[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money episode with Viktoriia Miracle and today's guest is Andrea. And Andrea was born in Lima, Peru and came to US at the age of five. Her first year out of college or in $22,000, but was able to save 8,000 after 18 months. This was her first personal finance goal and what started her on a journey with money. She since started a money coaching business to help a woman color feel empowered and confident managing their money and building generational wealth. Hi, and welcome Andrea.

[00:00:48] Andrea Ramos: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:50] Viktoriia Miracle: Thanks so much for coming over. And as always, I would love to learn more about you share your story, how you get started and what inspired you?

[00:01:00] Andrea Ramos: Yeah. So that was a little bit of like a, yeah, like a cliff notes version of my story. But yeah, when I graduated college, I didn't really know much about money. I knew, you know, as a first-generation student that I needed to find a job and then I needed to start working. And so I just found like the first job that kind of came and, didn't even ask how much I was making.

[00:01:23] I was just like, yep, need to work, getting a job and so it wasn't until my first paycheck that I realized like, oh my gosh, like, this is not that much. And so that kind of kick started my journey to budgeting and learning about money and investing and all of that. So that's, just kind of like how it all started.

[00:01:42] It wasn't until two years ago, or maybe July of 2020 that I officially was like, Hey, like I can do this in a way where I help women specifically women of color, like just become comfortable with money, talking about money, you know, like just their finances. And so I started a coaching business that now helps women.

[00:02:04] Yeah. Just become more, more comfortable with the idea of managing money and building wealth. So, yeah, that's a little bit about me.

[00:02:13] Viktoriia Miracle: Very entrepreneurial. I love it. What role do you think entrepreneurship has in wealth building?

[00:02:21] Andrea Ramos: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that question. I think that, when we think about building wealth, there's different vehicles, right?

[00:02:26] So there's the vehicle of the stock market. There's the vehicle of real estate. There's a vehicle of like, putting your, your nine to five income to work, and then there's also the vehicle of entrepreneurship. So when I think about like, which one of these vehicles goes, the fastest entrepreneurship is definitely one of the ones that's like, this one goes the fastest, so it plays a big role in building wealth and I think like, You know, we are taught to get a job and that's, I think a great stepping stone to building, you know, getting money and saving it and then putting that money to work. But when you are in charge of your business and, you know, starting a business, the, the rate at which you can make money definitely increases because you have a little bit more control, not a little bit more control.

[00:03:13] You have more control of what you can bring in as opposed to, you know, a salary. There's nothing wrong with a salary, but it's just a different type of vehicle. So I definitely think that if someone is pursuing building wealth, looking into entrepreneurship, if it's something that interests you is going to, yeah, just be a big advantageous in the long run for building wealth.

[00:03:34] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, absolutely and I know you mentioned that in your bio, that you want to help you work with the color woman of color. So why was that your choice and why do you think it's important?

[00:03:46] Andrea Ramos: Yeah. So I think for me, just, I resonate obviously like I'm Hispanic. I grew up in a household immigrant family and we were like, my parents didn't really have much.

[00:03:57] We always had enough, but we didn't have, you know, like an abundance of just buy luxuries. And so money wasn't really talked about, all I heard was like, we're tight, or we have to like, you know, Yeah, we're just tied on, on things. And so, I think that for my specific community, like the Hispanic community, I, I just have a heart for like really empowering those women to not just, save or not just, you know, get good at like saving, which is what is communicated in our communities. But rather like step into, okay, how do I make my money work for me? How do I, do this? And it was also like a, another big reason I have a heart for it? Is there, there really is a wage gap, right? Like there is a, a disparity between like what women of color make, and like women make, and then what white women make and like white men make.

[00:04:49] And so I think for me, I just want to not just say, Hey, it's possible for you to build wealth to women of color, but also like empower them to like, just show up powerfully, not ashamed. I think a lot of times the message for us is like, be content or be grateful and it's like, you can be grateful and still, and still build more and still earn more.

[00:05:13] So, yeah.

[00:05:15] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, absolutely. What was your number one mistake that you've done and money and you would like to share?

[00:05:25] Andrea Ramos: Oh my gosh. I love this question because it's, I talked about it last week. So when I was getting into budgeting and personal finances, right out of college, when I was making those $22,000 a year, I got really into money and I started learning about, you know, all that. And I wanted to learn about investing. So I looked up like, what book do I get? And the book came up, that came up was I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi. And so I put it in my Amazon cart and I was about to hit buy and I didn't buy it because I freaked out. I was like, I share this Amazon account with a bunch of people.

[00:05:59] They're going to see that I'm going to buy a book called I will teach you to be rich. They're going to think I'm greedy. They're going to think I'm like, you know, this like bad person. And so I didn't buy the book and I was 22 years old at the time. And it was like, In retrospect now I'm like, oh my gosh, like, wow, this was a tangible moment where my beliefs about money and rich people really impacted my decisions and I didn't end up getting that book. I just like put it away. I didn't start investing for another five years, which is a big deal. And so it was like one of the, you know, money mistakes, quote, unquote, that I made that really cost me a lot. And so, it would, you know, like looking back at that helps me realize, like there are money beliefs that do hold you back.

[00:06:48] That was a very tangible one for me. And so if anybody's listening and like, you know, like, is aware of some of the beliefs you have about money and rich people in wealth, it's good to explore those because they likely are coming up in different areas of your life. I just happened to like see it in, in retrospect and like, Kind of have like, oh, wow moment.

[00:07:10] Viktoriia Miracle: So, yeah. Wow. You know, I got all into just like two stocks or remember like 20 something. And my friend recommended me to buy like Apple, Google, Amazon when there were like a hundred bucks, like Amazon was 50 bucks or something and there was like, oh, I don't know if I can do this. Like, well, what do I need to do to buy them?

[00:07:29] Like, what's going to happen if I divorce and like, he got he what he's going to get all my money. And I'm like, oh no, no, no, you know, I'm not going to do anything. And I haven't started investing until I was like 28 or something. It's crazy. And I, if I invest that time, I could've made like so much money more.

[00:07:47] Anyway. I want to ask you a last question that I asked everybody on this podcast is for you to finish the sentence. Filling the blank and it sounds like this. If you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:08:03] Andrea Ramos: If you really knew me, you would know that I am really curious. I think that there is like an innate curiosity that I have about literally everything. And so, I oftentimes like wonder like, oh, how does that work? How does I wonder why they do that? I want, like, I think the inside of my brain is constantly asking questions, which is really great sometimes because it helps me explore things that I would like most people don't think about, but it can also be really exhausting because I'm like, I've already thought through like a bunch of different like scenarios here.

[00:08:33] So I think like, yeah, sometimes I'm like, oh man, if people like knew all of the things that I'm thinking of, they probably think I was the crazy person but.

[00:08:43] Viktoriia Miracle: We all think the same way. Awesome. And how our audience can find you and get a contact with you?

[00:08:49] Andrea Ramos: Yeah. So if you guys want to connect with me, on Instagram, it is at building.gen.wealth, and we can hang out there.

[00:08:58] Viktoriia Miracle: And yes, if you're watching a listen to this episode, we will link everything in episode page notes that just scroll down and you will get to, you will see the link. So click there and there's going to be all contact information that we mentioned. Any links here, as well.

[00:09:15] Thank you so much, Andrea for coming and sharing your knowledge. And thank you so much for watching or listening. Don't forget, review or rate and subscribe, share with your friends. And I will see you next time. Thank you.