In this episode, Tiffany Grant sits down with the inspiring Giovanna "GiGi" Gonzalez, a first-generation wealth builder and the author of "Cultura and Cash." Giovanna shares her personal journey of breaking free from the cycle of poverty and navigating the challenges of managing finances and cultural expectations.

From her experience as the daughter of Mexican immigrants to becoming a pro bono financial educator, Giovanna offers invaluable insights and practical tips for first-generation wealth builders.

Join us as we learn about the "First Gen Five" pillars of personal finance and how Giovanna's book is empowering individuals to take control of their financial future. Get ready to be informed and inspired by this enriching conversation.

About Our Guest

Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez is a TikTok influencer, financial educator, and author of Cultura and Cash. During The Great Resignation, she quit her 10-year corporate career to pursue her true passion: teaching financial literacy to young adults.

Gigi teaches personal finance and career navigation for First Gen at various organizations and on her TikTok account @thefirstgenmentor. She was named 40 under 40 by the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement, "Latinx to Watch" by Hispanic Executive Magazine, and Top 25 Creator by Fast Company.

Connect with GiGi

Instagram: @gigithefirstgenmentor

Get the book: Cultura & Cash (Amazon)

Connect with Tiffany

Website: https://www.moneytalkwitht.com

Facebook: Money Talk With Tiff

Twitter: @moneytalkwitht

Instagram: @moneytalkwitht

LinkedIn: Tiffany Grant

YouTube: Money Talk With Tiff

Pinterest: @moneytalkwitht

TikTok: @moneytalkwitht

Timestamps

[00:00] Chose economics for employability; enjoyed math. Joined insurance company.

[05:18] Seeking and sharing financial knowledge through volunteering.

[07:27] Entering adult world with financial challenges and responsibilities.

[11:49] Identifying pillars for first generation wealth builders.

Key Takeaways

• First Generation Wealth Building - Breaking the cycle of poverty
• Financial Literacy - Learning as you go
• Immigrant Experience - Pressure to succeed
• Family Financial Obligations - Balancing giving and personal goals
• Book Release - "Cultura and Cash" provides financial guidance
• First Gen Five - Focus on emergency fund, budgeting, debt payoff, credit, and investing
• Resources - Access book and connect with Giovanna Gonzalez

Support this Podcast

Copyright 2024 Tiffany Grant

You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your

money nerd and financial coach. Now, tighten those purse

strings and open those ears. It's the money talk with Tiff

podcast. Hey, everyone. I

am so excited because I have Gigi here on the line. So

Gigi is known as the first gen mentor, and she's here

to talk to us about what it looks like as a first generation wealth builder.

So, hey, Gigi, how are you? Hey, Tiffany. Thanks for having me on the

podcast. Hi, everybody. Yes. I'm so honored to

have you. So let's just hop right in. First of all, what is

a first generation wealth builder if people are listening and have no idea what we're

talking about? Yeah. For anybody who's not familiar with the term,

it would be the first person in their family

to escape the cycle of poverty. So instead of

just living paycheck to paycheck, they actually have the financial means

to build wealth. So that's wealth

that they can pass on to others, to future generations, and to

make their lives easier. From my

background, coming from immigrant roots, my parents

and my grandparents and great grandparents before

that, they lived paycheck to paycheck cycle. So, really,

I was the first that got the privilege to go to college

and be able to earn a higher salary. But since I never learned

how to manage money or build wealth, because, again, my family was

never fortunate enough to have the privilege to have it,

it's something that I've had to learn, and I'm sharing this knowledge with

others. Got you. So you've pretty much, like, learn as you

go, and I'm a share as I learn. Yeah, totally. Oh, yeah. I'm

like, I'm learning, and let's bring others with me. Got you. So let's

dive a little bit deeper into your story. So, what did that journey look

like for you? How did you decide? Okay, I want to go to college. This

is the life I want. This is what I choose to do. Take

me through that. Yeah. So, as a daughter of mexican

immigrants, my whole childhood, I always heard,

you have to go to college. You have to go to college to have a

better life than we did. Because both my parents work low paying

jobs, so my mom has worked in retail her whole

life. My dad, he does own a small business, but it's like

one person show. He rents party rentals and

supplies. So it's a small business

owner. And, yeah, I took that to heart

because that's what I heard growing up to get good grades and go to college

didn't really have much direction beyond that from my parents because they

had never navigated academia or anything like that. So

I had heard you should get a major in a major that

sets employable what they call it, I

say, because, again, as a daughter of immigrants, I didn't have a

safety net, so I really had to pick a major that made sense and

I'd be able to get a job right away. So I decided on economics,

which I enjoyed. I enjoyed learning econ, and I was good at

math, so that came naturally to me. So I went to school at UC Santa

Barbara. I was a transfer student. So after two years, I community college, then I

transferred to UC Santa Barbara, major in economics, and then

I got my first big girl job working at an insurance

company doing auto claims. So totally not using my econ

degree at all. But it was a fun job, and I met a lot of

cool people, and actually, some of my best friends are still from that

job. So that was a purpose for sure of me working that

role. And then after about three and a half

years, I didn't feel professionally fulfilled

from my insurance job. I didn't feel that I was see my econ degree. So

I pivoted. I pivoted to investment consulting

and then investment management towards the end of my corporate

career. Throughout my tenure,

corporate career, I struggled with money, which I was very

confused by because I felt that I had done what I was told to do,

and that was to go to college and get an office job. And I had

that. I had checked those boxes, but I still found myself struggling

with money, and I didn't realize why. So it wasn't

after several financial hardships that it hit me. It's

like, oh, it's because I'm not managing the money that I am earning

well because I was never taught this at school or by my

immigrant parents. That is so real. I always tell

people, you cannot out earn poor

spending habits. And it sounds like you learned that firsthand for

sure. Now, getting into that, when did you

decide? Okay, Gigi, you kind of have this down pack. Let's

start teaching people about this. What was the thought process behind

that? Yeah. So first it looked like, okay,

I cannot keep going through financial emergencies. I had a lot

of bad boyfriends that I was stuck living with

or toxic bosses, these crazy

Craigslist roommates that I could not escape from. Just a lot of

situations that I felt trapped in because of lack of money. So

I said, this has to end. This has to end, and I'm going to teach

myself how money works. So I read

over 50 personal finance books. Once I started, I just couldn't

stop. And once I felt that I had mastered the knowledge, I'm like,

okay, cool. Now I have a plan for myself of what steps I'm going to

take to get myself into a better financial position.

But I also felt a bit angry that I

didn't have this knowledge, knowing that some other people did have the privilege of

getting some basics taught by their parents. So I said, how can I

share this new knowledge with other women, specifically women of

color? So I literally googled how to teach

financial literacy to others, and I came across a nonprofit called the

YWCA. I was living in Phoenix at the time,

and they were accepting applications for volunteer financial

educators. All that they asked were that you worked in

the financial sector, which. So that's how I did that

for almost two years. That was my life very much working my nine to five

job and then on the side volunteering in my community as

a pro bono financial educator. That's awesome. That's awesome.

And I'm learning so much about you as well as the audience,

so it's good to hear your story. Now, let's dive a little

deeper into the first generation wealth builders thing. Do you find

that there's quite a bit of people going through this, and if so,

if someone's listening, that's like, this sounds like me.

What are some things you would tell them? Let's say one

thing, because it seems like it would be a

lot of pressure. Yeah, it's definitely a lot of pressure, because,

again, some people say

that we start at zero. I would argue that we start in the negative,

because a lot of us do have to take out student

debt to be able to even be able to go up

the economic ladder. Right. And to gain economic

prosperity. When I graduated from college, I

graduated. How long ago is this? 20, 11,

13 years ago. So I graduated with

$50,000 in debt. About 35 of that was

my student loans, and then the rest was credit card

debt as well as my car notes.

So I entered adult world

with no money skills, this new salary, and a ton of

debt, and no plan on how to pay it off. So I think it's a

very common experience for a lot of

firsts. So whether you're the first in your family to go to college, the first

in your family to be in corporate spaces, the first to

be the first generation wealth builder and have that ability

to build wealth and get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle, it's

a lot. It's a lot to learn, because financial literacy

can seem like a foreign topic to many. There's a lot of

jargon that somebody has to learn to really feel

comfortable with the language of money. And on top

of that, a lot of first generation wealth builders like myself, we have

financial obligations to our extended family.

So, for example, my family very much views me as the

one who has, quote unquote, made it, because I went to

college and I got a degree, and they never got that privilege. So

that comes with the expectation that if they ever need money, I'm

the one that gets tapped on the shoulder. So whether they need money for a

medical expense or the roof caved in or whatever the emergency

is, I'm the one that's looked to. And

at first, when I was younger, it was an honor. I'm like, yeah, this is

why I went to college, to be able to help my family. But I quickly

learned that just giving and giving and giving without any

sort of boundaries or any goals for myself was just

digging me in a hole. And I started resenting my family, to be

honest. So I learned that I had to learn how to

balance wanting to give back, but also taking care of my finances

first. As you were talking, I was thinking about asking

you, have you ever been in a situation where your family needed or

wanted money from you, but you didn't have it to give? So how would those

situations play out previously? Oh,

absolutely. And this has been more than once. It's

funny because I found in my work very much this is divided in half.

I'm a TikToker, so half of my followers are like, oh, my parents or family

never asked me for a dime, so if they ever need anything, I'd give them

the shirt off my back. And the other half, which is the half that I

can relate to, is like, oh, yeah, my parents, I'm the first person they hit

up, because, again, I'm the one that's viewed as the one who made it. So,

yeah, I definitely have been put in that situation where I've been asked

for, I think it was $7,000 for a surgery

bill that I did not have. I did not have. And they're like,

well, you have a credit card. Your credit card has a $10,000

line. You can charge it there. And that was a whole

issue because they thought, well, okay, you

don't have cash, but you have a credit line. We don't have a credit line.

We're family. You should let us use that credit line. So, yeah,

it's been hard. That's just one of many. Yes, I can

imagine. And I have friends that are from Africa and

places in the Caribbean and things like, you know,

it's because you're in know, they feel like you

just have it made, when in reality, most of us

are just broke. Most of us don't really have the money.

We have credit and we have debt, but as far

as just cash laying around, it's usually not

a thing. But that's just the facade that

Americans have. But with that being said, you do

have a book that recently came out. Can you tell us

more about that and how this relates to your story? Yeah, of course.

Thank you. The book is called Kultura and Cash, which means

culture and cash. Lessons from the first gen

mentor for managing finances and cultural expectations.

And it's the book that I wish I would have had as a young

adult, navigating money for the first time. I

speak in jargon free terms because I know that's a big barrier

to people learning financial literacy. And I also provide

actual money tips. And my framework, called the first gen

five, to have people have a roadmap to follow

to really get into solid financial footing. Yes. So, first

gen five, if you could just give us a brief

overview of what that looks like or what the different

steps or tips are. Sure. Of course. So I

wanted to identify what pillars of the

personal finance world would make the most sense

for a first generation wealth builder. And the reason I wanted to do this is

because I know, as somebody who was first learning about money, it

can be very overwhelming. There's so much to learn at first, right,

about real estate. And should I do crypto and should

I try index funds? There's so many things going on.

So I said, okay, let me package it into, like, a starter pack. Like,

focus on these five things, and then you will get yourself into a

solid foundation. So the five things are focus

on building an emergency fund, learn how to budget, create

a debt payoff strategy, learn how to build your

credit, and start investing. And then I

say, if you do those five things at the same time, you'll

be taking care of past you, current you, and future

you. So it's like a holistic approach to money. Oh, I

love that, Gigi. I cannot wait to dive into this

book. For sure. Now, if people were listening, they're like,

oh, this really resonates with me. I know I have some listeners

that are first gen wealth builders and even mexican.

And so if they're like, this sounds like me, how could they

get more information from you, whether that's social media or how can they

even get the book. Yeah. So if you visit

gulturaandcash.com, you will see the

links to buy the book at all the online retailers like

Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes Noble, all that good stuff.

And if you go to that same website, gurdurancash.com,

you will also find the links to my socials. I'm active on

TikTok, Instagram and awesome, awesome. And I'll make sure

I have all of that information in the show notes for you all. And thank

you so much, Gigi, for coming on the show today and sharing your story

and learning more about you and your book. Thank you so

much, Tiffany. I had a great time. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF

podcast this week. You can check TIff out every Thursday for a new

Money talk podcast. But if you just can't wait until next week, you

can listen to previous podcast episodes at Money Talk

with t.com or follow TIFF on all social

media platforms at moneytalkwitht. Until next

time, spend wise by spending less than you make a word

to the moneywise is always sufficient.