Giovanna Gonzalez was the first in her family to graduate college and work a white-collar job. When she sought guidance on how to pay off student loans, all she found was a bunch of white people talking about “windfalls.” So now she’s the one teaching first-generation folks how to set boundaries with their families and become financial experts along the way. She joined us to give advice on paying back loans (God help us) and talking to our family about money (GOD HELP US).

This series was created in partnership with Flourish Ventures, an early-stage global investment firm backing mission-driven entrepreneurs and industry influencers working toward a fair finance system for all. Learn more at flourishventures.com.

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Follow Gigi online @gigithefirstgenmentor. You can buy her book here: Cultura and Cash

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To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

X Mayo, Speaker 4, Speaker 5, Speaker 3, Gigi, Speaker 2, Speaker 1

Speaker 1  00:56

What is something that you wish your family had taught you about money?

 

Speaker 2  01:36

The parents are the worst budgeters, and they have no self control with money.

 

Speaker 3  01:40

Doing taxes.

 

Speaker 4  01:43

My dad was just clueless when it came to any form of investing retirement, really understanding taxes. We don’t math very well.

 

Speaker 5  01:53

I come from, like, an immigrant family, and so there’s, like, some things where it’s like, okay, I’m not gonna, like, store money in my couch anymore, like in case the world ends tomorrow.

 

X Mayo  02:07

Hey, boo, hey, it’s me X Mayo, and you’re listening to another episode of The Dough, the show where everything is made up, but the points do matter, because they Dallas, like, that’s how I pay my rent, okay? Today we’re here talking about money in the family, because, look, we all learn lessons from how we grew up. Like I learned early on that if my mom gave me $20 to get a tamale, I better bring that motherfucking change back, because they know $20 tamales unless you’re white and that’s just a hot dog with some salsa on it. But you know, every family is different, and the money lessons we learn from our families are different too. Like some of y’all came up in a daycare on a cruise ship, some of us came up in the backseat cruising while our mom was on our way to Job Number dose, and that ain’t on you and your family, okay? we live in a country where your financial status is based on hundreds of years of racism, sexism, ableism, whatever ism you want, except mysticism, you bougie ass crystal bitches. Ain’t got shit to complain about okay, I’m just kidding. JK, you’re the granddaughters of the witches they couldn’t burn. I get it, calm down. Anyway y’all in this episode, we’re chatting about what it means to be the first one in your family to come up with money, and I know that experience firsthand. All right, my family has always supported each other, but we didn’t have a lot to support each other with. While it’s been a blessing to have $2 to rub together that comes with its own tricky challenges to navigate, that’s why I’m so excited to introduce today’s guest, Gigi Gonzalez. She knows all about this shit too. She’s the first one in her family to graduate from college and started working a white collar job. She’s a financial educator, content creator, and as of recently, an author. Gigi was on the last season of The Dough to talk about lending money to friends, and now she’s back to talk about her new book, Cultura And Cash. Gigi, welcome to the show.

 

Gigi  04:03

Thanks X for having me back on.

 

X Mayo  04:05

Yes, so here on The Dough. Gigi, we like to open up with a little icebreaker. So tell me where they all did your money go this week? Like, did you fall for a Tiktok shop? AD, hello. I’m projecting because I did. I know that you are a financial Pro, but was there any place where you slipped up this week?

 

Gigi  04:21

Um, I don’t think I would call it a slip up. A lot of my money this weekend went to booking travel for my book tour. I’m going to be in LA, in New York. So I had some big expenses.

 

X Mayo  04:34

Congratulations.

 

Gigi  04:35

Thank you, yeah but hefty. You know, hotel expenses, New York is not cheap. The same thing for LA, yeah.

 

X Mayo  04:45

So you write about being a first gen immigrant, so let me know, where did your parents grow up, and how did you end up in the States?

 

Gigi  04:51

Yeah, so I’m the daughter of Mexican immigrants, so I’m a first generation American. My parents are both from Baja, California. I grew up in a small agricultural border town called El Centro. It’s about two hours east of San Diego.

 

X Mayo  05:10

That’s so dope. I’m black and Mexican. My mother’s family is from I lately discovered Tampico. I was telling everybody I thought it was Zacatecas, because one of my Theos told me that when he was very drunk. But I was a kid and didn’t know that he was drunk. I was just curious to where we were from. And then my great aunt Matia, Nana, she was like, Miha, we are from tambico. And I was like, I have been telling everyone in every interview, like my family was just like, I think I just like, no, so how did you grow up? I know what it’s like. I’ve experienced people having immigrant parents. My mom was born in Mexico, but then came over pretty early, so she didn’t really, I don’t consider myself like a fully first gen, you know, basically, kind of like second generation, because she basically was raised in America. So I’m curious to know, what was it like growing up?

 

Gigi  06:00

Growing up in an immigrant household. It was the 90s, so that’s when my parents immigrated to the States. I didn’t realize we were low income, because my parents just always showered us with love. But yeah, looking back, we were, yeah. We were a family of four living in a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment, and at that time in the Coachella Valley. So I think, like most children of immigrants, we didn’t have any money discussions at home. So we weren’t taught anything about how to navigate money. The only thing that we heard about money was we don’t have enough of it, so don’t ask us for it.

 

X Mayo  06:41

All right, you ain’t got McDonald’s money, no, don’t ask for me. Yeah, I’m sure your parents were like, my my mom packed a whole lunch. We would go to Disneyland, she was like, saying, churros here. Pando says, like, what’s the issue?

 

Gigi  06:57

We would pack tacos and Papa Concho Risa, because those were holed up very well, even after a couple few hours. So yeah, and now that I’ve been to distilling as an adult, it’s expensive, so I understand why my family of four had to pack their own food.

 

X Mayo  07:10

No Papas Con Huevos every friend that I’ve had has tried mine, and when I tell you, it is gourmet baby, I have had so many friends that be like, Okay, so when you come into town, you’re gonna make Papas Con Huevos like that. They’re black, and they’re like, uh, we need the Papas Con Huevos, like what? We need that. And I make it so good. I make it with love. I take my time. Papas Con Huevos is going, I’m gonna go to that every time. So you said your family didn’t talk about money. Um, same. Did you ever witness how your parents managed money? Did you I know they didn’t talk about it, but did you just see how they did it? Or was that not disclosed to you?

 

Gigi  07:48

Yeah, no growing up, we would see a lot of financial emergencies come up where maybe the car would break down, or, you know, they needed cash for something abrupt. And what we saw happen all the time was my parents would tap into other family to ask for a short term loan, or they’d go to that trusted friend that always had cash, and they always paid him back, which is why they always kept getting loans and vice versa. Sometimes the shoe was on the other foot, and family would require short term loans from my parents. So that was what was modeled at home, that if you have any financial emergencies, instead of having your own savings, you could just bring up your family and they’ll bail you out.

 

X Mayo  08:34

Yeah, that’s what we did for my quince. I remember my mom had nine brothers and sisters, a total of 10. But my Theo Joe, had passed away, and so she reached out to everybody. So everybody was designated, like, you paying for this dress. You do the haul, you get the tacos. You know, everybody came together as one. And it’s interesting how communal we are as a people, not just Mexicans, but just minorities in general, because we have to be so let’s fast forward, Gigi to now, okay, you published your first book. Hold for applause, Cultura and Cash this year. First. Congratulations. Okay, that’s a big fucking deal.

 

Gigi  09:15

Thank you so much.

 

X Mayo  09:17

So Gigi, tell me why did you decide to write Cultura and Cash.

 

Gigi  09:21

Yeah, so I got the inspiration to write the book after reading so many personal finance books myself to teach myself money management, but running across a lot of situations that were unrelatable to me. For example, a lot of white male authors, which is mostly what was available at the time, when I was learning was they would talk about windfalls. This is how you manage windfalls, and I’m like, what the heck is a windfall? And a windfall is basically an inheritance, something like that. So what to do with it? And I’m like, inheritance. I’m not I, you know that inheritance here? So there were situations like that, or I would listen to a money podcast by a very prominent white financial pundit, and her listeners would call in and say, Oh, I’m 32 years old, and I just bought my first home, and this is the first time I’ve had debt in my life because my parents paid for my car and my college, and I’m so overwhelmed with anxiety of how to navigate a mortgage and having such so much debt, how do I overcome this? And to me, that was just so unrelatable, because I’ve had debts that was 17 years old, like I had to get a car note, I had to, you know, get into student loans, student debt.

 

X Mayo  10:43

And it’s no fault to them. This is no show to them. This is not they’re just living their truth, but it’s truly just like, yes, we do not live in the same world.

 

Gigi  10:52

Yeah, it’s very unrelatable, and it made me feel unseen and like my unique struggles didn’t matter. And then what I found is that when I tried to implement this white male financial advice with my Latino family, it was not well received. There was a complete money culture clash. So that’s why I’m like, okay, there needs to be a book that talks about building wealth and financial freedom, but through the lens of the first gen experience.

 

X Mayo  11:20

Wait y’all, should we have a book club? Okay, I’m gonna be right back. I’m gonna go buy a leg of lamb. You get the Roquefort and you over there. You go grab the truffle oil, and we’ll meet back here in five. Okay, great.

 

11:39

So what were some of the things missing when you were trying to teach yourself about money?

 

Gigi  14:21

Definitely the component of how to manage money with family in mind.

 

X Mayo  14:26

So all you love now you’re speaking my language now, now you’re good, okay, expound please.

 

Gigi  14:34

Yeah, that’s a big focus of the book. So basically all other money books are very vanilla. They’ll talk about. This is how you start building savings. This is how you pay off debt. This is how you invest in the stock market. And that’s it. They don’t give you any sort of guidance on how to manage all these things with family in mind, and us like we talked about as Latinos, we’re very communal. We’re very family oriented. So my money experience always going to be tied in some way to my family, whether it’s providing a monthly allowance or helping with financial emergencies that come up, or even helping with future retirement expenses for my dad. And on top of that, they didn’t give me any sort of guidance on how to navigate financial boundaries when I wasn’t able to fulfill those cultural expectations that my family had from me.

 

X Mayo  15:23

So what is your advice for talking to your family about those financial boundaries?

 

Gigi  15:28

Yeah, no. I mean, I very much like to call myself the boundaries queen. So what I developed for the book was a two process method. It’s called the Quiero Y Puedo approach to decide when to implement financial boundaries, because so the first part quiero. So I asked my reader, do you want to provide this financial support? Let’s say that your family just hit you up for $1,000 because they need you to help cover medical costs, and that it’s important to ask yourself, do you genuinely want to do it? Porque Tennesse, because you have the willingness to do it, because if you do it out of a sense of obligation or a sense of guilt, eventually that will lead to resentment because you’re not doing it on your own terms. That’s kind of the first part. Do you actually want to once you’ve assessed whether you want to see get us, then think about, well, Buddhist, can you right? So it’s great that you have the willingness, but are you financially able to help family in this way at this time?

 

X Mayo  16:36

Did you talk about what that can you looks like? Because some people’s can you was like, yes, I can I have it right now. It’s gonna be gone. I’ll have $0 but I get paid again on Friday. Is that an actual can you, right? Because it’s relative, so please break that down.

 

Gigi  16:52

The Can you comes with, do you have a financial plan for your money? Are you on a budget? Do you have some sort of savings where if something happens to you, if you lose your job tomorrow, you’re not going to be out living under a bridge, right? Are you investing long term for your retirement? Are you actively paying down your debt? Right? So if you’re actively working on your own finances and you feel somewhat financially secure, then you’re in a position to help. But yeah, if you’re waiting until your next paycheck on Friday, you are not financially secure, which means you’re not in a position to be providing financial support to family. Is what I argue. Ultimately, it’s your decision whether you do it or not, because it’s your family, it’s your money, but that’s the framework that I provide to my reader so they can decide what to do, because we have been conditioned to light ourselves on fire to keep other people warm. But we matter too. Our finances matter too.

 

X Mayo  17:49

Okay, so Gigi, not only does your book and your channel talk about advice for first gen folks, but also what the absence of generational wealth means. And in your book, you have these three archetypes, privilege, Patty, average, Ashley and first gen Gina. Can you give us a little anecdote about how generational wealth impacts these three? Like, what does it look like for each of these archetypes when they first graduate college?

 

Gigi  18:14

Yeah, it’s a completely different experience. And that’s actually the first chapter of the book, and that’s how I wanted to introduce this material to my reader, because our money experience is very different than the typical white, middle class American. I used to think that it was only the one percenters that would benefit from generational wealth, you know, like, oh, yeah, and I didn’t realize, yeah, no. So that was very eye opening for me. And in my small border town, everybody was low income and Mexican like I was, but it wasn’t until I went to college and I went to a public school, I went to UC Santa, Barbara, but that I was exposed to people from different walks of life, and I saw, oh, like your parents are not just paying for your tuition, but they’re paying for your boarding, and they give you an allowance, and when they come into town to visit, they cover your dinner, instead of you having to pay for the dinner. That’s interesting. It was just a very different experience from mine.

 

X Mayo  19:15

And so what about 10 years later, in regards to these three archetypes, like, how do their financial situations look different?

 

Gigi  19:24

Yeah, so I cover the archetypes from childhood to teenage hood to during college and then life after college, and I demonstrate how those two first characters, they benefit from generational wealth and generational knowledge. So having parents that are either financially literate and can teach them really strong money fundamentals at a young age or somewhat financially literate, where, for the children of immigrants, we don’t get any of that. We don’t get any generational wealth, because our parents came here with none. Thing for the opportunity for their children and future generations to have more and then we don’t have our immigrant parents don’t have knowledge of the US financial system. So how are they going to pass on any sort of teachings to us? So what does life look like for the privileged Patty or average? I would think I called her average, average, Ashley average, Amy post college, there’s still assistance with a down payment fund, or again, this windfall, when grandma Gertrude passes away and you inherit $50,000 that’s completely different from what’s going to be my experience when my grandmother, who I love deeply, passes you know, not only will it be a sad day, but I will also be asked to pitch in for funeral and burial costs. So again, that’s something that your typical middle class white American just doesn’t have to deal with because they’ve been set up.

 

X Mayo  20:55

And so I also would like to point out, too, I think you were referencing a podcast that you were listening to when they’re like, Oh, I’m 32 and I just got dead. I bought a home. Things are already always paid for. I could say emotionally people that come up with a silver spoon in their mouth, I feel for them too, because they don’t know what it is to be solution oriented, right? They don’t know you’re never going to go through your whole life without having to navigate some type of challenge. And if you don’t build up those reps, you’ll be 32 and just be like, which isn’t old, but you are an adult. You are a thick adult, you know, and you’re trying to figure out how to navigate that. And I don’t fault any parent for being like, I don’t want my children to suffer or have to, you know, worry about where their next meal is coming from, or even be like, whatever they want, as long as they’re a good kid, I’ll provide it. But I feel like that is a specific type of dance that parents and parental figures have to do with their children, because as much as you want them to not have to deal with a lot of trials, and you’re trying to, like, hold them and keep them and make them be safe. It’s like, no, if they don’t know how to deal with their knee getting scraped, they’re gonna be 44 getting a scraped knee, going to the ER, and be like, my knee is scraped. What do I do? And they’re like, okay, so you don’t know to get peroxide and a band aid and get a first aid kit. They’re like, what’s that? You know? So I was just thinking about that too, because there’s nuance. Obviously, like, just because someone has money or came up with money doesn’t mean that, emotionally, they’re not dealing with a lot as well.

 

Gigi  22:34

I wish I had that problem.

 

X Mayo  22:37

No, I know. I mean, I come from, I come from your class. I mean, I, my name is $80 in a suitcase on Instagram, because that’s all that I had like, I created relationships with bodegas to eat Monday through Thursday and pay them Friday. I’m hustled.

 

Gigi  22:50

Yeah, and there’s ways to, you know, still give your child a leg up in life, but still teach them the importance of hard work or the importance of money management. So, you know, instead of just giving your kid an allowance and letting them do whatever they want with it, you teach them, hey, part of this allowance is going to go to family taxes. Part of this allowance is going to go to savings because you’re going to want to buy something in the future, right? Or when you buy them a car, because you want to help them out, you know, get started in life. You subsidize it for them. So, hey, I’m not gonna give you the car outright. I will sell you the car for $2,000 and we’re gonna be on a payment schedule, and you’re gonna pay me 100 bucks a month, which, yeah. So there’s ways to still, you know, teach those skills.

 

X Mayo  23:38

Y’all, let’s take a break. We’re about to talk about, breathe student debt, but in a good way, either way, take a minute to mentally prepare. You know, put a jade egg in your ass like your palo santo and just start humming whatever you gotta do. We’re about self care here.

 

24:01

So I want to dive into a financial topic, specifically the ever present, looming villain in my life, student debt. Okay, there are people out there who spend their whole lives trying to pay off their student loans, like some people, like literally Barack said, I had to be president in order to pay off them fucking loans. It’s wild, but you did it. In fact, in the last 10 years, you paid off $50,000 American, okay, in debt, your car debt. USD, okay, baby, and you now have a net worth of 120k.

 

Gigi  26:52

That’s actually wrong, is I just looked yesterday, it’s 200,000 now.

 

X Mayo  26:56

Oh, hello, big. Excuse me baller, shot caller, okay, Gigi, let me hold $20 we’ll talk about that after the show. So, okay, so, Gigi, Miss 200k how did you do that? How did you pay that off say that, and please teach me.

 

Gigi  27:15

Yeah, so I found the motivation to finally get serious about paying down my debt, which, at the time, I had a credit card debt, I had student loans, and I had my car note. And the motivation came from, again, living through so many difficult life situations that I couldn’t escape because of money. So living through those lows really gave me the motivation to be like I got to do something better, and I cannot keep living this way. Yeah, I worked too hard to be scraping by. So I self taught myself how to pay off debt. I didn’t know how to even tackle it. I thought that as long as I paid the minimum balance, that would be okay, right, as long as the bill is paid on time. But I quickly learned that to pay off debt quickly, you have to be aggressive with it. So that means you have to make extra payments than just the minimum payment. Yeah, and that can be hard when you’re on the limited income and if you’re barely getting by. So what I teach in the book is finding ways to to grow your income or to reduce your expenses. You know you can grow your income by doing a side hustle. Now with the Creator economy, not the gig economy. The Creator economy is so easy for you to make money from home.

 

X Mayo  28:27

Something you said that I’m going to take with me, and I hope our listeners take you said, grow your expenses, grow your money and reduce your expenses. I think that’s my issue, because I get more money and then I spend.

 

Gigi  28:40

The trick is to not spend.

 

X Mayo  28:42

That yes, okay, how long did it take you to pay off your student loans?

 

Gigi  28:48

So a typical schedule is 10 years. I think I paid him off after seven and a half years, so a little bit earlier than I should have on the table.

 

X Mayo  28:56

Okay, I know you said that you have to be aggressive with your payments. So you paid extra. Was that, in conjunction with, like, an automatic payment system?

 

Gigi  29:03

Yeah, so to kind of get get you numbers, what I really did, that helped me move the needle and gave me the space to have more money was leaving a high cost of living city I lived in San Diego at the time, and moving to a medium cost of living area, which was Phoenix.

 

X Mayo  29:22

That’s my thing, Gigi, I’m from LA and then I lived in New York, two of the most expensive ass cities, and I know.

 

Gigi  29:34

and it’s hard. And you know, you know what? If I would have stayed in San Diego, it would have taken me much longer. I only lived in Phoenix for two and a half years, and honestly, I could have left after a year and a half because I had already met my financial goals, but I stayed stuck there because of the pandemic, and now I’m in a position where I can move back to San Diego if I wanted to, but I actually didn’t want to, and instead I moved to Chicago, so it’s a short term sacrifice.

 

X Mayo  29:57

Yeah, and Gigi, I actually could. To pay off everything and do what I need to do. Probably now I just need to buckle down. And also, like I this is where my work is, you know, I act right and produce so LA or New York is where it’s and the fact that you said, yeah, you work from home, and all that is is awesome. So it works great for you, and I’m so inspired by you doing that, and I’m gonna take a lot of that into my own to grow my money, reduce my expenses okay, if you leave with nothing from this podcast, please leave with that note. So if someone is coming from an immigrant household and only going to hear one thing from you about finances, what do you want them to know?

 

Gigi  30:37

That they will have to unlearn a lot of what they saw modeled at home to be successful with money. If I would have stuck to these immigrant money habits that my parents stuck by, I would not be in the place that I am now. And that can be a hard pill to swallow, because it kind of feels like you’re betraying your family and your culture by moving differently. I advocate in the book to take a bicultural approach to managing your money. Again, these white male authors tell you, just take care of yourself. Don’t loan money to anybody you’re not a bank, and the Latino culture is more about like give, give, give. I say, let’s do a blend of both, right? And decide what works best for our values and for our unique money situation.

 

X Mayo  31:22

Also boundaries, come on. Gigi, because how you gonna get her 200,000 USD if you ain’t taking care of yourself, right? Gigi, thank you so much for your time. Please tell everyone where we can find you on on Instagram and where we can buy your book, Cultura And Cash?

 

Gigi  31:39

Thanks. X, I really appreciate you having me on my handle on Instagram is Gigi, the first gen mentor. And you can buy my book on all major online retailers, or you can request it from your local bookstore.

 

X Mayo  31:52

And I would like to add I got so much from this, even though I’m technically not a first gen child, but I will say that I think everyone should go get this book truly. So thank you so much, Gigi, for your time. I can’t wait to see where you go.

 

Gigi  32:05

Thank you so much, X.

 

X Mayo  32:07

Okay, y’all, let’s wrap this up so I can get some family members on the phone. You know when I’m bringing to my conversations with them, boundaries. Yes, I love my family. We are there for each other through and through, but I wanna love them like forever, and I can’t do that if I’m saying yes to my cousin every time she wants to get her knuckles waxed like girl, it’s 2024, we’re women, we have hair. We all look like Chewbacca, but that’s it now, it’s okay. Striking a balance between looking after you and looking after your family is key. And speaking of balance, remember that other key balance Gigi mentioned the one that helped her get out of debt, reduce those expenses and grow that income, baby. This will be my nightly prayer, dear X, I’m praying to myself, in case that wasn’t in black okay, got it, dear X, are you out there? It’s me, X, I pray that I can reduce those expenses and grow that income. Bless not only will this help me get out of debt X or build towards my new 200k goal to be like Gigi, but X, it would actually help me be more willing and able to help my family in my name, amen, navigating finances is hard, and throwing in family makes it harder. To say the least. I’m so happy there’s a Gigi out there to help us navigate the way.

 

CREDITS  33:39

There’s more of The Dough with Lemonada Premium. Okay, subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like financial tips and tricks that you don’t want to miss. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. The Dough is a Lemonada original. I’m your host X Mayo. This series was created in partnership with Flourish Ventures. This series is presented by the Margaret Casey Foundation. Our producers are Claire Jones, Rachel Pilgrim and Tony Williams. Kristen Lepore is our senior producer. Mix and Sound Design by Bobby Woody. Original Music by Pat Mesiti-Miller. Jackie Danziger is our Vice President of narrative content. Executive Producers include me X Mayo, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. You can follow me on IG  @80dollarsandasuitcase and Lemonada @lemonadamedia across all social platforms, follow The Dough wherever you get your podcast or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, thanks so much for listening. See you next week, bye.