oldest of eight children and my mom was an immigrant and a single mom, so we had so much stacked against us growing up but I learned some amazing lessons from my mom, and one of them was how to work super hard.

Jessica Perrone: 2:30

She was an amazingly hard worker. The second one was she was so frugal I just remember every single penny counting and like just being very good at using the various resources out there or bartering or exchanging.

Jessica Perrone: 2:48

There was just that sort of frugality that was bred into me growing up as well, and then I would say the third part was just how to stick to a budget. I will say that I also did learn about the importance of credit scores from growing up in a household that relied heavily on cash, and this is something I'd love to talk to your viewers a little bit more about later on in the conversation is the importance of credit scores, especially as being part of the US economy.

Jessica Perrone: 3:22

I would love to talk a little bit more about that as well, but yes, I did not have financial conversations growing up, because there wasn't any money to have those conversations and it really was growing up and my financial journey that I went upon myself, where I learned the basics of personal finance, where I learned the basics of investing, and then I ended up on Wall Street as well.

Jessica Perrone: 3:48

So what I really love to teach women is that you can have little to no knowledge about finance and still understand it and still succeed in it, and I feel like with the classes I've created, or TikToks, or coaching that I've done, I've really learned how to create an environment that is accessible and approachable and kind, and I feel like that is really a big thing for women, because they come into that First of all. They, they, they lack the confidence, something else that we talk about and you and I will talk about, and hopefully anyone that's watching this podcast will start identifying and say, yes, oh, I can do that. I might feel I might have a little anxiety around it, but oh, I can do this, yeah.

Violeta Sandoval: 4:42

Yeah, I, yeah, that is totally.

Violeta Sandoval: 4:45

I agree.

Violeta Sandoval: 4:46

I think like historically did seem intimidating, like it's for the wealthy people, and then so you start this like journey, or like for me, as I was coming out of high school, and it was like, okay, I really probably should start knowing how to at least know what to do with my money, and one of the things that I like about now is that more people like yourself and one of the things that I'm trying to do is make personal finance and financial literacy important and make it more accessible and not as intimidating.

Violeta Sandoval: 5:23

But I do want to go into one of the main things that you wanted to talk about, which was like credit score, because I feel like that was the biggest one when I first started. My personal finance is, of course, yeah, like saving and a little bit of budgeting, because my parents were the same way, were like kind of frugal and very anti-debt credit cards and all that stuff, but then I had to buy a car and then all of a sudden, I have to deal with credit scores. Definitely want to get into that conversation on like some tips or what is your advice for someone that has no idea about credit score, like how does it work, what is it and what you can do with it.

Jessica Perrone: 6:08

Absolutely, and I even noticed a lot of the housing posts that you have on your blog and one of the biggest things you can do to get a great interest rate on a loan is to have a fantastic credit score, and people don't understand that it really is your financial passport to all these products out there, and especially immigrants. When they're coming to the US. They are so used to cash economies, they are so used to mistrusting institutions and you would absolutely. There's the envelope strategy out there for budget saving and you're like, yes, if I am using cash, if I am staying with just within the cash that I'm using, I'm doing great.

Jessica Perrone: 6:55

And frankly that's true, that's fact, but it doesn't help your credit score. So what is a credit score? Let's just like back up a little bit on that. And thank you so much for asking this question, because I do this is something that is dear to my heart as well, because going to college, because my mom did not and my stepfather did not have a good credit score, they could not co-sign my loans for me, so I could not get out loans to go to college. So I actually had to take a year off between high school and college to work and save up enough money so I could get to college that first year. So that is exactly one of those lessons that you learn. You're like oh my gosh, you know, no one ever told me about credit scores. Like your mama will say to you brush your teeth. Your mama will say to you keep your hair nice, keep your skin nice, but she doesn't tell you to keep your credit score nice, right yeah?

Violeta Sandoval: 7:55

exactly.

Jessica Perrone: 7:56

That is one of those things that are critical to financial wellness in the US. Critical to financial wellness in the US. So credit scores Credit scores are reported by the three credit agencies out there and basically it is a track record of all of your debt and repayments and credit cards that you have, and so one of the best ways to start a credit score is by having a credit card and paying it off on a monthly basis, and that is a very large part of where people go wrong in their finances.

Jessica Perrone: 8:40

They get this first credit card and they're like, oh, I like to shop. And they're like, oh, I'll pay it off next month, I'll pay it off next month. But then you have compounding interest at 23% and you're like, oh my gosh, wait, how did this happen, Right? So that is something that you really have to think about when you are spending on a credit card, and that's really to rein it in and only spend what you can pay off on a monthly basis. And when you do that, you can start building your credit score, because payments on-time payments is like the number one thing you can do to get a good credit score.

Jessica Perrone: 9:24

So you asked another question about how our credit score is used. So credit scores can be used for all types of things, including and people don't realize this employment. So if you are applying for a job and you and me, violetta, we are close contenders, right If one of us has a good credit score and one of us doesn't, potentially that could be used in the decision-making process. So, definitely, credit scores are important there. Even renting an apartment, they will look at your credit score as well, but especially, like you were saying, even car loans and the lower I mean. It's shocking, I wish I had I could share my screen and I wish I was a little bit more prepared of this, because in one of my in the before investing course, which talks about the financial ducks, I actually have a slide that talks about the difference of the cost of a car loan with a good credit score versus a poor credit score.

Violeta Sandoval: 10:34

So how much?

Jessica Perrone: 10:36

more you pay in interest just by not having a good credit score when you're looking to buy a house. Getting together a deposit and getting your credit score in order is so helpful for getting a really great interest rate on that mortgage.

Violeta Sandoval: 10:55

Yeah, I definitely learned that the hard way. My first car I didn't have a credit score because my parents were like so anti-debt, like everything was paid in cash. If you don't have it in cash, you cannot afford it. And so then I go to try to get this car and I can't even remember I probably could pull it up if I go back in like my statements or something. I don't know if it's still there, but I think it was paying like. I think it was like around 18, probably more than that percent on this car loan and it was like a credit card interest rate.

Jessica Perrone: 11:32

Yeah, yeah it was a used.

Violeta Sandoval: 11:34

It was a. What was it? Maybe 2008, something like that gold honda accord. Love that car and I used it for like 10 years and stuff, but those car payments were so expensive at the beginning but like I needed a car, what was I going to do?

Violeta Sandoval: 11:53

And so that was one of the things that really kicked my butt at the beginning when and a big kick in the face of what credit score, how much it really actually affects you. And now, with investing in real estate and stuff, it obviously gives you better access for interest rates and all that stuff, like you mentioned. So, yeah, big eye opener, and I really think that my community needs to start working towards their credit score and kind of get over this mentality of being scared of debt, like, yes, definitely be cautious, because, like you said, you don't want to run up credit cards now you don't learn how they work, and so I do want to get a little bit into that of the good debt versus bad debt and a little bit of how you were talking about, of how to use these debts more wisely and make sure that you're paying them on time.

Jessica Perrone: 12:55

And it's so funny you and I are like on the same page because I was just thinking we should really talk about good debt versus bad debt now.

Violeta Sandoval: 13:01

I'm reading you.

Jessica Perrone: 13:03

Yes, because your example of the car. There are times when a car can be good debt, but there's times that when a car can be bad debt as well. I don't know if you can tell. I got really excited about that. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm slightly applying it because I get totally excited. But just to digress, just just one minute, if you don't mind.

Jessica Perrone: 13:26

I often attribute my financial success to not having a car because I did not even get my driver's license until I turned, get this 30. Until I turn, get this 30. Wow. So just think of like if you took all of those payments for that car, if you took all the maintenance for that car, all the gas, the insurance and I actually have a blog post. And again, I wish, if anyone has a chance and they want to go over to my blog post, or Violetta, maybe we'll share that blog post on to. Yeah.

Jessica Perrone: 14:08

I'll link it below Is ditch the car to pay off debt, and pay off high bad debt, because you know and then I actually go through the numbers of how much you would save if you just ditch the car altogether. So, I was able to save up my nest egg really super early and start investing and start my investing journey a lot earlier because I did not have a car.

Jessica Perrone: 14:35

I did not have the costs and therefore it all went into a savings account and therefore, when my credit cards were all paid off, my student debt was paid off and I was completely debt free. I had this net nest egg, I had this surplus and I was like, ok, it's time for me to start my investing journey.

Violeta Sandoval: 14:53

So I think that's where I am right now. A little bit, I kind of went back kind of to a starting point because I got rid of my car. Right, I still have a car, but it's just like a paid off little rink-a-dink car. Oh, I think it's like from 2010 or something, but it's like little Honda Civic but no car payments and like easy to maintain. But I just don't want a car payment at the moment because I'm doing kind of like a reset, I guess, to save up some money and continue my journey. And so I agree like if you can get away with doing the car payment, it could really really accelerate your journey.

Jessica Perrone: 15:36

Yes, and I also want to preface this too Everyone's journey is different and everyone's goals are different too. And it might be your goal that, instead of owning a house one day, you just want a nice car and you are happy with the rental, and that if you set yourself up for that and you do it appropriately where, like you said, you're not in debt for it, you can, you're paying it off, you're putting gas in it, no problem and you still have your emergency fund Then by all means treat yourself. I'm not saying don't do it at all. It's just that you have to financially set yourself up and so that you can afford these things in an appropriate manner, in a manner that's not going to get you in the weeds financially.

Jessica Perrone: 16:29

So I do want to preface that I'm not against looking nice or having nice things. No, it's when it's appropriate and you can actually afford it yes, totally agree on that.

Violeta Sandoval: 16:41

and with that, what are some of going back to? A little bit of the question is like can they make sure that they set themselves up especially with the debt and things like that, so that way they can feel less, I guess, get rid of that guilt of having these nice things?

Jessica Perrone: 17:00

Sure, absolutely, and I also and thank you for bringing us back to this but I also believe in everything, in moderation, including moderation because, like we want to have healthy relationships, we want to have with money, we want to have it within our means, right, and so that's just something that I also want to bring up, because there are you'll hear some people out there that are like, oh no, you can't have any nice things and oh yeah but yeah, that was the big thing with the previous main I guess people, influencers or personal finance educators, I guess that you would see in the finance space that was the big thing of frugality, like how dare you go enjoy a cup of coffee or things like that.

Violeta Sandoval: 17:57

So now I think I like that we're turning that around to yes, let's make more educated and calculated financial decisions, but not to the point where we just forget to enjoy life. So I'm glad that we're going that route and having a good balance now.

Jessica Perrone: 18:18

Yes, absolutely, and I feel that once you have that balance in anything, not just finances, you can have a joyful life. But let's go back to that needs versus wants and the good debt versus bad debts, actually the good debts versus bad debts. When I'm thinking about good debt versus bad debt, there's a couple of things I think about. But probably the biggest aspect of trying to figure out whether a good debt, whether a debt, is a good debt or a bad debt, excuse me, is if that debt pays you more than what you pay into it. Okay, so historically, education could be a good debt because you're going to school, you're investing in yourself and then, potentially, you are going to have a return on that education that helps you earn more. Now there's a lot of controversial studies going on now about cost of a college education versus the debt that you're put into it versus what you make coming out of school.

Jessica Perrone: 19:21

So that is a whole other conversation. That's why I put a little bit of potentially there too. But that in itself, Violetta, I think is a whole nother podcast that we could do Absolutely for sure.

Jessica Perrone: 19:35

So, and then another aspect, violetta, that we've also hit upon another potential good debt could be a home loan. Right, you are taking out debt on something that will potentially increase in value and give you a return in the long run. So those are two mainstream thoughts of what a good debt versus a bad debt is. So a bad debt would be, for example, credit card debt, and I'll say most credit card debt, and I'll put an asterisk on this because I have put my own spin on good debt and bad debt as well. So, but most credit card debt is bad debt for something. Some shiny object that you saw. You said, oh, this is pretty, I want it, and it doesn't give you a return, and you're paying interest on it, not getting a return on that debt. So traditionally, credit card debt would be a bad debt.

Jessica Perrone: 20:36

So, where do we get into sort of the fuzzy gray area? The fuzzy gray area would be, for example, if you need to invest in yourself, so you need to dress up for an interview. Okay, and I'm not talking about going out to Bloomingdale's and picking out a $500 suit.

Jessica Perrone: 21:00

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is okay, I need to look nice for an interview. I'm going to go to TJ Maxx, I'm going to find something very nice that is not extremely expensive, that I could see myself paying off very quickly if I get this job. Well then, that is investing in yourself. If you are a nurse and you need scrubs and shoes the accurate shoes to cause you're on your feet all day and you don't have the money's necessarily right cash and I write a way to pay for that, while putting that on a credit card and those will give you a return.

Jessica Perrone: 21:39

Well, that's another story. So it's really what is the return on this debt? And I actually talk about that on everything is looking at life from the eyes of an investor, because there's a lot of emotions that go around money and if you can take the emotion out of it and just look at it from a perspective of, okay, what is the return? And looking at it with the investor hat on, you can take a lot of emotion out. So an example of this would be and I was just in TJ Maxx over the weekend- and you know that I have all these fun stuff.

Violeta Sandoval: 22:18

Oh, I always lose to that aisle, I know right, right.

Jessica Perrone: 22:23

And now they have the Halloween stuff out too. And can I tell you, I love Halloween, I do. I have a lot of Halloween stuff. I come to terms with that I'm working on it. But I literally went down that aisle and I didn't pick up one thing. I did.

Jessica Perrone: 22:42

And I but I, I was thinking about it and as I was going, I'm like I don't need that, I don't need that. Nope, I don't need that, I don't need that. It really is. What is the return on this investment? So if you're going down that aisle and you see another scented candle and you're like, oh, like those scented candles, get me too, like those candles, get me. But how many scented candles can you really have? And then you have the almost empty ones like laying around and you don't want to throw those out because they're so pretty on the outside.

Jessica Perrone: 23:13

I've been there. I've got to go through the thought process as well, but really, like, what is the return on that candle? For sure, like another candle? What is the return on that? And you mentioned actually coffee just a little bit ago, missy and I I actually have a Starbucks challenge where, especially in January, after the holidays, when we are looking at our credit cards and even right now this is August, at the time that we're recording this we've done a lot of us have done an awful lot of summer spending. We've been like, oh, just to the beach and I'll just do this trip and I need that outfit and all these things when we're having these challenges to really save money and I call it financially skinny. When you get financially skinny super fast, you want to.

Jessica Perrone: 24:01

You go on a spending diet and one of the things that I do challenge people to do is find that one thing whether it's the candle at TJ Maxx, whether it's Starbucks, and do a savings challenge instead of spending it on that item, that it's just like, it's a habit and you're like, oh I know it's a habit I can't help myself Putting away into a savings account that's outside of your current savings account.

Jessica Perrone: 24:30

And another trick that I have is the various types of savings accounts out there. But one type of savings account are high yield savings accounts. Those are typically from online banks. You can usually get really super high APYs at these banks. You open up a separate account, separate from your checking account, and you put it in that savings account. That savings challenge. Oh my goodness, I totally digressed. I totally went down a rabbit hole. We were talking about good, bad, worse and sad. I totally digressed.

Violeta Sandoval: 25:00

I totally went down a rabbit hole All the way to high yield savings accounts.

Jessica Perrone: 25:06

Apologies, hey the conversation evolves Absolutely, absolutely. But so, what is your habit, violetta? What is your habit, violetta? What is your habit? What is that one thing you were going to do? A savings challenge? What would you challenge?

Violeta Sandoval: 25:23

yourself on. I think right now is my husband and I. We're so busy, so it's the cooking and just like getting just food all the time, and then we'll try. But I think we haven't figured out a good way to cook at home as much, because mostly we'll just have like simple things and we do have it, but for the most part it's just become a habit, like I get home tired and this.

Violeta Sandoval: 25:53

But it's mostly now because I have my daughter. She's five months old, about to be five months old, so it's been so hard and so we've noticed that we have been ordering or getting food, whether it's like quick things, from like fast food places or whatever, or restaurants or whatever, just because it's easier right now, because we're just tired, so we're it's funny because we already we did talk about it we're like, okay, we're doing too much, we're eating out, spending too much eating out, so we are going to go in a little, I guess, diet for that. So that's going to be our habit, that we're going to try to break this coming after we get back from busy my family.

Jessica Perrone: 26:39

I love that and I love that you are identifying it together and I know that I mentioned this before we started our conversation that I've started doing couples coaching as well as my educational classes, and just having conversations can be stressful for people saying to each other Ooh honey, we've been eating out an awful lot.

Jessica Perrone: 27:02

We should really rein in the spending, like having the money. Conversations can be really difficult. So good for you, violetta, to have that conversation with your spouse. Now I have a question for you. So there's something called money scripts and I like having couples that are first working with me take these money scripts.

Violeta Sandoval: 27:21

So uh, when you have a chance.

Jessica Perrone: 27:23

Violetta, definitely take the money script quiz with your significant other and you can just Google money script uh quiz. It's a free quiz that you can take and you would take it and then your significant other would take it. But would you say that you have similar money sort of philosophies or differing money philosophies?

Violeta Sandoval: 27:50

I think it's slightly different because I think I am a little bit more, I guess, ahead in my financial journey.

Violeta Sandoval: 28:03

I know I've been learning more about it and he's just kind of like a little bit more behind. He's not there, he's learning about some of these things and budgeting, but I think he's still dealing with the financial guilt and trying to get him into the habit. So, like right now, it used to be me with the budget, but now I've given him the reins so he could start knowing about like more about personal finance. He's starting to get interested in the real estate investing that I do and I'm trying to get him up to speed so that way we can actually not now start being kind of like in the similar space or, I guess, level. So I think that's where we're at right now is I've kind of just really dove deep into personal finance and learning about that and he's still kind of a little bit like now starting. So I think I'm like intermediate and he's still like entry level. So that's a little uh difficult at times and stuff. So it's funny like he's willing to learn.

Jessica Perrone: 29:11

It feels like, from what you're saying, it feels like he's willing to learn and he. It's not that he's like no, I'm not going to take care of my finances. He just didn't understand the importance of it, and a lot of people are in that space.

Jessica Perrone: 29:25

They're not necessarily intentionally bad with their finances and just saying screw it, but because there are different types of people, right and there's different people are at different points of their journey, but also are different types of people, right, and there's different people are at different points of their journey, but also at different points of their knowledge and. I remember even my financial IQ. When I first met my ex-husband, my financial IQ was like a toddler compared to him and I learned so much from him and there were times that he's like what do you mean? You don't know what that means, and I've had a lot of men say that to me in my financial journey.

Jessica Perrone: 30:00

But I had to say look, I'm sorry, I'm not on the same level as you. I actually got sassy, a little sassy like sassafras, and I know some people would have been like taken aback or humble about it, but I'm like no.

Jessica Perrone: 30:13

I'm like I just didn't throw up with a silver spoon in my mouth, mister, like I want to learn, tell me about it. So there is like a little bit of tenacity, and stand up for yourself as a woman and say you know what? No, I don't know this, or anyone, not just a woman. No, I don't know this, but I want to learn and I can learn and I will learn. Gosh darn it. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Violeta Sandoval: 30:38

He's yeah, he's definitely in that mindset that he wants to learn. And I think my community we're at that level where we're a lot of us are in the beginner stages and I want them to give themselves grace and because I know the mindset is like, oh, I did this at the age of 20 or whatever. We all have our own journeys and some of us just start a little bit later in life and that's okay, and at least you're doing it now. That's what matters. It's like I had to learn to give myself a lot of grace and really let go of like man.

Violeta Sandoval: 31:13

If I really if I knew this back then, I could have saved myself this blah, blah, blah. But that's the past. Now I'm doing it. That's what matters the most. And speaking a little bit of the community, I know because I want to make sure I don't forget to include it, because I know we were speaking offline about it that you did bring some statistics on, like the Latino community, and so I do want to give you a chance to share those stats and your thoughts.

Jessica Perrone: 31:43

Sure, absolutely. So. I what I did was I ran some stats on the Latino community and investing, like we've been talking about just personal finance, and banked versus unbanked, and just what a lot of people just would feel are everyday finances, personal finance, not to mention moving in regards to lower investment ownership in general, and it said here that Latinos are less likely to own investments compared to their non Latino counterparts. This survey found that nearly half of Hispanic Americans don't own any investments. Oh, wow, isn't that an amazing statistic? And then in for the ones that do own investments they have a smaller investment portfolios and they go on to say when Latinos do invest, their portfolios tend to be smaller than those of non Latinos and they have a preference for they're saying here more traditional investments.

Jessica Perrone: 33:00

I would say liquid. I would go on to say liquid. And what is liquidity? Liquidity is when you are able to convert an asset into cash very quickly. Okay, again, distrust of the institution, distrust of not having it in a cash form. So this part says that Latinos often prefer more traditional investment vehicles like savings accounts and certificates of deposit, things that more quickly can be turned into cash. Those certificates of deposits have a little bit more risk than a savings account. I do talk about that in my before investing class class, and that could be a whole nother talk of you.

Violeta Sandoval: 33:40

Let us know, I think we have like five times at this point.

Jessica Perrone: 33:43

Yeah, absolutely, I don't mind coming back and so those types of investment vehicles rather than riskier options like stocks and bonds. Then they go on to talk about language and cultural barriers. Language barriers and cultural differences can hinder access to financial information and services, making it more difficult for Latinos to learn about investing, and they also have lack of trust in financial institutions. You and I have brought that up. Historical mistreatment and discrimination can lead to mistrust in financial institutions, making it difficult for Latinos to build relationships with advisors and brokers. And then I had also just put on the side and we really talked about this two things that I wanted to talk about. I wrote down with big and big letters.

Jessica Perrone: 34:34

Which is what we talk about. Is cash? Right, we're noticing a lot of cash, and there's also the trend of being selfless here in the States and sending monies back to families that are at home, and so you talked about the selfless aspect of it as well. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Violeta Sandoval: 34:57

yeah, for as far as like the parents sending money to mexico yeah, that was you know growing up, I kind of like why are you sending money over there?

Violeta Sandoval: 35:07

and but like that's their family and the latino culture is more of a collective culture, whereas whereas here in the US is a little bit more individualistic. I guess the money is seen more like if you can to help support somebody else, you should. My mom sends money for random things. I think the most recent one was for funeral expenses for somebody that they knew from Mexico, so that was one of the most recent ones. But everything is kind of like everybody helps each other out because that's just the way the system is. It's not like how we have here with like investing and things like that that you can retire from.

Violeta Sandoval: 35:53

Everybody really depends on, like the, I guess, the prior generation. So my mom takes care of her mom, then now it's falling on me and so I think my generation, the first generation here, is we have this unique I guess I don't want to really say burden but, for the lack of better words, yeah, like a burden of to try to break that still, but also still balance that with taking care of your family and still keeping some of that cultural collectiveness, but also learning how to balance it, and we're also responsible for handling our parents because they don't know all that stuff. They don't know the finances I'm having to right now. My parents are getting close to well. My dad retires pretty much this year he's eligible and my mom in a few years. So then I'm having to do start learning about like life insurance, start learning about how this social security works. What are they going to get, their benefits and Medicaid, like all that stuff, and it's a huge weight on our shoulders. Those statistics really show up how the experience of the first gen we have to deal with that, trying to get our parents and realizing that our parents didn't invest. They probably saved money in a bank, but it's not enough. Because of inflation or they misjudged, the cost of living is definitely higher now. So all those things puts a lot of stress in my generation. That is here trying to balance both and push our own journeys forward, but also bring our parents with us as much as we can to make sure that they're not high and dry. It's interesting how those statistics and I'm going to make sure that I put that in the show notes because all of that is true Like they don't trust, they don't know, like my mom has access to a 401k and it's been kind of like a struggle to try to get her to do anything with it because she doesn't understand what stocks are and I tried to explain it to her.

Violeta Sandoval: 38:03

But it's just that mistrust and it's kind of hard to get over. Help them overcome that fear. And same thing with the high yield savings account. You mentioned that earlier earlier and I'm still on that, trying to get her. I'm hoping to be able to accomplish that this week that I'm here, but it's been slow progress trying to convince her that a high yield savings account is safe and better. So yeah, a lot of struggles. Definitely. I can see how you said it was like 50% that has 49%.

Jessica Perrone: 38:40

Yeah, nearly half.

Violeta Sandoval: 38:41

Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Perrone: 38:42

So in such a tight knit culture, and there's so many other cultures out there too that really believe in the younger generation taking care of the older generation. And in their mindset why do I need to save for retirement? My kids are going to take care of me.

Jessica Perrone: 39:12

And if something happens and there's a fallout in the family, that potentially, if the parents haven't been saving for retirement, that could potentially really leave them in a tough position. And that actually happened to my grandma. I don't want to go into it, but she also believed that she was going to be taken care of by the younger generation and she basically she passed in a hospice with nothing and it was the saddest thing that I've ever seen. I don't want to scare people, but if you don't look out for yourselves and especially women, right, we're afraid to really take these items on. And just to go back to the courses, this is also one of the reasons why I created it was because even I, when I started off my journey and I said I had the financial IQ of a toddler, frankly I didn't even understand that if I was investing in my 401k.

Violeta Sandoval: 40:15

I was investing in the stock market.

Jessica Perrone: 40:16

I did not make that. I did not make that connection and even and I had this mentor at work and he said you really should be putting money away towards your 401k, you should really be putting money towards the stock of employee stock purchase plan, and I had no idea that I was investing in the market.

Jessica Perrone: 40:34

And then, as a result of that, I actually have some funny investing jokes. That happened where I got involved in some penny stocks, and that's another story, because I just realized that I could have just been allocating more money to my 401k and the match, and I am in the markets and it will be growing. So these are all things that we shouldn't be embarrassed to not know, because if our parents don't understand this, how are we supposed to understand this? So that's one another one of the reasons why I put together my courses. So I have before investing, which talks about your financial docs and personal finance tricks and how to make your money grow before investing, and then investing basics what are the different ways you can put your monies to work, what is a 401k? What are IRAs? What is a robo-advisor? What does a financial advisor do? What do retail brokers do?

Jessica Perrone: 41:30

And so that's my investing for beginners course. And then I also have my stocks and ETF simplified, because once you figure out where you want to put your money to work, you kind of have to understand what they're investing your money into. That's course, three stocks and ETF simplified. So that's how I broke it down in the courses. And then, of course I had people saying hey, jessica, will you just help me one-on-one? I'm such a people person. I love people.

Jessica Perrone: 41:55

So I said okay, I'll start coaching too. So I have expanded out into coaching one-on-one coaching. So, regardless of where you are in your life, whether it is trying to just save more, budget more, increase your credit score, or if you're starting to think about investing, or if you're about to buy a house and you want to get your credit score up, these are all ways that a financial coach, whether it be me or another person, can help an individual get their finances in a row.

Violeta Sandoval: 42:27

Yeah, yeah, they sound great. I went on your website and I really really love how you did the step-by-step. Each course is in for certain things, like the beginning, the sort of beginning, and then the middle and continue building up. So I really like that. I think that's um, definitely how people um learn pretty well, like all the, especially me. That would have helped me back then if I had like, okay, first start with this and then with this and then go from here, instead of like having everything like being so overwhelming. It's like, oh my god, I gotta learn about savings, I gotta learn about credit score, I gotta learn about this and you know God, I got to start investing and I have no clue what that means, and so I really love how you set up your courses. Again, I will have that linked below, but I am thankful that you came on here to share your story and have all these conversations, so I appreciate you coming on my podcast and sharing your expertise.

Jessica Perrone: 43:37

This was so much fun. Thank you and I know, finance and fun in the same like sentence. How could that be? But this was really really fun. Thank you so much, violeta. I really appreciate having me on the show.

Violeta Sandoval: 43:49

Awesome and, again, all of her information will be linked down below, along with the blog that was mentioned and the statistics, the report that you had. But other than that, I will see everyone in the next episode. Bye, thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to like and share this episode so others can also find this podcast. Don't forget to follow me on all my social medias listed in the show notes below, where you can also find resources to help you in your financial journey. If you're interested in becoming a guest on the podcast, you can find that information in the show notes. Other than that, thank you so much for your support and I will see information in the show notes. Other than that, thank you so much for your support and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.