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I'm doing things differently. I'm not just worrying about buying my daughter toys or cute clothes or having this awesome big birthday badge for her. I'm also building her options. I'm building her security. I'm building her financial confidence before the world has a chance to tell her that wealth isn't for her. And now I'm not talking about raising an entitled kid. This is about raising a financially prepared one. I'm not raising my daughter to figure it out later. Because as first gens, many of us have watched our parents struggle and work hard, sacrifice their bodies, their mental health, their health in general, and even have watched some of our parents start over financial several times. And a lot of times that means that we inherit that pressure, that responsibility, especially if your parents are nearing retirement age, you're stressing out about that. And you can even have some financial trauma. So I'm doing things differently. I'm not just worrying about buying my daughter toys or cute clothes or having this awesome big birthday badge for her. I'm also building her options. I'm building her security. I'm building her financial confidence before the world has a chance to tell her that wealth isn't for her. And now I'm not talking about raising an entitled kid. This is about raising a financially prepared one. So today I want to share with you how I am building wealth for my daughter with a college fund, a UTMA account, trust fund, financial literacy, and of course my favorite real estate investing. Because generational wealth isn't just about money, it's also about strategy, about protection, education, and breaking cycles. But before we get into it, a quick little disclaimer that this isn't financial, legal, or tax advice. This is just me sharing what I am doing so you can get an idea of what's available out there and what's possible, but always go seek professional advice before you set any plan in place or set a plan in motion. So the first way that I immediately started building wealth for her is setting her up with a 529 plan, which is basically a college saving investing account for her. And I was able to get that started as soon as she was born. And I just send some money bi-weekly, and it's a way for me to start saving up money for college. Now I know that college isn't the only path to wealth. I'm not saying that everybody needs to go to college, that that's the only way. I know how some people feel with education, but at the end of the day, education is a wealth builder. It gives you access to better careers, which means more income for you to invest or just be financially stable and get yourself out of that financial struggle. So education has brought a lot of people out of poverty and got them on the path to building wealth. So it's very important to start saving for college for me, right? Education is something that was pushed and instilled in me. So that is something that I want to make sure that my daughter has that option available for her without having to rely on those predatory student loans. Because it doesn't have to be college. Maybe she wants to go to trade school or do some type of certification program or have a career path that requires education. I don't want money to be a limiting factor for her. So in this way, the little that I put now is going to be invested, it's going to grow, it's going to compound. So by the time that she is of age to go to college and that's what she wants to do, then she has the funds to do so. Because let me tell you, student loan debt can be a barrier for a lot of financial milestones. For example, it can limit the type of houses you buy, like your first time going out there and buying a home. That might be a limiting factor because you have that debt. Starting a business, investing your, you know, those funds that could go towards that. Well, now you have to pay those student loans, which, you know, it keeps you at a job that you might not like. You also have to take calculated risks because you have that debt that you have to pay. So it's definitely a limiting factor. And I don't want that to be an issue for her. Now I am using a 529 plan. There's definitely other savings accounts out there you could go and look and see which one is for you. But 529 is the easiest one, in my opinion, that was available to me. And I went ahead and started it off right away as soon as she was born. And I only put like $100 every two weeks. And right now I kind of paused it and restarting it because I had to pay off some things. But overall, you just want to go look and learn about the 529 plan. They have different rules, tax benefits, and limitations. So make sure that you understand how they work so that way you can take advantage of them and have a strategy. But the thing with that is you don't feel pressured to put like the max amount, any little bit counts because remember, there's still grants, they can still go for scholarships, and there's other options out there as well, but at least you have something to help offset that college tuition and give them that the funds that they need to be able to pursue their education. Now, on top of that, because a 529 is just used for education purposes, so you're kind of limited on what you can use when you're able to access those funds. For example, of course, it is used for the tuition, but also you could use those funds for books, housing, which I'm going to talk a little bit when I get to the real estate investing portion of it. You know, you could use it for fees, supplies, computers, transportation, and anything that's related for education. Again, go check out the limitations for your specific plan. The next way that I am building wealth for my daughter is I set her up with the UTMA account. And that just stands for the Uniform Transforms to Minors Act, which is basically a custodial account that allows an adult, me, her parent, to invest or hold assets for her until she reaches the age based on you know the state or that account, the limitations of that account. This means that I can start investing for her right now, as soon as she was born, which gives her time because, as we know, time in the market is beneficial, right? Because the more time that you are in the market, that gives more time for your money to grow. So imagine me now investing for her as she is right now, she's two, and so by the time she's 18, she will have a nice portfolio. And what I like with this UTMA account is that I can invest in stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and in my in particular, I could even put real estate in there. So definitely check that out and see if that's an option that you want for your child. I have mine through Fidelity and I'll link that below. It is an affiliate link, but if it's something that you want to go ahead and set up, definitely, you know, check it out. It helps, you know, me pay the bills for this podcast. But that's how I've been using and giving her that time in the market. And what's cool is that I could also use that as a teaching tool because now I could show her, see her own account and watch it grow and teach her, give her some financial literacy education, which of course is my next one. Is of course throughout her years, she's only two right now, so there's only so much I can do. But I definitely have the plan of teaching her financial things, right? Like how money works, how to grow her money, of course, investing. And so now that I have a 529 and her own UTMA account, I can show her with her own portfolio of how everything works. Now I'm running businesses, how that works, and of course I have real estate investing teaching her all that. So she has a well-rounded financial education and has financial literacy. And with that, I think one thing I have to remind myself is not to bombard her with it as she grows. There's a lot of tools out there. I know I like if I remember to look it up later on, I'll try to link it below. But I know I saw some TikToks of some books, financial books. There's a lot of them out there, but I kind of like this one. And it was catered to kids and it teaches them the basics, and then as they grow, then you start like giving them a more in-depth financial education. But a lot of things you could start, you know, as soon as they're able to like talk, you know, what a dollar is, what a quarter is, blah, blah, blah. So the idea is that you make an effort to teach them about finances. And it doesn't always have to be a PowerPoint, you know. Of course, they're kids, so you don't want to kind of like bore them to death. When they're a little bit older, like teenage, then yeah, you could do more, kind of like a little bit more structure. But I mean, just going to the store and and having them pay and and then in that way get them involved with money and not make it so stressful. Because, you know, for me, I had to learn all of this about finances when I was dealing with financial anxiety. I was struggling, you know, and so I'm trying to figure out everything while also dealing with all my finances. So it's nice that I'm going to be able to provide that stability and just a good learning environment for her that she could actually absorb it better without having to deal with the financial anxiety and all that. So that's one way that I am ensuring that she also understands because, of course, yeah, I'm setting up the UTMA account, 529, real estate, whatever. But if she doesn't have that knowledge as well, then that quickly can just she could just spend it all, waste it all. And so by providing that financial literacy for her, financial education, now she is able to make better educated financial decisions and create her own strategy to build wealth. And you know, if she decides to have kids, then set them up for financial success as well. The next way that I'm building wealth for my daughter is through real estate investing. I am a real estate investor of over 10 years. I got started off by just like house hacking, renting, I bought my first house, rented out some rooms, and it was very slow progress at first because I wasn't really thinking about it as investing. But over the past few years, I got really active and really pushing for real estate investing because it is a great wealth builder as well. I'm a long-term real estate investor, so I look for long-term rentals, uh, which means it brings me monthly cash, monthly income, along with you know the asset itself, the property builds appreciation over time. So I get monthly income and I get long-term appreciation, and there's other things as well, because it's a business, you can leverage it to grow and all that stuff. So there's so many benefits with real estate investing on top of the tax benefits, it lowers my tax liability, which means that I get to keep more of my money. And so now that I have my daughter at the beginning, when I first started investing in real estate, of course, it was to build financial freedom for myself and for my husband, but now I'm also ensuring that I am thinking of how I'm going to have my daughter involved and how I can use real estate to build wealth for my daughter. And so I mentioned UTMA accounts earlier, and I am able to buy like an investment property for her and put it in that account. And if it's bringing in rental income, I'm able to put that in there as well, right? It goes back in there, and there's rules for that. So make sure you understand that I'm still learning about the rules of how I'm going to use that because I'm debating if I'm going to leave it there or just wait a little bit longer before I move real estate there because once you move it there, then it has to kind of like stay there and it's a little bit harder. So I think I may just leave it outside of the UTMA account for now, but I am making sure that I am buying properties that I can then pass on to her that she could benefit and take over. But I'm also, with the real estate knowledge, I'm also planning that, hey, when she comes of age, then she could start investing uh in her own rental properties, buy her own investment properties, and possibly house hack, which brings me back to the five to nine plans in college, because with the five to nine plans, part of that can be used for housing. So imagine that she either I rent to her and she pays that to me, or she buys her own property and she pays her own self, right? She rents to herself so she can use that five to nine money to pay for her housing. So, so many different ways that you can play that out because then she pays herself, she rents out the rooms to other college students and like then grow her her income and build wealth herself in that way. So there's different ways that you can combine some of these to kind of feed off each other to continue to build wealth. And we talked about kind of the wealth-building vehicles in another episode that I will post down below. Episode one to nine. I did that with Andrea from Building Gen Wealth and Police of Latina investors, which I will link down below. And we talked about these, you know, wealth-building vehicles. Definitely go check it out. We talked a little bit more in depth about some of these vehicles and how she's using them, and and we talked a little bit about how I was using them. But again, you can combine some of these to feed each other and just be a loop and continue to build wealth. So, this is another way that I'm going to be using real estate, is that in the future, when she does decide to go to college, then she could pay herself with her 529. She could also buy her own property and start her own rental portfolio that way. Because now I'm able to guide her through that because I've been investing in real estate as well. So lots of different ways. Now, real estate investing does sound kind of intimidating to a lot of people because it does require a little bit more effort and strategy and just you know a little bit more planning. And although, you know, we like to say, you know, passive income, right? It can be passive, but it's not super passive, it's not completely passive. You still have to, you know, go out there and buy the property and all that stuff. So it does take a little bit more work to get started. And so if you are interested, if you're a Latina that is interested in getting into real estate investing, I did start a community in school. It's for Latinas who are interested in investing in real estate. It's free to join, it will be linked down below. I created it to provide mentorship and guidance and support. You can network with each other and just be able to see other Latinas investing in real estate, no matter if you're already investing, you're thinking about investing, or you're with your first rental property and just want some support and guidance and just network with other Latinas in real estate. Or maybe you're a realtor or lender or something and you want to join as well because I want this community to grow. And eventually, once I get like 20 members, I want to host like monthly or maybe quarterly some like calls online, and we could just chit-chat and you could ask me questions and we could just guide each other, support each other throughout your real estate investing journey. So that information is down below. Check it out. I also post some resources and other things that I'm planning to put on there. So if you want to like ask me questions or whatever, that's where it's easy to access me. And the last way that I am building wealth for my daughter is that I am building all these things that generate income or build wealth, but I have to be able to protect that as well. So I have created a trust fund for my daughter because I don't want her to have access to all of these, especially the rental portfolio and other assets that I have. I don't want her to have access to those immediately when she's 18 because I don't know about you, but I know when I was 18, uh, was not too savvy, even though, of course, the goal is that I'm going to provide financial education, give her that financial literacy. At the end of the day, you know, we're still kind of immature at that time and can make some rash decisions, and you don't have that much experience yet for some of these things. So one of the reasons I created the trust fund was to actually kind of not give her access to these things right away. So I will put, for example, my properties into the trust funds that I want to give to her, and she can get access to the income. So let's say she gets like 20% of the income there monthly or whatever. And you know, there's different ways that you can break it up. Another way is that she won't own the assets until a certain age, which, for example, some people use it because uh you might get married, you might get divorced or whatever. And so you don't want them to own those things right away because if they do get married and divorce, then you know they lose half of that, they have to give it to the spouse or whatever. And at the end of the day, don't want them to kind of like just lose those assets right away, or they go gamble and then try to like put the deed to the house or whatever, right? Like they could easily lose it because they're young. So it gives them some time, but you could still set it up to where they get some get that income. So that's another reason that I set up a trust fund is through protection from herself and from others, and so I have that set up for her because the last thing I want to do is that I worked so hard for all these things to set her up and then some rest decision or somebody else takes it away. So I definitely want to make sure that I protect those assets, and that's why you sometimes hear it that I think I forget how it goes, but it's like the first generation creates the wealth, and by the third generation is gone. You could have things in place as well, and that's more getting into estate planning. So I'm not gonna get too much into it because I'm still at the beginning stages of that, but you could set it up to where like you have like a whole board, and basically you can't give away your assets so easily. So there's ways to protect that to keep your assets and your generational wealth growing and getting passed down and ensuring that you lower the risk and prevent maybe third, fourth generation to just lose it all. So as you build your wealth and grow your assets, make sure that you start talking to an estate planning attorney. Just don't go online and just kind of like do a guessing game because this is very important. One little loophole can lose it all. And so you want to make sure that you talk to the expert and set up the type of trust funds that you want. And you review your beneficiaries, and you could put like your life insurance, your retirement accounts, all that in there, and you could set it up to where it's easier for if you do like past, then it's easy for like, for example, my daughter can easily get access to it or at whatever level I decide for her to have. That way there's nobody else trying to contest or say anything and try to steal the assets, so a lot of protection as well. So, yes, we kind of like think about building wealth, making money and all that and investing. Don't forget to also invest in the protection of everything that you are building because you don't want to work that hard and just lose it. So make sure you go do that as well. But yeah, overall, these are the ways that I am building wealth so that way my daughter has generational wealth to inherit and also protection. Again, it's through the UTMA account. I have a college fund for her. I am going to give her financial education throughout as she grows up, so that way she builds that financial literacy and also real estate investing, which is my favorite, and of course, estate planning through trust funds and just ensuring that I have that protection in place for her. Because again, it's not just about making my daughter rich, it's making sure that she's prepared, that she's confident, that she's protected, that she understands how it works, and that we build wealth intentionally. Other than that, that's it for this episode. Again, all the resources will be linked down below. And don't forget to share this with another mom or Theo or future mom because some of these a family member can do for you. For example, five to nine. I can start one for my niece or anybody else, basically another child. So definitely share it and don't forget to follow the podcast. Subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube, and I will see you in the next one. Bye.