Jen Hemphill, a military spouse & proud bilingual Latina, helps the busy career-oriented woman become the Reina (queen) of her money and love her dinero more. She is a Latina Money Expert, an AFC® (Accredited Financial Counselor), author, speaker and hosts the Her Dinero Matters podcast. Her Dinero Matters is an award-winning podcast focused on the advancement of U.S. Latinas to minimize the gender wage gap while creating a healthy, confident conversation around money. She has been featured in publications such as Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, Oprah Magazine, Good Company Magazine and Grow (Acorns + CNBC), and NPR.
What are some of the most popular Latino traumas keeping us from being able to budget?
The first thing is that we don’t acknowledge that in the Latinx community, trauma is within our spiritual faith and culture. We repeat every day that we have to be grateful for what we have. Although that’s true and being grateful is important, that puts a layer of guilt and trauma upon us.
How do we talk to our couple, our spouse about money?
The first step in talking with our spouse is not about the bills, not about the debt we owe, but really getting to know them, their money history, and their money story.
We can start by having very casual conversations in terms of maybe something we’ve read in a book or listened to in a podcast or found in a blog post with really fabulous tips… and say, Hey, why don’t we try this? I think this would be great. I heard X, Y, Z. These conversations will create the habit of talking about money where it doesn’t lead to an argument or to tension. It actually creates confidence.
Because when we’re talking money, a lot of people don’t have the confidence. Maybe they feel guilt, they feel shame, whatever it is around their situation. So they’re not wanting to talk about money and we have to create a safe place for them.
What tips do you have, and how can we re-engage in this journey?
Reengaging is really looking at our accomplishments because if we’re feeling bad about our finances, our confidence and there for a lot of areas in our life tend to worsen.
We really need to reengage ourselves in terms of what have done well and what are our strengths, our, money wins like “This is what I’m really strong at” and, “This is my strong suit”, and listing them down.
Yes, it’s great to have the conversation, but if you have that written down it’s something you can refer to later when we’re not having a great day because maybe the budget failed again or whatnot. Look at that list of strengths of wins that you’ve had. All those things matter because we don’t tend to acknowledge our strengths.
After we talked with our couple, What resources and tools do we have at our disposal?
We can use a spreadsheet, an app, or a classic pen and paper.
We have to take time to try out different tools to see what suits best our lifestyle. If we try something and it didn’t work then maybe think what were the reasons.
I use an app called Simplifi but there are different apps out there. Unfortunately, they tend to come and go. You can also just keep it simple with a sheet of paper or a notebook. The most important thing is to find something because it’s all about consistency and patience… it takes time.
Remember that there’s the fix, the occasional, and the variable expenses!
How important is accountability in this process?
I have been using extreme accountability this year with a group of financial advisors and I have seen my business grow exponentially. I have seen my ability to reach out to my Latino community, grow. So yes, accountability is really important in this process.
How to use the stock and bond market to create wealth
There is room to invest and everybody’s situation’s different. Sometimes we don’t do it because we don’t understand, because there’s distrust, or because we don’t understand the information presented to us. That’s why it’s so great to see more people from the Latinx community helping each other out.
What is the best way to find someone to help with our issue?
When looking for someone to help us out have these 3 questions in mind:
1/ What are our needs right now?
2/ What is your biggest priority?
3/ What is our biggest goal right now?
Connect with Jen
Website: www.jenhemphill.com
Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenhemphilll
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moneywithjen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenhemphill/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenhemphill/
