Hey, hey, hey, we're back. We're black. Well, I'm black. We're brown.
We're extra brown today. Ambition, ambition and this ambition. We got some extra brown in the stew today. Right, we have yan Nelly is Spania. It's banal Nellie.
Where you from the Mania?
That's what we're talking about, right, That's what I said. We're extra brown up in here today. Why do we gotta Domini Ghana? And he had you said Nigeria?
Like, how do they say?
Oh, I don't know, it's very phonetic. It's like I've heard people say, it's like yeah, Headian, Right, we got.
The bunk in this sprow today.
Nelly is a Brooklyn born ball of energies you will see with an intimate knowledge of financial education, culture, and politics in America known as the Internet as miss be Helpful. She's a millennial financial educator who started her career as a teacher and you know I love that because you know teachers night, and now serves as the director of
educational Outreach at next Gen Personal Finance. She is currently on a political roller coaster ride across the country, convincing lawmakers successfully on my ad to make personal finance a high school graduation requirement.
The girl is getting lost passed. Okay, you thought it was only me? Oh no, no, been working.
Yes, Over the last four years, Janelli had has been instrumental in working with governors and state legislators to pass legislation that requires personal financial education in order to graduate in Florida, in Michigan and Georgia, in Rhode Island, in North Carolina and more. I'm sure and so honestly, Janelli has been She's just a you will see, a ball of energy, super smart and making a huge different and shift as it relates to financial education, but in a
way that super tangible. And so I just love that and I just we're excited that we have you and Nelly here. You can see her on CNBC.
Yeah, I think so.
Well, welcome you and Nellie, thank you for coming. Oh and she's a new author of this amazing book called Mind Your Money Got in My Hand. If you if you watched this on YouTube, see you with BBC it first all you see that, you know, Ellie's wearing this pop up pink.
She looks so pert that. Okay, I'm giving gold, I'm serving gold. Okay.
Yeah. Her book is insightful stories and strategies to help you reach your hashtag money goals.
Welcome to this stoo you and Nellie.
Thank you so much girl, I have this is wild a dream come true. Love, I love Mandy. Actually got to meet Mandy in person at fin Con to meet you and person at the well building Contents for Black and Latino women and just sit have been in all of you since like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, and of Mandy since like twenty eighteen when I started listening to Barnhambis. So I just I'm an I'm the one that's honored to be on.
We're happy to have you here. So let's get started, Like, so, how so first of all, what did you teach before? When you said you're a teacher, So what grade did you teach? So?
I was a third grade teacher my first year, fourth grade for the second and third year, and then I pivoted out to wrap around services and nonprofit literacy intervention.
Okay, So then how how did you make that Because a lot of teachers sometimes listen or people who just want to pivot. How did you make this pivot from elementary school teacher to you know, director of what is the education? You know?
Right education outreach. So what I did was I was kind of thinking like, Okay, what are the adjacent skill sets that I could leverage, right, Because the reality is, as a teacher, you have so many skills. You know this, I mean getting in front of kids and getting them to think that fractions are so exciting. You have to sell that. So you have sales skills, even though you don't call it sales in the classroom, that's what it is.
You have communication skills, presentation skills or communication as well as email written communication. You have the ability to plan long term. You think out, you know, for the whole rest of the school and sequence for your school year. You plan in ahead. You know, management skills because you're project managing, clash trips and all kinds of you know,
events and concerts and things. So I just felt like, Okay, there are way too many skill sets that I developed in my few years teaching for me to sleep on that and act like that's not a big deal. So instead of just limiting myself to education, I started thinking, all right, I want to learn about business. I want to learn about making money, So how do I do that in a way that's still connected to my education? Skills,
and so I actually started working for a private education company. First, right after teaching, I went and became the director of an after school center that did math and reading after school. And then you know, I learned how to collect tuition from parents and run the tuition, run the numbers, pay the bills for the center, and you know, call people up and remind them, advertised market the center to get
new clients. So a lot of that business stuff came after I realized that I could just layer that right on top of the skills I learned in an educational setting.
Okay, I love that.
We love a pivot, Okay, but I always say, like the best, like being a teacher, you were prepared for everything girls, right right, you are a nurse, you're a doctor, you're a parent, you're a caretaker. You know, like on top of that, so if you you are a teacher and you're listening, you're like, oh, I don't know, girl, you are ready for ball?
Okay serious.
You know it's funny because I was talking to this woman who is now a very successful entrepreneur in our space financial literacy education, and she was like, you know, because I was a teacher, I always think that if I don't want to do my business anymore, like I'm just gonna have to go back to being a teacher. I was like, what, what would make you think that the only option you have is going back to the classroom When you literally are an entrepreneur with a successful
business who started as a teacher. That's your first step. That doesn't mean you circle back, that's your first step. Now you can move to so many different areas, you know, so many different lines of work. So I'm shocked every time I hear teachers say like they don't know what else to do besides teacher, I'm like, what do you mean any so many skills? Yes, really honestly anything, yes.
Yes, so so so people always ask me, like, you know, how did you get this law passed, you know, in the state of the Jersey making financial education mandatory for middle school.
And I'd be like, girl, I don't know, so no, that's not true.
It's that like I I one of my friends, Angela, she actually used to take my class at the United Way that I was teaching at the time. She had like a nonprofit but she just got to be really well known in Jersey City for her good works, and they convinced her to run for Assembly women.
This is maybe like five six years ago, and she said okay, And the.
First thing she did was reach out to me and said, I think we should have some sort of financial education law. And I knew New Jersey had something like for high school, but I, from teaching preschool, was like, I want to see something for the babies. So we started to work on it and we ended up getting a law pass for middle school. But if I'm being honest, I did it like I don't know the system. Like people ask all the time, like you know, I'm just a bill sitting on Capitol.
He'll like, girls, I don't know. So now we have you who has.
Done it again and again and again and again. So we're gonna ask the and allie, girl, how can you get these laws best? Right? So, like I said, I just was like, girl, I knew Angela and we worked together. But like, what does it actually look like? Because people ask all the time. Someone's listening and they're like I want this in text, I want this and blah blah blah. So so one how like what does your process look like? And then too, if someone is listening and wants to push it in their state.
What can they do?
Yes, okay, well, first things first, just like you did, you have to get luked in and connected with somebody who is in the political system, right, because the reality is, most bills that get passed or that you know, become signed into law came from a bill author of bill sponsor or co authors who are in office, and so
for the most part, that's that's where it starts. You have to start connecting with somebody who is going to be the person to champion this issue by way of a clear bill that says this is what has to happen.
So tell me the type of people like senator government, like what like sens Okay, So, because we're talking about education, this is not a federal issue.
Education in our country is highly localized. It's state by state by state, so it has to be a local official. So it could be a senator or can be a representative in your state does have to be a state person, and then it could also be others like assembly people,
council members. But the reality is the most of those bills that get that are successfully moved through the process within education have to go through the Education Committee, and the Education Committee members are going to be senators on the Education Committee on the Senate side and representatives who are members of the Education Committee on the House side, so either side of the chamber. But you need somebody
who's a senator or a rep. To say I care so much about education, I'm going to introduce this bill and make sure that it gets on the agenda for the next meeting of the Education Committee, because they have meetings all the time, but they don't always they don't always visit every bill that gets introduced.
Okay, so first that's first, Like, for example, I knew Assembly women and v McKnight, but you're right. She then had to find like a co sponsor who was a senator, right, and then she told me we have to first get through the committee, the Education Committee. To your point, I remember her telling me that she wanted me to testify, but I couldn't. I was out of state during that time.
But I got to meet with some constituents, you know, and so beforehand, like there were like some superintendents and principles or whatever, to sit and talk to them about why I thought this was a really good idea, and so that way they could take it to the committee and say because At first, they were opposed to it because like so many educators, we're like, we don't need one more mandate for yeah, another thing, you know. But as a teacher, I knew exactly what they were saying.
I was like, sis, I get it, So this is how I.
Envision it being playing out in the classroom.
And so at the end, you know, they turned over and we're like okay, and they were able to take that back to the committee themselves and so okay. So then it goes through committee and then it gets voted on by.
What by the all of the members of the Education Committee, So then it has to go on both sides, so the whichever side of the chamber is started on. So let's say it starts in the House Committee of Education. They are going to have a meeting. They're going to
put that bill on the agenda. They're all going to read through it, they're all going to discuss it that some of them are going to nitpick, like I don't like that language, I don't like that word, I don't like this or that, and then they'll get feedback, they'll do the vote. If it's a majority, ya's, it gets moved over to the next Education committee, so it'll be on the House side. If the Senate started, then it goes over the House. If the House started, it passes House,
then it goes to the Senate Education Committee. Both education committees on both sides of the chain have to vote majority yes. Once that happens, the bill where the bill originated, it ends up going back to that committee again just to final cross the t's and dot the ees and make sure they like any amendments or changes that were
made by the second committee that looked at it. And then if there's one other part of the process which is little annoying, but if there's any mention of money, appropriations or funds, then it might have to go to another meeting to get approved by folks who are going to look at that appropriation, who look at that the money part. Sometimes that's the appropriations committees, you know, depending
on the state. But the folks who deal with like the budgetary items in a bill, they will have to look at it and see like, well, where's that money coming from? Is this feasible before we go ahead and pass this bill. We need to make sure we have the money. And so that's why you know, when I do a lot of this work. I try and make sure that the bills don't really have any funding notes
on them because it's really not necessary. Honestly, most people today in financial education will say, oh, but then we can't buy textbooks, And I'll try and tell people what textbook is going to keep up to date with the constant changes in money in the world of finance, like cash have Venmo didn't exist a couple of years ago, cryptocurrency didn't exist ten years ago. You print a textbook, you're wasting your money. This has really got to be
twenty first century relevant. Tax loss change. Every few years, new apps come out. It's gotta be online based. Now you can print things, you can print articles, you can print worksheets and things. But the reality is for this to be relevant and up to date, it has to be online based. So an online curriculum is generally going to be best. Really shouldn't be relying on textbooks and workbooks. And then the second thing is that they'll say, oh, but we need money for that curriculum. There are so
many free providers. Council of Economic Education and jump Star have been in the game for so long. Other players like Junior Achievement and so many. I mean, we could literally go on and on and on about the amazing
free educational resources. Fool Proof has resources. You know, different federal reserves from local different state reserves have a bunch of curriculum and MGPF where I work, you know, they also have a huge curriculum for or a full semester course for middle school, for high school, and additional units like cryptocurrency basics, the history of racism in finance entrepreneurship.
I mean, if you have the time and you want to really develop a comprehensive course, you have everything you need on this website and it is free ninety nine. So when people try to make this argument about the funding part, I'm saying, listen, that's just going to make the process longer and more difficult, and honestly, it's not necessary in twenty twenty three and beyond.
So then both sides vote. If it goes majority, and then the budget is not an issue, then it.
Goes what to the governor's de's Then it goes to the governor's desk, and every state is different when it comes to the governor, but the governor has to sign the bill so that it can become law and it has to be a wet in signature. They have to actually sign. But some states have you know, special asterisks to that rule. So to be like the governor has to sign it within fourteen days or it automatically becomes law.
And it's like, oh, so someone that's opposite, like, for example of New Jersey, the governor at the time, hell, he ain't my governor, Governor Christie. He said I'm going to sign, I'm going to sign, I'm gonna sign it. He was on his way out, didn't sign it, and so it's the opposite. It gets kicked out, it does not become law, and so we have to literally start the process again.
And over again. Girls, So you know how this works intimately, But yeah, every state's a little different. Some states it'll be like they have twenty one days, they have fourteen days. If they don't sign, it becomes law, or if they don't sign, they have to start the process all over again. And that happens any step in the process. So let's say you find the champions, you find the sponsors, the
legislators who are going to introduce this bill. They're going to write it out the way that you know they want it presented. Then they get yes votes and the whole Education Committee on the House side. Then it moves to the Senate side, and most people say no, Okay, Well, now the bill's dead. Even though it passed the first part, it didn't pass the second part. It might pass the first part, go to the second part, get all yes is in the second chamber in the second part, and
then go back to the first part. And they don't like one of the amendments that the second Education Committee made, So now it's dead again. So so many bills, most bills, the majority of bills every year that get introduced, die a silent death. And so for these bills to be succeed right now, I mean, it is amazing. It is the governor's signs. It's like a big eye.
I know, I have to say, I have to shout out to like sister girl and so d midnight. She has she's one of the most successful law passers in the state of New Jersey.
She has gotten so many laws.
To your point, it's very difficult because the first the first iteration of our bill was elementary and middle school. Got to the Governor's desk, he said, he signed it, he left office, did not sign it, Patty, Betty right, but Gord knows best because look at him anyway.
So it went back to the drawing board.
And when we went back to the drawing board, all of a sudden, the same people are like, why is elementary school in here.
I'm like, it's the same bill as before.
No, we don't like that, brand new yes, And so we actually had to remove the elementary school component and we just got the middle school component. At that point we were like, let's just do something, and so that's what happened that we were able to push it through. It did get signed, but they made us drop the elementary school part.
So to your point, at that all the time we get people saying, well, we would support this if it included elementary school, middle school, and high school, but since it's only high school, we won't sport. I'm like, we have you have to get specific when you're trying to get something done. It's hard enough to get one level in the education system. You're trying to do too much all at once. So I mean, with the work at MGPF,
I'll tell you we came up with five principles. We did a lot of research, we came up with a bunch of reports. We looked at all of the latest data about the effectiveness of financial education and we looked for the rule, what is the one thing that actually makes it effective to changing behaviors, like helping students save more money, get better interest rates on their college loans.
You know, understand the fafts know how to get the best rate on their car loan, have really good credit scores when they get into college, and beyond, like what makes those results happen? And the main things that came up from the research was it has to be just
in time. So one of the main pieces of research came from this metal analysis of like one hundred and sixty thousand participants in this study, and the thing that they found was that if you teach them a little too early, it's great for exposure, but not for results, because what happens is that they lose it. They forget about it by the time they actually going.
To apply it.
They're like, wait, what was that stuff?
When they learn about that when.
Second third grade? I remember, And so it's great for exposure, but not for results. And similar with middle school. Great for exposure, great for preparing them for high school, but when it comes to the results. The results really happen right when the students are going to apply the knowledge. So if you want them to learn about car insurance,
do it when they got their driver's license. They can't get a driver's license till they're sixteen years old, so it's got to be sixteen seventeen years old, which is junior year and senior year in high school. So the majority of the legislation that I've championed that the work we do has pushed forward is really legislation that includes junior and senior year having a required full semester class of standalone personal finance. None of this business of sharing
sharing this class. So this part of the class is budgeting, and then this part is economics, and then that part is with no. It has to be full semester dedicated to nothing but personal finance topics.
Because I loved that, I just little took some notes like just in time financial education right when they applied knowledge.
That's why like college students is because.
They're in the think of it, like girl, wait you, nellie, wait one moment before we continue, Let's take a break, pay some bills, and come back, because this conversation is getting so good.
And we're back and super brown.
So what made you after doing all this, you're passing these laws, you used to be a teacher, what made you say I want to write a book?
Like? How did that process start for you?
You know, honestly similar to you, Like, there's so many things that you've done for your audience, you know what I mean, Like you realize that what they ask you for, and you're like, all right, you know what, I'm gonna put this together. Everybody wants me to mentor them. I can't do that. I'm gonna put together my mentor Tiffany like I'm gonna You would kind of responded to, like all this stuff that's coming to you, And so I would see all these subscriber comments in my YouTube videos.
I would get dms all the time, emails, and people be like, do you have a book? Like when's your book coming out of? You should write a book. You just know so much and you, you know, you create a telling stories. You should write this book. And I would always be like, oh no, no, no, And then eventually I'm like, you know, why not why not put a book out there? It's it wasn't until I saw you and I saw who else did I see in this space back in like twenty fIF were a very
many girls. If I say it was only you, I probably am not lying, but there really were not very many women of color, especially in no Latino women talking about money and financial education. So you know, I was like, okay, I think it would be valuable for me as a Latino, specifically in the first generation daughter of non English speaking parents who had to try to navigate the money systems
in this country somehow. And you know, they never had bank accounts, they never had credit cards, debit cards, investment accounts, none of that. So for me to grow up in that environment and be a to the point where not only did I figure out money for myself and my community, but like helping my family, helping people you know, around me, I figured, I think a book makes sense for that long lasting impact and that thing that you can really
give to people. And you know, you have so many books, but I think it really came from the community saying like, okay, less be helpful. When is your Misby book coming out? And I'm like, okay, all right, I guess I'll do it. And COVID too honestly helped me think about like can
I do this? I have the time to do it, And I did spend a lot of time writing and jotting, like, okay, the stories that I want to include food, and how I want my book to be different and how to make it stand out and things like that.
So like what so as a reader of your book, like what are they going to take away? What does make it different? How is it misbehelpful? Yes?
Okay, So for me, the biggest thing that I felt was missing from a lot of the books that have been written forever and ever, the classics, you know, and for me, the first book I ever read about money was Women and Money by Susie Orman. You know, I have so much respect for Susie, but she never gonna know what it's like to, you know, be in a household like the one I grew up in. And that's
not her fault, that's just a fact. So knowing that I can teach similar to how Susie teaches and how so many women in our space teach, but also have this lived experience, this perspective, that that's my secret, sauce, that's my jam. That's the thing that most people would think is the achilles hell that's your weakness, is not it's your strength because it makes you unique. So for me, I was like, that's going to be my value prop. That's going to be the thing that makes my book
really different. And so I knew it wasn't just going to be personal finance. It had to have my personal stories. So I sort of made my book a combination of stories and strategies. It's the financial stuff that all the tried and true, you know, classic money books teach, but also through stories. Through telling stories my girl. When I was in elementary school, I won the New York State Storytelling Championship contest every year second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade.
Every year I was the winner.
I would come there and be like, who's gonna beat me?
Nobody? I was leading the winner.
Every year I would come with my little cocky self and do One year, I did a Nazi the Spider and I mean it as anybody who doesn't know a girl. The way these contests work, you memorize the book word for word, cover to cover, and you stand up there and the judges are sitting on a panel with the book in front of them as you are memorizing.
Performing the story word for word making the different voices for the spider or the bear, and you're performing it like if you're back in the day, like in a cave telling stories right, and then they are literally watching you to make sure you know the book word for word like this, flipping the pages, and then they rate you and they judge you, and the best storyteller gets the trophy.
Girl.
So you know, I got.
No but I love that.
It's one of the things that I teach all the time, right to some of my mentees. I'm like, yo, nothing is wasted, you know, nothing is wasted. The fact that you did this when you know in elementary school, the fact that you were a teacher, the fact that you you know, worked on getting these loss paths. You know, all of the your upbringing, you know, with your family, you being the minute kind of like all of these things come together to create the most amazing moment.
For where you are now.
You are uniquely qualified for to write your mind, your money, you know, and to talk to your audience in a way that I can't reach and someone else can't reach.
They need you in this space. I love that.
And that's honestly when when I owned that, because I think for a while. A while, I was scared. I'm like, but what's going to make me different? Though, Like, there's already so many books, Like behind me in my office, I have so many books written by women. You know, there's so many. We got Chelsea faken here, we got your book here, we got actually, we have Bernad you know, we have there's so many books written by women here.
Like I was like, how I'm just going to add another one to the mix, you know, Like, but at the end of the day, I realized, yes, we need another one in the mix. We need so many more. Do you think that any of these white men who wrote any of these other books I have up here ever said to themselves, am I going to really add another book about money as another white man? They never said that, So why do why do we do that?
Right?
We have these impossile syndrome in these doubts. So once I finally owned that and said, yes, yes, I do need to add my story, and it was like I was compelled and called to do it. So I think for me, I would encourage anybody who feels like, oh, they're not a natural writer, or maybe they don't have a book in them. I'm not a natural writer. I'm a natural storyteller, but I still felt like I had
something in me to put in this book. And if you have been thinking about it but you're not so sure, here's your nudge, here's your sign write that book.
What is one of your favorite stories from the book. So someone's going to read mind your money and they're like, girl, I love storytelling. What is one of your favorite stories from the book, and like, what do you hope people take away from that story?
Yes, okay, girl, I have so many stories in there, but the one I always tell people about is the one that was the hardest to include, which was I got caught stealing when I was girl. I was a little mess. I was a little mess.
So I was like seven, I used to go to I used to steal up comic books until I got caught, and that behind whooping I got after I said, not not on today, tomorrow or moving forward.
But you know what, you were six or seven, You're so young. That was that's a good age to like learn that, like, don't do that anymore because you're still so young. You know that you get away with it, but I listen. I worked with high school students and college students a lot through the work that we do with high school education advocacy, and I meet these teens and a lot of times, you know, I see the
ones that I constantly getting kicked out of school. They're constantly getting dismissed, pushed aside because they got in trouble fighting or because they got caught stealing, and they're just written off as like the troublesome kids or like you know, and I'm like, no, I have experience, and so I wanted to make sure include that story. But basically, I was in the Dwayne Read with my sister and we're walking around and I had this was like my church.
There was like a Chris Kringle gift swat type of thing, and I got my god sister. So she was very much into makeup at that time. I was not. I was like eleven or twelve years old, so I wanted to buy her some makeups. I walked into Dwayne Read. I'm looking at the little lipstick and lip gloss aisle and they're all like eight, nine, ten dollars. I had four dollars in my pocket. I was like, I was like, it's not gonna it's not gonna work. I can't do it, you mad, So math ain't ever. So I just thought
like I'm just gonna take it. So I slipped it up my sleeve of my T shirt.
I thought I was so slick.
I put it right on my sleeve, and I was right under the camera, like I don't I thought I was so slick. I didn't even check around do anything. I just ripped a little barcode off put it right up my sleeve. And so my sister had no clue. I put it in my book. I'm so sorry sis, because he thought she did not have a clue.
She really did not know what I was up to.
So we were about to walk out and the security, it was this big, veast Curtiy guard came wat to me. He's like, you think you got tricks up your sleeves?
And I was like, huh, what did he know?
What does he know what's going on here? And he grew He grabbed us. He like put his hand on the back and said you need to walk this way, and he took us to the back of the movie and played the video of me slipping the thing right on my sleeve. I couldn't even deny. There was nothing I could do and they called my parents. My parents were away and I don't know what they were doing, so they had my grandmother had to come and pick
me up in her van. She was so disappointed. I was embarrassed because now it's not even my sister, my mom and dad, who knows. My godmother knows. Everybody knows. So I was so embarrassed and my parents I always tell everybody. And in the book, I wrote that even though that was embarrassing, and yes, I felt shame and I was like, all right, this is like, this is not really who I am. I need to not be doing this. But it was really when I saw my mom and dad's faces like they it was like they
wanted to cry. And have not seen my dad cry very many times.
In my life.
And he looked like he was like, how could you like we as poor as we have always been, we have never modeled that to you, never showed you that steeling is okay. We've never stolen even when we had it at the r roughest. That's not who we are. And so I just felt so bad and I was like, in my mind, I just made a decision that I was going to be little. It's goody two shoes. I
was going to do perfectly in school. I was I was going to redeem myself and show them that you know, this is not who I am and you raised me right type of thing.
Yeah, So what's the financial lesson that you learned and that you hope that when people read that lesson in the book. First of all, one, let me just commend you for sharing that, because it's not easy to share the things about ourselves, you know, the choices we've made. But I mean, I know we all like to protect like we're perfect on ig girl, take the filter off. So I just want to commend you for like taking the filter off and sharing that story, because no one
goes through this life not making mistakes. And then two, what lesson did you learn financially and what financial lesson do you hope to pass on?
Yes, okay, I'm gonna start with the lesson I want to pass on because I think that's the powerful part of this is kind of you know, what I insinuated earlier was a lot of my work with teenagers. A lot of them are you know, they get in trouble for things like stealing and fighting and things. And again, I think a lot of the adults in their life just write them off as these trouble making kids and you're just bad. You just you know, you're no good.
And I really think that that story hopefully would show first of all, I wasn't stealing to just be bad. I had no malicious intent. I was trying to give a gift at the church to my godsister.
Like feeling Jesus romhood.
It was it was steeling from people that they needed to give it to the good like I was trying to do good. And I just I'm like you, first of all, you never know why what is going on with somebody, especially younger like teenagers and younger students like you have to lean in rather than dismiss them off, write them off and tell them, oh, you know, you're not going to be going to this trip, you're not
going to all that. We just lead to the consequences of the results instead of saying, let's lean in and find out what happened, what was the input, what was going on when you made this decision, what's going on in your life? Like you know, poverty, first of all is the number one reason why young people are stealing.
They are hungry, they don't have what they want. They they're constantly being told no, no, no. So I think that that lesson for other adults, whoever you are, if you work in an educational setting, is especially relevant to you to have some grace because these young kids are dealing with a lot, and especially young kids in environments that are you know, poverty or near to poverty situations. We really have to have grace for them what they're
going through in their mind. Especially with social media nowadays, they see everybody stunting and they don't and they don't have that. So just be empathetic more to these you know, younger students, teenagers especially, And then I think for me the real lesson there was like you have to understand that when you're going through your life making your choices, everybody else is affected, even when you think.
It's just you.
And for me, I thought, my sister don't know, she don't know how to do it it. She got you know, wired all up into that situation with me. She was in the back room embarrassed too because of my choice that I made with my little money or black their of money. You know, my sister got all caught up in that, and so I just I want you to think constantly about when you're when you're making your financial
decisions and you're making budget. Yes, it's money can be a very selfish thing, like what am I going to do with my money, but it also has all of these connections to the other people in your life, your parents, your children, your community, your family. Like so for me, my money is very yes, it's like for me it's personal. I make very decisions based on me and selfish reasons.
But honestly, now, more than ever in my thirties, I'm like being way more mindful of how I am using my money in ways that affect my family, uplift my family and help support them, and in general thinking beyond myself to my community too.
I love that that's such a great lesson.
I love because storytelling, especially for Brown people, has been one of the core vehicles that we've used to pass down to task down like our heritage, our lessons. So I love that you're literally leaning into like you know, if you were to lean into the DNA that makes you dominic kana, you would find that storytelling is a critical component to that, you know, So the fact that you've brought that for and mix it with us now, which is financial education and where you are now. It's
just beautiful and that is what makes you different. So beautiful is that you don't have to do anything. The collection of all that you've been and all that you will be is what makes you unique already. You just have to show up and not be afraid to shine.
And so you are shining girl. Thank you so much.
Yes, And it sounds like so beautiful and so easy, and it's difficult. It's difficult to be authentic, especially when you feel like you're in a space where you're gonna be judged or where you're the only one like that, especially me when I went off to college, I was
the only one. Now Tip Early on on your podcast on browna Bish and you talk a lot about like your upbringing and how Mandy and you had like very different upbringings, right, And I remember, I don't remember if it was like fifth or sixth episode, but you talked about like you went to middle school and high school a lot of white students.
Yes, I was the opposite.
So I went to an elementary school, in middle school where everybody was black. Everybody was I grew up in Bushwick, Bushwick and Brooklyn, it's like everybody is Haitian, Jamaican, Beaiji and Trinidaddian. Like I had all the training, I had all the like being black, yes, like in Brooklyn, like in Bushwick in the nineties and to early two thousands, that's all it was. And then you had some Dominicans in Puerto Ricans, but really it was predominantly black Caribbeans.
And so that's the cultural experience I had. In my home. It was very much like right and babies that are yold, this and that. But but when I was in school with my friends.
Everybody was black.
All my girlfriends have always been black, and so it's this interesting mix of black culture and Dominican and Latin culture. But when I got to middle school and even you know, when I got to high school, it was very similar still, but it was a bigger school. So that's when I started to see, like, for the first time in my life, I met a white student, like a peer of mind
that was white. I had never the only white people I had ever been exposed to on television or my teachers, so my teachers, so I remember to this day, I'll never forget I went up to this little white boy I was fourteen years old, was my fres first week freshman year in high school, and I went to him and I said, so your Puerto Rican or Dominican and he looked at me. He said, no, I'm I'm Jewish. And I was like, but like Puerto Rican.
Jewish because you're like, girl, what are you doing here?
I was like, but you look, you just look like you're not black, So you either puto Rican or Dominicate. Like, I don't understand, what do you mean. You don't look Chinese to mean, so you must be Puerto Rican. He's like, no, I'm Jewish, like I'm white. And I didn't understand because I had never met others like you know that were my age. So the first time I was exposed to white kids around me was high school. So I was
already fourteen years old. So come on, you already understand the way I talk, the way I act, the way I walk, like my energy, my Brooklyn energy, like it was a combination of the black environment I was in and my Dominican culture. So fast talking, fast walking, sass like very much, you know, a specific type of vocabulary, even even the way I walked right, So then when I got to college. Oh, girl, that was a culture
shock to be around, extremely wealthy and predominantly white. So I went to Brown on a full scholarship, and girl, I was like plucked out of Brooklyn and placed onto this beautiful ideala campus in Providence, Rhode Island, like four
hours away from home, you know, by myself. And that for me was the first time that I really had to decide, like, am I going to be my authentic self and be proud of how different I talk, how different I act, how I'll talk with my hands and I'm so loud, And am I going to keep doing that? Or am I going to assimilate and you know, be more like these kids around me so I can fit in and so that I don't stand out too much
and call too much attention to myself. And that I really struggled with that my first you know year or two years there, until I found others like me. You know, I found my tribe of girls, my friends, and was like, oh, now, okay, I'm not alone. I'm not alone. We're here, We're just in much fewer numbers.
I love that. So it's like you continue to do that as and it's be helpful you continue to create space for people who might not otherwise have space in this environment of financial education.
You know I love that. So you see how it's our full circle?
Yeah, ok, therapy.
You just so if the girls and the guys, if they want to buy Mind Your Money, where can they get it?
So you can get it at Mind your moneybook dot com.
Do you see what I'm talking about? I was waiting, let me see, let me see, let me see, y'all.
So if you're watching on YouTube, first of all, you see my leveled up space here because I've been doing a lot of podcasting, a lot of promoting the book, and Tiff so generously give me so much of her time. A couple weeks ago we sat and was like, all right, girl, you need your space to promote your book. You need to have your site.
You need to be talking about.
Don't be telling people you can buy it wherever they sell books. What does that mean? And Tiff leveled me all the way up. First of all, my space behind me is all things to take.
So on YouTube, if you're hearing she has the Mind your Money Book, like I told her, I was like, blown up on that.
You know, she has it blown up beautifully on the wall.
So it's like I see you. When I see you, I see her good. And then I was like, make sure you get that you around. So I love that you have mind your moneybook dot Com. That's what we're talking about. So the girls can help, all right, son, Okay, you.
Can learn about the boo there, the chapters, the descriptions are there, you know, the links by the book and also a free guid that comes with the book which has so many amazing resources. One of the things I spent girl like, I spent hours doing was I went through everybody that I followed that I really trusted, I
like and admired. You know, your content, Mandy, so many creators and I've made a list of over two hundred creators in the personal finance space and it's linked in a spreadsheet in the downloadable guy that you just click and follow, so you can change your whole feed. Your whole timeline is going to look so different now because you're following educators talking about money and finance and not just you know, all the celebrity drama. We like that
that's cute, but really getting the money stuff in. So all that is online your Moneybook dot Com.
Yes, I love it.
I'm I'm on the site right now for the real cute okay, by the book the chapters. Yes, I'm just so proud of you and Nelly. Honestly, I love that you show authentically and fully yourself.
I love that you bring all of your.
Booklemdness, the minicanonness, like feminine energy like. I love that you just bring your full self to the table and then you've poured it into your book, Mind your Money Book. So if you want to lean into financial education in a way that speaks to how you receive information, especially as a person of color, through storytelling and through so not just stories but also stories and financial lessons, go
ahead over to mindyrmonneybook dot com. And if they want to find you on the socials, where can they do that?
Yes, you can follow me anywhere at miss be helpful, am I sbe helpful?
Yeah? So you're on Instagram? Are you do you? TikTok?
I do TikTok just a little bit TikTok. I need to do better, y'all need to push me on there to create to just post all my Instagram and reels on there. But Instagram, Facebook to Twitter, I'm on TikTok and YouTube all as miss Bee helpful.
Yes, well, thank it's anything that we didn't we miss out on. Anything you want to share with the people before we before we say bye to you.
I mean, there's so many things going on, girl. The one thing I will add is I think that it's so important to be targeting young people about money because a lot of us we either avoid it because we're afraid that we don't really know how to bring it up, or we're kind of a little a shame, either because we don't have money and we don't want them to know we don't have money and we're struggling, or because we have so much money and we don't want our kids to feel on titled to that money until we
just kind of don't talk about it. In regardless of your situation where you are on the spectrum of having access to money, we somehow all end up just not talking about it with these teenagers, with these kids in our lives. So I'm actually hosting a new podcast or a marketplace called Financially Inclined, which is targeting money lessons to live life your own way. It's specifically for a teenage audience. So if you have a niece or nephew, a kid anywhere, you know, tweens all the way up
to teenage yers considering college or alternatives to college. We're talking about everything. We're talking about the basics of stock market, We're talking about budgeting. We're talking about now should I get my credit card? In my first credit card? How to buy a first car, like all these intro things that oftentimes you know, they don't really know who to go to to talk about it. So check that out as well as called financially incliented.
Yes, thank you so much.
Jet Nellie Espina a spin that ye Nellie Espina la a key Pada called me it's my bigger time be yet I don't know anyway, I'm just literally saying the seven spinish words.
I don't tell anybody ever taken all the clips of you singing on every episode and all your life just put together like a real of all.
You know, Yo, mister Obo, who is my spetist teacher, is literally ashamed of me because I took fans from sixth grade all the way through college.
Why is that my Spanish? My sister meanwhile, Tracy be.
Like, oh, I'm like she's like girl, We took it in sixth grade.
I'm like, I got about three sides, you know, because when you don't use it, you lose it. So you know we're gonna sorry, I'm gonna charge, I'm gonna go practic.
Car sat anytime to Mama me text does Manson see? I kind of understand, she says, somebody I can text her? She canna respond to man soodo anyway. Let me not embass myself any further. Thank you so much, Nellie Life. You could come back anytime.
Hey, we could not do this show without your support or the support of our team behind the scenes. The Brown Ambition podcast is produced by Imani Crosby and Dennis Stanplinsky is our in house tech guru. I and your co host Mandy Woodrif Santos and we will see y'all next week.
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