win and guess what you are responsible for your finances that's what it's all come down to we are all responsible for our own individual finances not a lot of people are aware of that especially our young folks young individuals who are going to college or even high school personal finance is not something that is spoken about there and yet we expect these young adults when they transition to adult hood to be able to manage their finances well today we are going to have you can really hear from woman who really knows about this topic because a first firsthand experience but she's so passionate about it that she decided to start a nonprofit so you're going to hear more about her nonprofit and her own personal you actually started this organization and the wonderful work that you're actually doing so i want to start everybody knows i love stories so so my i was here with what got you to this point where you felt that so passionate that you had to help all the women understand especially young women understand importance of their finances yes sure well thank you first faith for having me on the show so honored to be here but yeah you know i i do have a story and it was the reason for why i can financial was started and so everyone has a bucket list of things that they want to do in life in on my personal bucket list was purchasing my own home and i come from a family where we you know most of us are living in apartments we don't really buy a home it is an aspiration but we actually don't see it come to fruition and so i really wanted to do that and so i set out to to do just that and when i did i didn't realize how difficult a process it would be and it wasn't so much trying to navigate through trying to find the right home but it was more so trying to navigate through understanding of my own finances and how to get from a to b and i think one thing that you know i didn't realize was that i had to do a lot of self education and i had to really learn the value of money and that probably was the first time it opened my eyes to how important it is to understand your personal finances because when you are purchasing a home they're asking a lot of money from you and yes you can save it up and you have a lump sum of that but the prices come and for me there were a lot of surprises from my lender my role to her and not having the understanding of how i can get from a to b in my own personal finance with a truly an eye opener and really caused a lot of issues for me so it was a very trying process that i went through and you know what after i had bought my home i literally sat in my living room i had no furniture and i was like this was terrible not fun and i thought it was gonna be fun like looking at different houses and you know when it's one when you want homes but when you're actually in the willing that thing when you're checking your bank statement every five minutes and you're on edge it's not a funny guy marion and so i said there's got to be a way you know for for women at least you have a support system to not even if you take the the home buying process out of it just to get the basis of under you know financial understanding and so i started to have conversations my friends around  completely taboo and i was like no no no no no this is now societal issue with the wage gap and everything we have got to put this on the table so that's how one financial started so tell me a little bit you know you said when you started just you started axing all the women about you know savings and all of this why do you think it's a subject to believe topic for us you know just right off the bat and you know serena williams had a really good job of writing an article for i believe it was forbes or financial times one of those fortune i think it was actually on the wage gap issue when it comes to gender and how women are automatically paid less than men and when you have that robot that can chew you're already three steps behind your counterpart right and so i think that sort of sets the tone is that we're automatically paid less and some people don't and that's where it starts right you spend your money based on how much money you make it so if you're making a certain amount or you're not making a certain amount that already puts you in a certain bucket and you so you don't want to talk about that i also think that as women we are emotional spenders so we open up credit cards like crazy and we write them like crazy and so i think when you're combining the fact that you're not paid as much as you would like and that you're spending more than you can afford that is a conversation that just you don't want to put on the table right and so i think the combination of both of those are probably reasons why women aren't open about talking about money and i also think it comes down to self worth and we talk about this a lot with point financial in our workshops and about negotiating and you know that you may question your counterpart then act for more more if you are leaving a job and setting a new job learn how to ask for what you think you deserve and those conversations don't are not had enough and so i think just the combination of all of that and then you know keeping up with the joneses people you know i mentioned in spence one of the channels that we use to communicate and when you're looking at your own instagram channel in your scrolling down you see all these famous celebrities and these models and you know i got to wear this my god the word that and she's at that point and i need to be on that point it sort of serv competition and combine that with you know i make enough money here in day i can negotiate now i want to be like oh my god you know it's a big issue and as you know i think women automatically turn themselves off of i don't want to talk about things that i'm not good at and i don't want to have that conversation going to be vulnerable put that on the table and so i don't need help but i think you know with financial really coming across as more approachable and and really just  ourselves and wanting to just give you a hug and just like list sit down and have a conversation that we won't judge you about has really helped us i think open the doors to women who wouldn't before had the conversation this powerful confessing feeling not feeling just not judged i they got much you know because it wasn't invested properly etc correct because they and they weren't involved in it i know someone from particularly who didn't even know how much money within their checking account you know until and she had no clue how to navigate or even where to what they had because she wasn't a part of that process i want to my question is is that you think something that is with the younger generation is that an issue or is it in terms of gift thinking are both someone else taking care of not my my territory is you do you think i'm just the same being organic all the lewdly i think you know when we're talking about young couples i think it's completely the same you know i do think that a lot of women still that you know i don't make i don't make as much as my husband so i'm going to put him you know in charge of all the finances or i don't want to be reckless with my money so i'm going to give it off to him and have him you know help balance that or i just i want to be bothered and you know it's a lot of work and time and effort to ensure that the budget is you know next y and z and so i do still you know there hasn't been charged absolutely but what about younger women or young people who do not are not married or anything that what's their challenge what it what are you seeing coming up with always duels yeah you know i would say spending for is still an issue i think you know indulging in things that you know participation i think it comes with time invested and sometimes you know peer pressure if you think about yourself when you're in kindergarten and you know you're like your best friend always you know their favorite colors red like my never colors right to it's like that peer pressure i feel like it never ends i mean even you know even you know in mature i feel like you know a mature population their peer pressure it's  it's strong and it could be peer pressure from friends or family etc and so i think that a lot of that some of the issues when it comes to young single people are spending for bruce lee also thinks not planning for retirement people do not think about that and that's really important i mean a lot of the things i know that when i was buying my first home a lot of money came from i for one k it's my own money and i'm to myself that people don't realize that they can borrow from their for a one k name pay themselves back with a very sma interest b and so they rather take out personal loans and private loans and then our stuff and what sons of the high interest and high a p r that gets them just bogged down in debt for a really long time and so i think you know not thinking about the future and not thinking about you know how can i invest my money better is also an issue when it comes to young single people i think at least for you know young women now they're going to school more and so their son their own business is more or they have higher rank jobs and so they're often caring for their family more and so that additional burden are helping with those in the family also add some stress so that but i think if you're really good at budgeting you know and you don't just it doesn't come overnight but i want to say it like you know you wake up and budgeting it takes time to get there and i think it takes practice to train yourself to start doing that but i think even thinking about holistically am i doing the right things with my money that's the first thing is like you know do i need to do x y and z is that really important and young people young single people i think don't think about that often because they don't have a significant other that they have to think about they really are just sort of doing their own thing and that could be dangerous one way you know or it could be you know it could go both ways right i think younger people and i think i think i was there also i can say i can't believe that i'm my do that but not realize that times go time so fast you know right they do start early early planning for their retirement they could be retiring much more having much more time and resources to do really the finances is this something that you have thought about in terms of how to actually reach that group in any shape or form yes the high school has been a little harder to speak of as they said you know schools in general outside of university or college that's their curriculum for the year pretty early on so like when people are gone and june for the summer and their curriculum for the next year is pretty much that you know so you know we've been trying to get in the doors of superintendents and board of educations to have those conversations just networking with them to let them know hey we're here we're offering x y and z to we think about how we can be integrated into your current curriculum but we've also learned that summer camps have been really helpful in terms of getting to the youths that we have been working with a few summer camps and will december as well doing interactive workshops during the summer that are helpful so not particularly active during the school year but hitting them  getting that age bracket involved in terms of colleges that is one of our big priorities for twenty is how can we get on the campuses of colleges and i've been working with my alumni c hall university to see what i can do as well as engage them and get them to start thinking about that particularly because that's when the credit card to cheap food is i mean i'm and i turned eighteen i was i got a full of you know like things in the mail from capital want and i opened up like three credit cards year going into college like we're trying to hit them hard there and get them really educated about don't move too fast and so you know getting into credit card debt but using credit card to help build your credit for things like yeah and you know and talking about student loans we talk about the credit card is one thing that student loans yes i mean if anyone has student loans please get federal do not ever get private pilot loans i mean if you are in debt for a very very long time and so definitely would recommend federal and i would definitely recommend refund refinancing so they do have that option now where you can refinance and get a lower interest rate which is good and sometimes you know what i did a couple years ago was actually caught napping which used to be sallie ma yes so now it's nabby and but they do a really good in most most schools you get your student loans through that that same company they will work with you you know not even student loans but the creditors sometimes will work with you definitely picking up the phone and saying hey this month is not working for me we do a payment plan a payment option i've done that before payment arrangement with my cable you know when i got really high i was like can't do this month but i can give you twenty five dollars and then i give you the rest that i mean i think some people sometimes are scared to have that conversation but that person on the line does not know you they don't have them i hang up the phone put it in and move on to the next person and so just have those conversations with your creditors and the student loan lenders and let them know what your situation is and they you had mentioned earlier that some had said more money we make more money that we spend and i think that is a big one the biggest mistakes that we make because when you get an increase in your salary you are living yeah so definitely that is why even if you get the smallest increase because it happens most of the time every here continue to continue to operate on the salary that you have before and then use that extra money to either contribute more to your four a one k or good a good tool to use in the news about we also teach women to learn how to negotiate right and so when you use when you were going for a new job or even when you're in the same job and you feel like it's time for salaries based on your title ovulate yeah i do know that yes so if you are a teacher you know they can put a teacher in new york city and they can see how much a six three teacher make or for me they put communications manager and you can see how much a communications manager makes and another health care so you can say you know i you know i'm working at x y and z but if that other company they're paying their points you know who are also coming to the table with your accomplishment and  brag about yourself a little bit you know as women i feel like sometimes we you know we can talk about ourselves or our friends we don't want to talk about anyone else and so it's like certainly be humble but this is your your life your rearing your professional development so you know coming to the table with not only concrete data about what other people in your industry are making but also your accomplishments along the you know what you've done and what you can do and what they can do for them in that area as a you know about you add to that as well so we do talk about that a lot we also talk about financial freedom and breaking through the chains of of just financial hardship and so we have this really fun workshop that we do where we have a a dog cut out and give it to the girls and we tell them the right on the docket out all of the financial barriers like what are the reasons why you are not achieving financial freedom that could be student loans because you said it could be paying for you know paying off your car it could be taken care of you know i'm three kids or whatever it is that you know i just cannot break do not i cannot achieve financial freedom and then we take two or three of those things and we focus on strategies and ways that we can get a break free so if you are student loans the things that we just talked about calling and that's what they were right on the posted notes and we put that over student loans if they wanted to do you know car payment and too much talking about going back to the dealership and seeing how you can downgrade your car cetera so we then go over if we're going to pick two or three of these road block how are we going to get these robots out of the way and people actually go home with this physical paper dolls awesome with all of their strategies and strategies and it's like a really cute takeaway and it has some really concrete actions and i think that's another thing about point financials you can go to all these workshops but if you don't have a concrete plan on how to do that we can talk you to death about calling whoever you're going to take the notes whatever but you have to have a concrete plan person for you because everyone is different and so i think that is really important as well that we make sure that you know when we break into groups and we do these interact a workshop it's really tailored to your needs and it's not just talking so generally about how everyone to dislike everyone the key thing that lacking so you have the strategy age strategy know how are you going to implement the right you know and do so is there any follow up on time is going to pass when you're having fun or going into things here  do you do you have any life follow what with these individuals that kind of see where they are and if they need any supported i mean that's the point of the accountability partner tom de lay sister that we call you so when we call ourselves so when we do these workshops we're not gathering to share e mail address to send you home to newsletters we're gathering your e mail address so that we can stay in touch with you and check in on you to make sure that we provide you everything you need for the workshop is there something that you know you still don't understand hey how's that paying off your student loans going have you cause we continue to follow up and continue to stay engaged with you during the you know as much as as long as you would like and so we continue to have those conversations absolutely women and so you know when you go up to the hotel concierge and say i want to go to dinner and they give you options and a map and they're like your options here's a map you go into that and we do just that so if you want to have a better understanding of how to balance your four on one k or think about retirement we don't actually crunch the numbers for you but we help you get to to the start of that and give you resources and put you in contact with people who can actually help you do that and so financial you think about as a it's we have an open dialogue an open conversation with girls and young women about their issues and trials and tribulations and then try to help them get to a solution without really digging in deep into their personal information and we do that in a few different they're spending money is where we want to talk about money so we don't like that you know you know we don't know how much you made for that day for that you drink you know so we don't do it in the classroom setting because it just adds another layer of you know it makes it so clinical i don't want it to be that so we do it in person and online via workshops we also have free online tools on our website and then if you come to one of our workshops and we're talking about savings and you're like i want to dig deeper into that or you know group settings are not for me i'd rather have one on one session with someone we do have an expert network where you can actually talk to a financial expert who has years of experience as what they do for their day job and have a one on one session with them wow that's so powerful and that's a great model about their financial situation so having someone that they trust i think so i think that's where that's one of your biggest your biggest work is is to actually build those trusting relationships within fit with individuals but also with a difficulty or referring them to act wow wow so how did you start that process because that's a big endeavor and then a lot of it has been just through our personal network so i started this venture with three other women and we all had different backgrounds and so we all tapped into our network to see you know who can we pull from just the financial expertise but then also our friends and their friends and their friends who have been maybe talking about this  you know indirectly or have had a conversation about that or we know are struggling and want to be more open to that so it really has just been a lot of word of mouth and tapping into our networks but we also are very active on  to reach a young audience you've got to be where they are yes and so we have done a lot of advertising marketing on instagram and facebook that has been a big win for us and if you go to our internet a lot of our content is it's finance focused but it's also like a little sister who go and so i think that's important too when you're trying to build a new brand and you're trying to to build authenticity in trust within a certain community having that and you know women thrive off of community and sisterhood and coming together and so we thought therefore you know i i really really encourage you to be you young person or a mature person that you build up the courage to look at your finances because the bottom line is nobody else's