EP75 Navigating Trump's 2025 Economic Storm: The Ultimate Survival Guide for Latinos with Lea Landaverde

The new Trump Administration is going to negatively impact the Latino Community, especially financially. How can you prepare your finances to ride out Trump's policies? In this episode, I am joined by Lea Landaverde, founder of RQZA co, who shares her tips from her "Protect the Bag" guide.  It advocates for proactive measures such as establishing emergency funds, managing credit wisely, and engaging in estate planning to secure one's financial future.

We cover:
• Understanding the impact of political decisions on personal finance
• The importance of financial literacy in combating economic anxiety
• Essential steps for financial protection and preparing for uncertainty
• Building emergency funds as a safety net
• Importance for estate planning and legal protections for Latinos
• A call to action for financial empowerment through education

Get your copy of Protect the Bag Guide

Where to find Lea:
Instagram: LatinaWealthActivist
Website: www.riqueza.co

Lea Landaverde, also known as the Latina Wealth Activist, is a financial professional and creator with over 10 years of experience in wealth management, investment banking, and financial education. As the founder of Riqueza Collective, she created a platform where culture, community, and financial empowerment intersect.

Chapters

• 0:00 Financial Education and Community Engagement
• 11:38 Financial Survival Guide for Uncertain Times
• 20:39 Building Financial Security and Emergency Funds
• 25:59 Estate Planning and Financial Protection

Transcript

Violeta: 0:00

So it is 2025 and this year we have to get our finances, together with the new president and the new administration coming in, and everything that they plan to implement as far as policies and stuff that is going to hurt our bag, and so with me today to talk about how we can protect the bag is Leah Landaverde, founder and jefa of Riqueza.

Lea Landaverde: 0:26

Well, thank you so much, Violeta, for having me. I am excited to have some money. Chisme conversations and you know 2025 is going to be a year of uncertainty. A lot of things are up in the air, so it's time that we have this conversation.

Violeta: 0:44

I think it's important to understand the mentality that resulted in you know Trump getting reelected before we get into you know how we can protect ourselves in 2025, because we have to figure out what where our mindset was in order to move forward. To figure out what where our mindset was in order to move forward, and one of the reasons was you know the economy, that people you know saying they were paying higher taxes, and you know the egg prices.

Lea Landaverde: 1:13

That's all you heard and everything, so I wanted to just get your thoughts on that yeah, I think in 2024, with all the campaigns that were ran from both parties, there was one misinformation pushed to a demographic that specifically doesn't have a lot of knowledge on economics. So, for example, specifically like speaking on the Latina community right, a lot of campaigns and a lot of issues that were brought up was the economy, oh, the economy, this, the economy, this the economy, that egg prices, inflation. But when we even really dive into inflation, in 2024 inflation was around like 2.4 to 2.6 percent. So, financially speaking, inflation is usually supposed to be around one or 2%. High is a 3%. But what we saw was, post pandemic, we had seven to eight, even, I think, almost reached 9% in inflation because of, obviously, supply chain issues. We obviously had a lot of individuals not working anymore.

Lea Landaverde: 2:21

So there was, there was a lot going on during the pandemic and all of that has an aftermath effect, like it's not immediate sometimes and it usually takes like two to three years post, you know, whatever recession for us to really see what happened. And so, because obviously we are a community that a lot of the time live paycheck to paycheck, we love to make sure that we know where our dollar is going sometimes, especially when it comes to food, housing, those are the things that we're paying the most attention to, right, and so, in result, no matter who the president is, we're gonna to blame the president for inflation, for cost of goods being high, cost of rent, when, in reality, a lot of the time, a lot of, like, the policies that get put into effect don't really make an impact until the next president, right, and a lot of people don't know that. So, for example, like tax policies, people are like oh, I'm paying higher taxes. Well, the tax policies that we're following are actually trump's policies back when he was president. So we're still under his policies and actually they're supposed to be renewed in 2025 and so, now that he's being re-elected, his goal is to um a re-establish those policies and he has no plans and, based on what he stated online, you know, and to others, it's it's still the plan to keep it the same.

Lea Landaverde: 3:51

So, um, when people blame the current president for these issues, it's like are you really understanding where the source is coming from? Like policies don't go into effect. I see immediately and I think that's the problem that we saw this year, in 2024 of the lack of understanding of economics, of the lack of understanding how inflation, how it costs of you know housing and goods go and change, because we don't know a lot about this stuff. No, it's not. Like is going on here explaining this inflation, right, they're talking more about what's going on with, you know, a all the celebrities in Latino America or even what's happening in the United States.

Lea Landaverde: 4:40

They're not talking about what's happening from a business economic perspective here, and so I, united States, they're not talking about what's happening from a business economic perspective here, and so I pinpoint this specifically, because media is what construed our perspective 100% during the elections, because we had this noise, I would like to say, say coming from one side that our economy is bad, we need to fix our economy, wages are still too low and taxes are high. Is the one who's trying to win right um the election? And so we you, a lot of our community, because it was presented in the data post elections really voted for Trump for that reason, for economic purposes. Pero ya de allí. Cuando uno habla de tariffs y todo eso, they have like no idea what a tariff is.

Violeta: 5:39

Yeah, yeah, they, they really played on because you know our community, we deal with a lot of financial anxiety. They, they really played on because you know our community, we deal with a lot of financial anxiety, so they really played on that of you know how everything's going to the economy and blah, blah, blah. So, like we're already prone to that anxiety level, you know, just to feed into it more. Plus, you know it's a, it's something that's really hard to overcome, even when you're trying to overcome it, like you know, starting to heal and everything like that. So, right, um, and one thing that you pointed out of how things take time which is what, why it's so important that we'll get into a little bit later was the importance of why we want to take action in 2025, because things take time and so you want to have 2025 to plan, because the policies, como de justes, are going to take a few years to hit.

Violeta: 6:32

So you want to be prepared for when that hit takes and we are kind of that bridge of learning how the economy works. Uh, and so, with that knowledge, I feel like I don't know if you felt that way because, like you're trying to convince your parents or you know the older generation, the generation prior of how the economy works, and then you're trying to set up the future generation. We, we're becoming educated, which is, you know, being uh learning how to be knowledgeable and being in the know. So I kind of want to get your thoughts on uh building that knowledge especially. Yeah, um, like I kind of realized with the results and the mentality and I guess I don't know if you had similar conversations with your family members or friends that they're so just work, work, work, work, but they don't take the time to learn, like finances.

Lea Landaverde: 7:37

So I just wanted to get your thoughts or tips on somebody for someone yeah, when I even think about my own family during the elections, I was like dad, papi, mommy, like this is not how we have these conversations. Like how can you consider, um, this person as a president when they're talking about our community in such a horrible light? But yet y'all believe in this because he's good with money or he has proposed better economic changes to our economy. But do you really understand our economy, you know? Or they'll go back and they're like oh well, we had covid relief and we didn't really have to pay that back and that helped us so much. Okay, but any president during a pandemic would have proposed a COVID relief, not you know, just this person, right?

Lea Landaverde: 8:27

So there is a lot of like misconception, right, and I think our community, at least when I look at my parents, they look at who really has helped me financially from a business perspective. My parents are entrepreneurs but as well as it's this white gaze, right that they have like, oh my God, this president has done been this in this industry for so long. He's a businessman, he knows what he's doing. When you compare this to a black woman, oh well, you know, I don't think it's true. What has she done in her in her term as vice president? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like baby, like educate them for like, for a little while, please. Like that's like this man has filed bankruptcy multiple times and and like that is not a sign of success. Let me just say that that's a sign of cheating the system, uh, and getting out of the mess that you made. But, okay, si tu crees eso, by all means, um and so what?

Lea Landaverde: 9:30

I for me, as being part of the sandwich generation and, like you know, having all this knowledge and finance, and I try to do my very best to educate and like, prove my point and be like, okay, well, even if you don't believe me, at least do this, this and this. At least set up your high yield savings. At least prepare your estate plan. At least you do like you know these certain steps. And I'm actually um. Post the new year, I'm going to um go visit my parents to start setting up their estate because, as long as, like whoever's president, they're getting closer to retirement and I need to make sure that my parents have some sort of plan in place if they decide to move to a different state to retire or if they decide to go back to salvador to retire. These are things and questions that I need answers to to ensure that they have some sort of plan in place. And we can talk about that just in general here in a minute.

Lea Landaverde: 10:24

But like, um, when we think about our parents and like even just like the culture we're so gullible to believe, but the messaging is really what proved its point in 2024 with the elections of like you, it doesn't matter who you are, as long as you have good messaging and you tie to the needs of the community, of the concerns they are going to listen. Because when we look on the other side, if we look at camilla's campaign, did she really tie her messaging to the latino community into her latino concerns. No, she didn't really bring up economics. She really didn't bring up those concerns. She brought more of like okay, well, I plan on giving those who want to buy their first home, you know, a down payment assistance, or I want to ensure that we have those who have kids get more for the tax refund Right, a tax credit for their children and all these things Right.

Lea Landaverde: 11:15

And so that was what we saw post election that the messaging was not on par yeah, right For, for at least even the men, because we saw latino men vote the other like vote for trump. We saw even latinas vote for trump and a lot of the time, like I said, it was either based on religion beliefs or economic beliefs. So these are some things that I noticed that I'm like okay, what's the key issue here? Lack of education, because when I would make videos saying guys, he is proposing to deport our people, like how can you support this? Well, they're only going to deport people who have a bad, you know, criminal history. They're only going to deport this, this, this, this trump is gonna save us, trump is gonna fix daca trump is gonna do la, la, la, la.

Violeta: 12:08

And I'm literally here like I've never felt so frustrated after playing all this stuff. I was like I was like I don't understand, like um. But I think one of the um, the things we're kind of fighting against is that you kind of mentioned it earlier about how our communities are usually living paycheck to paycheck. So now that I'm financially stable and everything like that, I have a little bit leeway to be able to actually like step out and be like, oh my God, look what's happening in the world.

Violeta: 12:45

And you know and then I was like how do you not see this? And then it didn't dawn on me it's because they're not financially.

Lea Landaverde: 12:53

They're so centered. They're so centered and close-minded too. Hay comida en la casa. ¿cuánto nos está costando los huevos? ¿cuánto nos cobran de la renta de la casa? Or how much are we paying on interest on this mortgage? And those are the concerns of our people. That's the truth, regardless of religion, regardless of anything like regardless. They are concerned about how their dollar is being impacted um.

Violeta: 13:19

But now I want to get into um. What now, like? What do we do now, in 2025, to ensure that we survive trump's presidency and whatever impact in the future after he's gone? You know, make sure that we are financially good.

Lea Landaverde: 13:38

Yeah, so for 2025, one of my main focuses is making sure that we have some level of financial protection and I create, like post election, a lot of people that I that followed me and I create like post-election, a lot of people that followed me were reaching out to me saying I don't want to be under a president that doesn't want to help my people, or women, or queer women, and so there's a lot of things that like spooked us up, even me, like my wife and I were ready to like pack our stuff and move to a different state that was a blue state like so fast.

Lea Landaverde: 14:15

I was like, let's go. And I really had to sit there and be like, yeah, okay, don't, don't do anything irrational right now. Okay, you don't even got moving money right now because moving is expensive. Okay, you don't even want to stress yourself out with this. So what I did is I sat down and I kind of broke it down into 25 steps of things that we have to do as adults to protect our finances, especially if we have parents to worry about or children to worry about, or even just like a family, if you're married and and you're growing your wealth, or even if you're a single individual and you have some assets. These are things that we have to start protecting, and the beautiful thing about being latina is that.

Lea Landaverde: 14:55

So a lot of us have this escape. You know the scapegoat of going back to our country and getting dual citizenship. So the first concern was like, okay, where do I go? And I was like, okay, we'll consider dual citizenship because, first of all, if you're first gen and potentially second gen, you have the option of getting a second citizenship from the país of where your parents are from, right. So a lot of people right now are working on their Mexican citizenship. I'm actually in the process of working on my Salvadoran citizenship. When I go to Utah with to visit my family, um, that's going to be my main focus is um, give me papis me sienten en la embajada de Salvador. And that's the first step that your parents have to bring their birth certificate. You bring your birth certificate and they sit you down in the country as like a Salvadoran citizen. And that's step one, and then you go through the next step.

Lea Landaverde: 15:47

So I I told people, start there with your, your citizenship. Right, that's one place. But when we talk about money now, because, first of all, people are like I need a scapegoat, well, that's one. Second of all, your finances are going to be the thing that's going to help you with your scapegoat or leaving the US. And so I said I divided it into like minding the bag, so your money mindset, and working the bag, so how you manage your money is securing the bag with credit, because credit is what gives us better opportunities. Good credit can get us better loans, better interest rates, and then growing the bag through investing in different types of investing and then grow the bag or not grow the bag, protect the bag through estate planning and legal documents that we have to set in place, and a lot of this is about financial planning fundamentals. It's what most financial planners offer their employees, or financial planners offer their clients.

Lea Landaverde: 16:56

And so, that being said, I was like, okay, let me take my principles from financial planning and let's make it a little bit simple that someone can self-serve and do this for themselves. And so the first thing is the mindset part. Right, because right now, we're all in scarcity mode and we're like okay, estoy espantada, I don't know what to do. But first of all, we need to know, okay, what's our financial triggers right now, like, why are we feeling so anxious? And what is like, where do we want to go with our money in the first place?

Lea Landaverde: 17:23

Because money needs a purpose. Money is not something that we use just to spend for happiness and joy, like, yes, that's part of it, but it's something that fulfills a need or a goal, right Of buying a home, moving out of the country, right, retirement. So there's bigger things that money does for us, right, eventually, it is to spend money, but it's a tool for us to protect ourselves in some way, shape or form. So what is that level of future that you want to have for yourself like, where do you want to go with your life? And that's step one to discover right. So if you're thinking about 2025 with all this uncertainty because we haven't even talked about trump's staff selections okay oh my god, you know like, and that's not even.

Violeta: 18:07

Look at tiktok, right, right, like we can't even go there because it's a lot.

Lea Landaverde: 18:12

It's a lot to really process that like people. You know, like elon musk now has all this power in government and we're just like what the heck right the president and trump vice president right no, and that's the scary part.

Lea Landaverde: 18:26

So, like with all this uncertainty, we have to first mind our bag, first, focus on our own personal economy and understand okay, where's my money mindset and where do I want to go? Because if I'm concerned, what is my future going to look like? What is my like, my next alternative, right? So, whether it's moving to a blue state, moving out of the country, you have to envision what that's going to look like and what are you like the financial obstacles that you're going through now. So listing those out. So in the first part of the guide, it's like more understanding, like who you are, what your like money mindset is, what are your thoughts of scarcity, like what are your limiting beliefs?

Lea Landaverde: 19:03

Because most of the time, regardless of what's happening in the economy, our relationship with money, a lot of the times we have this money mindset that we have to work through first, because if we don't work through this mindset, at the end of the day we could have a lot of money and still overspend, or we could have literally like I know people who have little funds of 30 to 40k in salary, but they're really good savers, are really good like with their money, and so it's all about the mindset. Then, when I was thinking about the next process is working the bag, which is the money management part. How are we spending our money and does it align with our values? Especially now more than ever, when we are in a place of understanding that CEOs are now stating who they supported where their dollars went, we have to be more mindful with where our dollar goes, and so I put in the guide like support your local economy, support your small businesses, support your friends and family who have businesses, because then your money starts revolving into a circular economy with close you know friends, family, latina business owners and everything like that, instead of supporting our traditional, you know amazon corporations, where we know that they donated millions to a cause that does not align with us, right. And so, first of all, people were like wow, I didn't even realize that, that these companies support this, this and this, and I'm like, yes, do your research, because where your money goes matters.

Lea Landaverde: 20:39

And then the third thing is okay, security is through, first of all, an emergency fund. We don't play with emergency funds because that is our first level of financial security. We have three to six months of savings to protect us from any job loss and cut hours, anything along those lines. That's where an emergency fund comes in, and I know for a fact a lot of our people no tienen emergency funds, usan sus tarjetas de crédito, en final terminan endeudados, no sabiendo cómo salirse de la deuda, and they still have emergencies or costs to expenses to cover.

Lea Landaverde: 21:18

And so when I, when I see that I'm like you know, yes, saving six thousand, three thousand dollars is a lot, but start with your first five hundred dollars, like start saving for something because even if a tire pops let's just say the minor inconvenience of a tire popping you have some level of money to protect that. Like emergency funds are supposed to be used, I always tell people that I'm like emergency funds are meant to be spent on emergencies. They're not just supposed to be kept there just for fun. And like growing interest at 4% is great. And even then, like we're going to see I think recently the Fed just decreased interest rates again, but it's probably going to be the last one for a while, because they're trying to figure out what's going to happen in 2025 with all of these shifts, so we might see even high-yield savings account. Even then, it's still like it's going to be like around 4% or high 3%, but regardless, I'm like that's good. Yes, but this money that you have in your emergency fund is supposed to be a rotating fund, meaning lo usas ahorras, lo usas ahorras, lo usas ahorras, and that's base one of financial security. This is just for like immediate need purposes, right? Like si te cortan el trabajo las horas, whatever. Ahí tienes un fund para usarlo para los gastos de la casa, whatever, right, and that's like step one, right.

Lea Landaverde: 22:44

And then the next thing that I mentioned, even in the guide.

Lea Landaverde: 22:46

I was like, okay, well, if by chance que no tenemos ahorros and we need to like, let's say, consolidate our debt, well, in order to consolidate our debt, we have to have good credit in order to get a good interest rate on that loan.

Lea Landaverde: 22:59

Right. So working on our credit or reaching get a good interest rate on that loan, right. So working on our credit or reaching that 30 utilization rate on our debt is going to be key, even if you don't pay off all your debt. Just reaching that 30, because you're going to see a big shift in your credit score from going to like 70 of utilizing your credit limit to 30, like creditors love the 30 number, but they just love that number and anything less that you have in your credit under 30%. So let's say you make it to paycheck, but even then, tackling that high interest debt because, yes, interest rates are close to 30. I always challenge people like, check on your credit cards, go check how much you're paying on interest right now go see and you're gonna be shocked I think for me it was definitely that's like okay, okay, like in 2025, to make sure that I'm good over there.

Violeta: 24:04

So, like you know, I I think um, I'm not sure because, uh, I had to determine, like, if I still have dual citizenship because I was born over there, but I don't know if, like when I joined the military, I don't know. So I gotta figure that out, so that's one of my steps, definitely making sure that I have.

Violeta: 24:23

I'm boosting up my emergency fund. Um, so, like the, the typical one they used to say was like about three months or whatever. So I'm gonna probably push it to maybe six to nine months, because you never know what's going to happen with everything, especially with yeah, because it's a four-year term.

Lea Landaverde: 24:40

Yeah yeah, because it's like a whole, a four-year term. It's not a year that he everything, especially. Yeah, because it's a four-year term. Yeah, yeah, because it's like a whole, a four-year term.

Lea Landaverde: 24:43

It's not a year that he's in, you know, it's four years so, like I said, that emergency fund is going to be rotating or growing because, like, when we think about our financial plan, we need to have money, liquid, right, um, for these emergencies, and then we have to have money for growth, like for the next four years, for five, 10 years, right from now, which is through investing, right, whether you have real estate properties, whether you have investments in a brokerage account, right, or your retirement account, because people are always thinking, okay, well, like, hey, I'll use my emergency funding, yeah, but again, there's multiple levels of protection, right, um, and and you know about this because I know you have real estate properties, right, but, like, worst case scenario, you can sell a real estate property and get your ganancia right.

Violeta: 25:32

something that just recently happened that just popped in my head was with the with party city que they just like late like they're closing down, I was like, and who knows what's going to happen now with the tariffs and stuff? That's what I'm planning for. I might be out of a job for six to nine months and I have to cover my costs and everything like that. That's one of the planning things that I'm doing.

Lea Landaverde: 25:59

The last part that's really the most important, which is financial protection through legal estate planning. So this is setting up your will Most of the time. I think it's like 33% of people in the United States have a will and there's like 70% of us who don't which goes over.

Lea Landaverde: 26:15

What's going to happen with our funds if anything happens? Right, what happens to our, our home, our like, everything, our assets? If something does happen to us by chance, right, and that's one. And I usually think about this for our parents, not for us most of the time and, yes, it's important for us to have one, even just a simple one, but I think about my parents. Okay, what do you want to do with your assets when you pass?

Lea Landaverde: 26:40

Um, the next thing is considering a trust. Does it need to go into a trust to save on probate taxes? And when it goes? Because most of the time when someone in our family passes, if we don't have a will or trust or anything like anything listed, it goes to the courts, the government, to decide what happens next, and that's where we lose money on probate taxes and everything like that. So that's like one of the key principles, and there's templates online. There's, I think it's called estate and trustcom, where you can get one for $200, a will to start out with, or start out with a trust for a few hundred dollars for your family. And that's like I said. That's what I'm going to go do when I go see my parents is actually set up, the will figure out what trust we need for each property or whatever assets they have.

Lea Landaverde: 27:28

And then, one thing that I've been telling people the most out of everything that I mentioned in the guide is having a financial power of attorney. Because if you were not in the US, let's say you go to Mexico, let's go, let's say you go to El Salvador, just to you know, for the time being, to protect yourself. Or let's say we get deported by chance, having a financial power of attorney to make financial moves if you didn't happen to make them in time is going to be essential. So someone that you trust very well, that can move, move your assets, that can do things on your behalf whether it's a child that you have, that's a citizen um or um, a close, close business partner, friend, legally that they can help you know, move funds on your behalf to protect yourself when you are not here. Because the one of the biggest questions I get from, like even um, the documented community is do I lose all my money? Well, no, your money is still your money. No, one's gonna take it. It's just a matter of you know.

Lea Landaverde: 28:33

Can you transfer it out, uh, where you are, and most of the time, if it's big lump sums of money, you might need a power of attorney, since you're not there, to a get that money out on your behalf and make those transfers, and and so if you don't have the app that can do it on its own, then most of the time, like I said, having a financial power of attorney is probably going to be one of the key um legal documents to set up, just in case, okay, it's just saying this person can do these business moves or, you know, if you need to sell your business, if you, you know, by chance you get deported or anything along those lines, and I and I hate assuming that this might happen, but it's, it's a possibility, right? So I have to go with my parents and set all these up. Who's the financial power of attorney? Who's going to be their health care directive? Right?

Lea Landaverde: 29:23

If they get sick? Because my parents are older and they have diabetes, so if they get sick, who can make those financial decisions or even their health care decisions? If it's not my mom, who is it going to be next? Maybe it's me, maybe it's somebody else, right? So those are. There's a, a lot of things from my a like a state planning perspective that most of us never get to like the will, the trust, the power of attorney, um, or even life insurance right. People usually see life insurance as a scam because most of the time they tend to scam you out and in on policies.

Lea Landaverde: 30:00

But when you know what life insurance is best for you right away by doing your research because I always say that do your research before you go meet with somebody for them to tell you what you need to do funeral, paying for a, you know the burial costs and just like family debt or expenses that might come up right and there's different type of policies.

Lea Landaverde: 30:26

But like these are things that we need to talk about. This, this, the ending part of the protection, which is the legal aspect, is what we don't do. I have, I can count on like the amount, like fingers of my hand, of people that I've worked with as clients that actually have some sort of like estate plan, like it's less than like 10. Like, I promise you, I don't know many that actually have an estate plan set in place and if they do, it's because they have some sort of close family relative that has had wealth before, or they have a really close colleague that has money that said this is what you need to do, right, and so it's time for us to wake up and educate ourselves and start taking pasito. A pasito Y si cuesta dinero is not something cheap. But if we're willing to spend money en las canazadas en los gifts de Navidad, might as well gift ourselves some legal protection of what we do own.

Violeta: 31:20

That is true, a lot of stuff that I, because I'm on the same boat with my parents. They're about to, you know, getting closer. Well, my dad's already like 65. So, yeah, so luckily he's tried to take a few steps. So I'm not starting like from complete scratch and stuff. I just got to switch a few steps. So it's not I'm not starting like from complete scratch and stuff, I just gotta switch his uh, a few things. Like his life insurance. He got like one that was just in case for, um, uh, if he got in an accident like car accident, and that's it, that's all that covered.

Violeta: 31:53

So I'm like, well, you know, okay, I get it, but I'm not too familiar but that's only partial like yeah, I was like, well, okay, I see what you were trying to do, dad, but which'm not too familiar, but that's only partial like. Yeah, I was like, well, okay, I see what you were trying to do, dad, but which is not, uh, it's not like too bad because, I mean, texas is one of like the deadliest states with car accidents, so I, so I get it definitely, um, but so I gotta help them with that estate plan, which is one of the reasons that, like I I'm having them move um to san antonio with me.

Violeta: 32:24

Um, so that way I could be like checking up on them, um, and a lot of stuff with the, with their will, and my stuff too, especially now that I'm going, you have all these properties yeah now I'm like, oh, my god, got to like start figuring out what to do, and so that's the plan for me in 2025 is start protecting it as well, and stuff like that. So I'm excited to get your guide for sure. Like, yeah, yeah, and I had a master class, yeah. Like, oh, do you?

Lea Landaverde: 32:54

Yeah, I'm going to. I'm attach it to the guide now because I did film the master class, so now I have the class plus the guide. It's $ now because I I did film the master class, so now I have the class plus the guide um, it's 25 dollars. I didn't want to make it anything pricey because I know that this is important for our community. Um, and like even the guide, it's like 60 plus pages long because I really spent the time of thinking of like anything that people might have questions on, like how we spend our money, value based systems. Um banking to bank instead of banking with like wells, fargo and bank of america. Switch to a credit union or a online bank, where your values might align better, versus a company that's been like sued multiple times for you know screwing over their, their, their clients.

Lea Landaverde: 33:38

So, like I said, like there's a lot when it comes to money. But, you know, I think taking the first year of 2025, like using this year to really get our ducks in a row and, again, it's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a few months, a lot of discussions, whether you're doing it for yourself or for your parents. It's going to take some time but, like, like I said, he's a president for four years. So the first year is where we're gonna see a lot of volatility, we're gonna see a lot of change. Um, I don't know if the stock market's gonna perform the same that it, like it has the last few years because, again, the market reacts to the media, it reacts to how companies are moving, it reacts to politics. So I don't know if's going to be a good year again next year than what we've had in the past. But even when we think about investing, we're not investing for tomorrow. We're investing for a long time. We're investing for retirement. We're investing for the next plus five years, not for a year from now.

Lea Landaverde: 34:37

So, if you need your money any time sooner than less than three years, I would probably adjust your portfolio and de-risk yourself and put it into more cash or bonds, if that's what your plan is.

Lea Landaverde: 34:50

And again, these are some things that, again, we don't have. These conversations and that's going to be my big focus for 2025 is just like the complex little things like this, because we always have this perception that everything's going to be great, the economy's great, we're going to be growing, the stock market's great, we're making money yeah, yeah, yeah, but there's also times of uncertainty, and that's normal. That's what what happens, but that's why we have emergency funds. That's why we have emergency funds, that's why we have all of these things that we need to set up in our financial plan for any uncertainty. So I hope that, like you know, this conversation inspires, you know, your listeners to just take some action, like, whether it's for your own family or for your parents, start sitting down and having these conversations of what that looks like for them, what their future looks like, because a lot of us are like on our toes right now.

Violeta: 35:44

You know, trying to figure out what's next uh, link down below and all your information because, again, it's very important. I'm gonna be pushing that all, all, all um, all year because it's a um, very important. When I saw like you talking about it, like, oh man, this is perfect. Well, exactly what we need for 2025, like este. So I'm glad that you created that guide and hopefully, you know, go out there and get it.

Lea Landaverde: 36:12

Yeah, but you know, yeah, thank you for coming on here and having this very important conversation no well, thank you, violeta, for having me, and you know like I think we're to listen and and apply. This is is a win, right? Um? Knowledge is power, you know, and that's what we learned in in 2024, right? That clearly we don't have a lot of knowledge in some things, and so it's time for us to pick up a few books, listen to some podcasts like this one, you know and get started on our financial journey. And it's not a race. There's no one that we're competing with, there's no one that's better than us. It's us against us, and so if anyone has any questions, y'all know where to find me. But you know, I'm a strong believer that if we have a GDP of like what? $3.2 trillion in the United States, and that we could be like one of the what? The fifth largest country in the world of Latinos in the US, we're like a country.

Lea Landaverde: 37:17

Okay, we can get our money in order. We're good spenders, you know like. Might as well start, you know, using that power economic power for our own personal economy.

Violeta: 37:27

Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, thank you again for being here Again. Her information will be down below and we'll see everyone in the next episode. Bye, bye.