Our Wealth Matters with Maribel Francisco
Maribel Francisco: [00:00:00] Super coloristic. XPI. I mean, I think it just reflects the great energy we're having here. And I love the exchange of ideas.
Jared Easley: Welcome back to the show. I'm one of your hosts, Jared. My cohost, unfortunately he's not with me. So shout to Christine, but I do have instead Maribel, Francisco, I'm saying that, right?
Maribel Francisco: Yes. Maribel Francisco. Hey. Hey everyone. And we are here in
Jared Easley: Orlando, but Maribel's from LA. California from California represent.
So the lazy podcast interview question, tell us about you. breaking all
Maribel Francisco: the rules already. Oh, right. How much time you got though? We have time anyway. Yeah. so my name's rabbi Francisco and I'm an immigrant money coach. So I focus on the USA based people. Well, sorry. The USA based, I. So everything from undocumented to DACA status to first generation born in the United States, that's where I fall under.[00:01:00]
And I basically fell into this by kind of mistake or not, not like looking for it.
Jared Easley: Interesting. Okay. So let's just start there. Yeah. You fell into something by a mistake. How did that happen?
Maribel Francisco: So origin story. So I have 11 plus years. California certified income tax background. Mm. And that's family business.
I was like, eh, not really. My passion still decided to go to university because, you know, I wanted to do my own thing and not like, hang on to family business or anything. But then for the last five years I've been working in entertainment, MGM, NBC, universal handling, multimillion dollar budgets. And I was like, I go staying humble.
You know, that kinda thing. Yeah, exactly. Although I like working with the IP, so like, you know, Kafu Panda and all of that, like I get to. Do the budgets to see how much those movies that you're seeing in theaters are gonna make in every single country except the United States and Canada. And I'm like, I love working with that, you know, but it's not my passion.
So I was like, [00:02:00] where am I? Like, what am I doing at this point, I'm licensed to be a certified tax prepar, certified notary. I have a bachelor's degree. I got a job like, but I haven't found my passion, what the heck's going on. And then I thought I was gonna go back full time for my master's in computer science.
I did end up getting into the master's program, but my job was really flexible. So I started doing both of them at the same time. This semester, I'm actually letting go of that masters. In order to concentrate full time on our wealth matters because I can always go pick that up again. And I feel like immigrants building wealth though, that can't wait.
Jared Easley: Okay. So you mentioned the buzz words, our wealth matters. So people are be like, I dunno, Maribel. I dunno. Our wealth wealth matters. What is our wealth matters?
Maribel Francisco: Let's go there. Yeah. So our wealth matters is a company that I've founded in order to bring together all that information and all that knowledge that I've accumulated over the years.
And actually. My community. So the immigrant community in the United States, my parents were immigrants. I am a daughter of immigrant. And I'm like, I figured out that with an it T N, [00:03:00] which is what you get from the IRS. If you're fully undocumented, you can actually do a lot of the things that people with social security numbers can do that.
This includes setting up your own company and getting an EIN through the IRS. Mm-hmm . That's an identifying number for your company and then applying to jobs as a contractor freelancer. Yeah. And then legally make money, like not under the table. You're gonna get paid with a 10 99. You can reduce cost. So you can do your taxes with the ITN.
You can buy a car, you can buy a house, you can get a high yield savings account, a bank account, a brokerage account. They can invest, they can get an IRA, an individual retirement account. If they somehow manage to get a 401k and they leave that job. They can also transfer that over to their it T I N. Good.
So American dream wise, financial wise, they can do a lot of the things that we think about when we think about our quote unquote American dream, whether they have a social security number or nine T N. Oh my
Jared Easley: goodness. Okay. So since you've been more focused on [00:04:00] that, what's the feedback you're.
Maribel Francisco: Super great.
There's a lot of people that don't know that fully undocumented people can invest. And that's where I'm trying to get everybody because people almost risk their lives just to get here. Yeah. In order for a better tomorrow. And I think it's such a disservice to their sacrifice that they saw one step short of supercharging their money because of lack of personal finance education mm-hmm
And even if they knew the system from their home country through and through you come to a whole new country, all of that goes out the window. It's not the same. So all anybody ever carries with them is save, save, save. And the banks in their country might have like fallen through and they might never have gotten their money.
And so that's where the distrust of banks begins. Yeah. Corruption and yeah. All of that. So it's just getting through that. So that's why I also like doing English and Spanish content. Yes. Because you're trying to figure out a whole new country along with a whole new financial system. And like our parents who immigrate their first concern is putting food on the table, putting a [00:05:00] roof over our heads and turning on the lights.
Like it's not trying to figure out the banking system and what the heck a high yield savings account is like, yes, it might help 'em, but that probably didn't exist where they were from. So like, you can't know to research something that you don't even know exist. Like what keywords are you gonna use in Google?
Like, teach me everything financially that I don't know. Okay.
Jared Easley: No, that makes sense. And you're already doing this and do you feel like it's catching wind
Maribel Francisco: and yeah. So I've been featured on the New York times and next advisor with time and hello this is basically because the people who wrote these articles, their job is to know money.
Yeah. Like this is their bread and butter and they themselves, upon talking to me were like, oh, wow. I didn't know. That immigrants more so fully undocumented immigrants could invest. And that's how those features came about because people are just surprised that, you know, they know personal finance and they don't know
Jared Easley: this well.
And, and I haven't known you very long, but it seems like you are more extroverted. Would you say [00:06:00] that's true? No. Interesting.
I
Maribel Francisco: have a social battery. okay. Well,
Jared Easley: your social battery is, is representing well. Okay. So because of that social battery, you've allowed yourself to be in scenarios where you've met various people that I think have led to those opportunities.
Maribel Francisco: Am I. Yes. Okay. Networking, networking, networking. Okay.
Jared Easley: So that's something that at the event we're at here, FinCon here in Orlando. That's how we met is, um, you just basically put out a message on the app for the event attendees that says, Hey, let's go have dinner. And then a number of people responded and then we found out, I guess we're having Venezuelan food, which ,
Maribel Francisco: I've never had it.
So I was like, let's go, I'm trying to be adventurous anybody down. I thought people were gonna drop off after that. I swear. but we still had like a pretty good group show up. We did like almost everybody, except one person was like, I've never tried Venezuelan food. Let's do it.
Jared Easley: So I went and, um, with very little [00:07:00] expectations of just, Hey, I'm gonna meet some new FINCONS and just have some Venezuelan food. And I did, I, uh, met and that's how I met a couple of now mutual friends, uh, one being, um, DJ, who sadly is not here now. He already. The conference, he had to go home, but, uh, yeah, DJ and I shared a platter of, of a, you know, all kinds of stuff, meat and rapists and everything salad.
And so that was awesome. And then, then you're like, I'm not done now. Let's let's have everybody come to the room and play games. Board
Maribel Francisco: games. Yes. That is, that is a good, like introverts way of just still socializing. It's like low key. Yeah, everybody just goes back. You're playing games. Chill. Well, I
Jared Easley: appreciate you doing that.
So you busted out there, you know, of course, smack talk en sued had fun. And then a little bit later in the evening, we had our first interesting encounter of the conference. Would you say that's
Maribel Francisco: oh, we're talking about that all. Alright. Yeah. I was just like, I thought we were all money nerds over here. I mean, I knew there was a little drama, but like.[00:08:00]
But like, really? This is your first FinCon right. This is my first FCON. Okay. So, and I've had like
Jared Easley: a lot of it's the first impression of this event and then you run into,
Maribel Francisco: and I just say, I just wanna say that the people that are organizing FinCon yes. I think I've had the CEO come up to me and other people just kind of going like, we're really sorry.
This has happened. This is the first time anything like this has happened. We're so sorry that this is your first impression. And so, you know, they've tried. Right amended and I've changed rooms at this point. good.
Jared Easley: I was a little concerned for you. Yeah, I was. So I need to tell people why you had to change room
Maribel Francisco: I'll let, you'll let you start
Jared Easley: you.
You got that social battery and because you're in a new environment, you're wanting to generously connect. You, put it out. Hey, we're playing UNO. Uh, if you wanna play just message.
Maribel Francisco: Yeah. So that was one of the big concerns. Yes. That was one of the big concerns that I was like, should I just put my room number out there?
And you guys were like, no, no, no, no, no. Like we were still at the restaurant. You guys were like, don't put your phone. I mean, your room number, just put your phone number. And I was like, okay. I still think [00:09:00] that was the right decision. I now think that was the right choice, cuz we could probably maybe had more than one person come.
Yeah, there they're gonna been, yeah. So it could have been an
Jared Easley: open let's yeah. Open invite, but we did, you put your number and people messaged you and wanted to come by. And so people did. And at the beginning, all alls well, and then, uh, we had one gentleman show up, uh, actually opened the door. He knocked on the door, he comes in and then he opens his mouth and we realized immediately, oh, this guy's had probably more to drink than he should have had.
And, uh, probably should just go to bed. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought you handled the situation as. Politely and his, uh,
Maribel Francisco: I was trying to be AMIC lot friendly as you could global
Jared Easley: like some water
Maribel Francisco: and Hey, even though we gotta pay like six bucks for that, I was just like, Hey, you wanna water though? Well, we
Jared Easley: could tell this guy was, it was just like, no.
He was in a different mindset than the rest of us. Yeah. But that unfortunately led to him noticing another person in the room we won't name. And then, uh, that, that led to a, a argument which led to shoving and could have been a fight. Uh, thankfully there was a group of people that were [00:10:00] able to get in between of that, but that led to the hotel security being called and you know, this whole thing, uh, turning into the, a little bit awkward deal.
But I, I wanted to, uh, Uh, bring that up because they handled that like a pro and as well as anyone could
Maribel Francisco: have handled that right. Thought. And like, I couldn't push him. He was stronger than me. So I was just like, do you need somebody to walk you? Should I call security to walk you out? Or can you do it by yourself?
Correct. But he was like, you know, not afraid of security
Jared Easley: at all. Oh, in that moment he was Superman, uh, or thought he. Yeah. Uh, but, but anyway, I thought that the reason I bring that up is I was very proud of the way you handled the situation. Oh, thank you. And, um, it was dealt with, and to your point, the, uh, the team here at FCON did a phenomenal job of just making sure people are safe and everybody's squared away.
It sounds like you're now in a different room, which, uh, I think more space for
Maribel Francisco: board group board games.
Jared Easley: Uh, yes. So anyway, I love, I love that. So, uh, more board games actually. Uh, I didn't play any more board games after that. I called it tonight, but, uh,
Maribel Francisco: no. [00:11:00] But anyway. Yeah. Yeah, we were all just like everybody.
Let's just, let's call it an nine.
Jared Easley: Yeah. Let's not give the, uh, the hotel, uh, security more reason to
Maribel Francisco: seriously. It's like, we don't wanna get kicked out, kick out people from LA. So we just got here.
Jared Easley: so, anyway, yeah, that, that, that was, uh, a fun first night for you. And then, uh, yesterday was your first full day.
I wanted to hear about, uh, what that was like for
Maribel Francisco: you. It was good. Um, I went to orientation mm-hmm and then hit up a couple of the spots in the conference. And yeah, I heard somebody talk about doing finance, but with low income and with the immigrant communities, some, some not all are socially Econo, social economic disadvantage.
Yeah. So for me, I haven't researched a lot of how to do low income because a lot of the people that I get are first, the children or the people who have grown up here. And so they're like, okay, I've got a university, I got a job, but I know you can do it with low income. So I'm like, I need to figure out more about that or find people who I can refer those type of people to.
But those tend to be my Spanish speakers. So it's [00:12:00] hard to refer them to other people who may have the knowledge, but not in the right. Yeah.
Jared Easley: Language makes sense. And so, yeah. So you, you were able to do that. Did you party like a rockstar last night?
Maribel Francisco: Did you? I did go party. I went a little late though. Cause I was like, I should make a post.
The guy who made my shirt super great. I tell the story about, I have one by the way. It's pink. I'm like wondering if anybody could go to Tampa for me and like, get a couple more to give away at my speech on Saturday, but it's like such quick turnaround. Yeah. I don't know if he could do it, but like I tell the story about basically I gave him less than one week to turn those around.
And then he was like, I got you. And then when I get here, he's like, oh, there's supplier issues with the shirts. The shirts are coming from California. And I was like, Bro. I could have go pick out those shirt and he's, but he did everything he could in his power. Like obviously you have one. I have one DJ took one and I've got two for myself to where loud and proud to rep in the, in the conference.
I wanna like highlighter colors, but I was like, fudge, you got supplier? Just get black. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, not white cuz then it's gonna get all dirty and stuff. No, no, no. Black is fashion. Yeah. And then you guys got the [00:13:00] highlighter colors. Yeah, but it was like extra large. That's okay. I was like, maybe I'll wear these by the pool.
And then you guys were like, we'll take them. And I was like, all right,
Jared Easley: working by the pool. I haven't even had a chance to go by the pool.
Maribel Francisco: me neither. I am hoping to get there at some point. That's hilarious. At some point, maybe I'll just like network with people, but like at the pool, you know, so you're speaking, you're speaking, I'm speaking.
Tell us about. Yeah. So I'm basically gonna be my topic is to show other creators how they can support the immigrant community in, within their audience. Mm-hmm so I know not every immigrant follows me. Right, right. And sometimes when you go looking for financial content, you find creators. And so they might be following them in, you know, in YouTube or Twitter, whatever platform they, the audience likes to hang out.
So I am conscious of that. And because I know that not a lot of people know that immigrants more so undocumented immigrants can even invest. And because I've had coaches refer me, people like their audience members will be like, oh, okay. I see you are [00:14:00] talking about high yield savings accounts. Like, but ally doesn't work for me or something like that.
But do you have another bank for undocumented people? And they're. They go blank. They're like, I don't, I don't even know how to help you, bro. So the people that know me, they'll be like, Hey, I'm referring. So, and so to you, I told them to follow you. Yeah. They'll ask me the question first. I'll give 'em an answer.
And they're like, Hey, I gave them the answer and I told them to follow you because that's not my lived experience or I don't know any knowledge about that. So I'm like, okay, let's submit to make this a topic because there are a bunch of people that don't know about this, and I just want the community to be helped.
So although I may be creating some competition for myself, you know, community over competition, it's all about helping our end users, our audience to get further in life and. You have that
Jared Easley: abundance mindset, I think that'll pay off. Well, I hope
Maribel Francisco: so. I believe it will.
Jared Easley: What are some other things? I mean, you're doing speaking. You're, you're coming to events. What are some of the things you're doing [00:15:00] to try to get in front of that potential audience?
Maribel Francisco: So I actually put out a message yesterday that, Hey, where's everybody here at FCON, who's all the creators and stuff that are supporting the immigrant community.
So I need to go back and like individually message them cuz you know how the app doesn't mm-hmm tell you if people, somebody commented on got it. Somewhere where you commented. So. Hopefully I could do a meetup and meet with some of these people who that's a good idea. Also service the immigrant community.
They do it, you know, through different mediums. Some people were like lawyers and stuff. Oh, wonderful. So I'm just like, Hey, I need all these people in my network. Cause a lot of people, especially if they're undocumented, they're scared about what happens to my money if I get deported. And that's a very real question.
And so as much as I can say, you know, you can cash it out. There's other options, but like easiest is cash out all your money, take it with you or transfer it to the bank accounts in your home country. If it comes from a lawyer, you're gonna feel better an immigration lawyer at that. Absolutely
Jared Easley: so well, and you don't know who those people know, and they may be like, oh, I need to introduce you to [00:16:00] exactly Stacy.
Yeah. And then Stacy becomes somebody that helps you introduce you to other people. And then, you know, it's kinda that
Maribel Francisco: and vice versa. So I have had before FinCon and immigration, lawyer, lawyer reach out to me and go. Yes. I can tell them that, you know, with their, it T N they can open up retirement account, but they're looking at me like, you're a lawyer.
How would you know about finances? And so she's like, although I can tell them the information it's better coming from an immigrant coach immigrant money coach. Right. Because they know that that's everything you deal with. Yeah. So just. Being symbiotic and helping the community in all aspects of life, whether it's like mental health or lawyers or their finances, you know, just trying to create a network to take care of a person as a whole.
Okay.
Jared Easley: So let's skip forward, uh, here in the, maybe it's the not so near future, but. Do you have some plans to maybe write a book or, or put out some podcast? I don't know. What's on your mind. What do you think
Maribel Francisco: about doing? I was thinking about a book cuz as I was doing my research, mm-hmm , ain't nobody talking about this.
Like there's very little is, [00:17:00] uh,
Jared Easley: the market
Maribel Francisco: screaming for you? Yes, there is very little information out there. So I was like, you know, who else is doing this? And I found a couple people, but like what about articles or videos and stuff like that. And I was like, what about a book, a legitimate book, you know?
And I didn't find any book. There was people telling their, I. Stories, but it wasn't finance based. Its not finance based. Yep. So I was like, I might need to come back to that. No, this is put that on the radar. It's on the back burner for now, for now I'm working on putting together a course that's specific tailored to the immigrant community.
So everything that I'm gonna be presenting, all the tools that are gonna be mentioned are going to be. Fully undocumented friendly and also is gonna work with social security numbers. So the way I compartmentalize my information is I try to get tools that work with its. So that's the number you get if you're fully undocumented.
And so the assumption is that anything that works for someone who is. Fully undocumented to let's say a high yield savings account or a brokerage company, right. Is also gonna work for someone who's DACA who has a, this is a person that's a early childhood arrival and they have a social [00:18:00] security number, but for all intensive purposes, they're still considered undocumented.
They just have a work permit, so it's gonna work for them. And then it's definitely gonna work for people who are born in the United States and have a social security number, fully naturalized and everything. So this is a little off
Jared Easley: topic, but in the news, you know, if you, even if you're just kind of perusing the news , you'll see.
Okay. Hey, these people from Texas, all of a sudden ended up in New York. DC. And I wanna hear your take on
Maribel Francisco: that. Yes. So it might be a little controversial. Go ahead. I think that it really brings to light what, like, it really puts it in their face. Right. DC's face. And I think that's the intent, right? Yeah.
They're like, let me put it in your face. You deal with them then. And I think that's great actually, because we do need more support. If you're gonna have a bunch of people coming in, then maybe we need to restructure some stuff. And right. The way that we get DC to notice is to literally put it in their face.
These immigrants are gonna need help, are gonna need some support and they're gonna work. It's not like they're gonna be burdens on society. They can work. No, they just, they
Jared Easley: just want to better. Better [00:19:00] opportunity
Maribel Francisco: to work. Exactly. Some people are escaping prosecution or death or gangs or drugs and violence.
Like none of us want our children and our families. Yeah. Slavery maybe. Yeah. None of us wanna grow up in that. So why do we blame other people for, you know, wanting to escape that? And some people are like, well, instead teach their governments how to fix it. And it's like, okay, we would have to tear everything down.
Yeah. And then, and then sadly I realistic. That is, yeah. Then there would be comments about the USA getting another people's business. So it's a non win win. So we're gonna need more support to have more people in the country. Like we already know that, right? If you have more kids in the school, they need more support.
We need to, if there's more people driving on the roads, we need to fix the roads more often. Mm-hmm so I think it's a great way to just get DC to really face it and not just go like. Hey, other states y'all should be accepting them. It's like, okay. Okay. Face the issue.
Jared Easley: Let's just, [00:20:00] uh, start to wrap this up. Cause I know you have things to do who is doing something that interests you.
Maribel Francisco: It can be anything. Like another creator or
Jared Easley: it can be a creator. It can be anything celebrity. It can be someone who wrote the book. You just read
Maribel Francisco: whatever the son of ENT Fernandez, Alejandro Fernandez visa Fernandez was big in like Mexican or also like Latino, Hispanic culture.
Yeah. He passed away his son, Alejandro Fernandez. I had seen a little bit before coming over here gave. A donation to a community college in my city. And I was like, how does he even know about this community college? This is like a little community college out in the suburbs. And I was like, nonetheless, super, super happy.
And this is like predominantly Hispanic yeah. Area and probably low income. just personal experience. So I like what he's doing. I'm like, I need to research. See what else he's doing. And yeah, I think there's also other, just more immigrants coming out and telling their story. And I think that's really empowering for, especially those [00:21:00] young immigrants coming up that, you know, miss the DACA deadline so they can no longer get a social security number, even if they were here since they were three, cuz they missed a, a paper filing deadline and.
It's not like they can ask their family members cuz nobody has ever gone through a DACA process before. Cuz that's relatively new. So well it's
Jared Easley: possible there's people that are listening that say, Hey, I actually know some folks that could benefit from connecting with you. Mm-hmm what's the best way for people to connect with you
Maribel Francisco: online.
Yeah. So I'm on mostly hang out on Instagram at. Our wealth matters. Our wealth matters. Yes. Yep. And I'm on all, all the other, so major social media platforms, but I mostly hang out on Instagram. Okay. And then from there, like people can consume my free content. I've literally had somebody go like I'm fully undocumented.
I have an ITN. I just went through all your content. And now I have a brokerage. Oh, how wonderful. I know that was great. I know that was encourag. Yes. Good for me. And it's like, because even if you just consume my free content, you don't have to do the one-on-one coaching. You don't have to do anything. You just go and consume my free content, [00:22:00] but they should do the one on one.
Jared Easley: let the record reflect. Go ahead. Wait, say that again. I said, let the record reflect that they should do
Maribel Francisco: your coaching. Yes, they should do the coaching because we don't want people investing all their life savings. Right. That's not how you, and you need to keep the lights. Yes. so it's, it's kinda like buying stick shift bef if, and you don't even know how to drive stick, shift type of thing.
So you can have a brokerage account, but if you don't know how to make it, do the most for you, so tax saving wise. Yeah. And how to grow it. It's gonna like be for not some people might just contribute money and, and not even invest it cuz they didn't know they had to. Right. Yep. So still do the coaching and if you know any immigrants in your life, just send them right over.
I'll take care of them, English and Spanish, bilingual content. Excellent.
Jared Easley: And we always close out with final thoughts. Do you have any final thoughts for people listening today?
Maribel Francisco: Anything. Super coloristic, exs,
Jared Easley: any particular reason why
Maribel Francisco: that
Jared Easley: and I I'm the biggest fan of brand. She's great energy. She watch more Mary [00:23:00] Poppins.
Is that the takeaway here? yeah.
Maribel Francisco: I mean, I think it just reflects a great energy we're having here and I love the exchange of ideas. So I.
Jared Easley: Yeah, well, congratulations river bill. I hope that, uh, you continue to climb that ladder and have success and help a lot of people. Thank you so
Maribel Francisco: much, Jerry. So, and I look forward to following your journey.
Jared Easley: Yes. And hopefully when you write that book, we can get you back on the
Maribel Francisco: I'll. You know, when I do fair enough. Thank.