297: Talking to Family about Money and Sustainability with Kara Perez

297: Talking to Family about Money and Sustainability with Kara Perez

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[00:00:00] Welcome

to the award winning grad school femtoring podcast, the place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Dr. Yvette Martinez Vu, a certified coach, consultant, and author, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Yvette. Today, we're covering the topic of talking about money with family and also talking about sustainability [00:01:00] and talking about investing. Three topics that I think are really, really important for us to familiarize ourselves with.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Our guest is Kara Perez and she's the founder of Bravely Go, a sustainability focused financial education company. Bravely focuses on bringing actionable, intersectional, and accessible financial education to people who never learned the language of money. She's the author of the book, Green Money. Kara has been featured in the New York Times, Good Morning America, Forbes, NPR, Glamour, ABC Nightline News, and US News and World Report as a financial expert.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Additionally, for two years, Kara co hosted the award winning podcast, The Fairer Sense, which has been named the top money podcast for women by Forbes and The Balance. Welcome to the podcast, Kara.

Kara Perez: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thank you. Thank you for agreeing to be here. I'm excited to dive [00:02:00] in to hear a little bit more about your story to talk about, you know, these topics related to money. Finances, investing, and sustainability. How that ties in, why we should even care about bringing that up with family. And also I want to hear about your book.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So we'll get into all of that, but I would love for you to start us off by sharing a little bit more about you, about who you are, about how you got to be where you are today, because I love sharing people's backstories. So folks can get a sense of if they see themselves in you, how they can potentially learn from your story.

Kara Perez: Yeah, so my quick kind of like TLDR background is so I am 36 now and I grew up in Massachusetts. My father was born and raised in Dominican Republic. My mom is a white lady who, as I just told you, like I grew up in the house my mom grew up in. So, hashtag townies for life. And we, my parents got divorced when I was young and that [00:03:00] had very severe financial implications for my mom and my life because my mom raised my siblings and I by herself largely.

Kara Perez: And money became a really dominating factor in my life early on because we didn't have any money. And we were on food stamps which is now the SNAP program. For about six years in my childhood, my mom put herself back in school to get her master's degree and paid for it while working and raising three rambunctious kids, you know, and it was just very much so, we don't have any money money's hard, put that back, don't get that name brand thing.

Kara Perez: And so I feel like I kind of became obsessed with money. early in life. And then I went to college and I had to take out student loans and I graduated in 2011 into a job market that had been, I like to say, devastated by the Great Recession. And even though technically the Great Recession ended in 2009, that's when the stock market recovered.

Kara Perez: I mean, anyone who [00:04:00] lived through that time knows that jobs just weren't the same. A lot of jobs cut benefits during the recession and then never brought them back. A lot of companies went to gig work and did not hire full time employees. So I really struggled to to earn money in my early 20s and I was making like 15, 000 a year, 16, 000 a year working as a waitress and I had my student loans, I had to pay rent, I had to pay car insurance, like I didn't get any family help and so my obsession with money kind of really grew into this frantic energy.

Kara Perez: It was like very unhealthy mentally and I just decided, you know what, I'm gonna start it. Writing about trying to pay off my student loans on a low income. I started blogging, this is like 2014. So, you know, social media is around, but not in the way it is now. And I'm just like, blogging about all my different side hustles and I'm going to try and increase my income and do all these things.

Kara Perez: And so writing about money got me really interested in it, not from a panicky perspective, but from a, [00:05:00] how do I learn the language of money? How do I understand the tools that are available to me? How can I take advantage of things? So opening my first high yield savings account, I had been at Bank of America for years and years and years and they paid 0.

Kara Perez: 01%. They're still paying 0. 01 percent on their interest on their savings accounts. And I switched to a high yield savings account that paid like 3 percent and I was like, I'm hacking the code. So from that kind of interest point from that blog, I, I paid off my remaining 18, 000 in student loan debt in 10 months working five different part time jobs.

Kara Perez: I wrote about it. I started talking to other people about money and I found that even though people always say money is taboo, people are actually very hungry to talk about money, but they're also very ashamed if they have debt or if they don't have a high income or if they don't really know, they like want to talk about it, but they're not sure what words to use.

Kara Perez: And I just thought I'm going to. [00:06:00] Keep doing this. I'm going to keep talking about money. I'm going to keep blogging. I'm going to get an Instagram account. And it just kind of snowballed into the business it is today.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. And , I appreciate you sharing a little bit more about your backstory and even how your early years really shaped your approach and interest in, in how you manage your money and also in learning more about it, having access to language and the knowledge and then sharing your journey, which I'm sure a lot of us have seen ourselves through your journey, because, , I'll speak for myself and also say, , I do know a good portion of my audience, they're first gen and BIPOC, and then they might also come from working class backgrounds, or in my case, from a single parent household.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And there's a lot of that overlap of hearing these sayings that people say about we don't have enough, we can't afford that. And that then becomes the mindset that we carry into our adulthood. So I appreciate you sharing a little bit more about About your story.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'm [00:07:00] curious. In particular, when you started to learn more about money and, and about investing, how did, yeah, your backstory, your childhood influence the way that you, at least in the early years, I'm assuming it's, it's grown and developed over time, but in the early time, when you were first starting out learning about money and investing, how did your background directly influence your choices?

Kara Perez: So, I think I'm in kind of an interesting position because I'm very white. I am incredibly white.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I appreciate you saying it like that.

Kara Perez: it's okay. We just have to acknowledge it. Some of us are blessed with the melanin, and some of us are not. Um, So it's funny because my whole life people have heard my last name and been like, wait, are you Spanish?

Kara Perez: Wait, wait, wait, what? So, there's a lot of stuff that many people in our Latina community deal with that [00:08:00] I don't deal with. No one's being racist towards me. And, yeah. It's, I bring that up because when I started learning about this, it became very apparent to me. I was like 25, 26, 27 when I started really getting into the world of money.

Kara Perez: And I, all of a sudden it started to hit me like, Oh my God, my white family is in a very different financial position than my brown family. Because even though I'm, I'm very white, it's like me and my two siblings are like the only white ones on my dad's side of the family. And so I was like, this is.

Kara Perez: crazy the differences in the houses that my family members have. This is crazy the differences in like what people think of as status. On my dad's side of the family, I will say that the wealth building has been slow and also very focused on real estate. Whereas on my mom's side of the family, there's much more talk about the stock market.

Kara Perez: And I think for [00:09:00] a lot of first Gen kids and a lot of immigrants, they come from countries where you can't necessarily trust the banking system or the financial system in general. And so real estate makes a lot of sense because it's something that's like you can own land, right? Like you can grow your own food on land or you can fix your own house.

Kara Perez: that makes more sense to them. And to my mom's side of the family, who's been like, my great grandparents moved from Ireland to the US. So like in the early 1900s, and my grandparents were born here. My mom was born here. I was born here. That's much, they have much more faith in the system. They have known the language of money a lot longer, and they've had access to investing accounts.

Kara Perez: Like when my grandparents and my dad moved here, they didn't know what the United States stock market really was. Like they know, they knew about it, of course, but They didn't have that in DR they weren't investing in DR. So they had to open accounts, literally, in the case of my grandparents 40 years after my Dominican grandparents had to open investing accounts, [00:10:00] 40 years after my white grandparents.

Kara Perez: So it's

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah.

Kara Perez: the, the differences just became very stark to me in the in the access and the, the comfort. And so one of the first things that I started to do was just talk about it with like my cousins. I have a lot of cousins and I would just be bringing it up and Oh, I'm paying off my debt.

Kara Perez: And my cousins who were in college or just graduating would be like, oh yeah, I, I have to do that too. And I'd be like, yeah, you should use this strategy, like use the debt snowball. So it started with kind of smaller topics and then I helped a lot of my Dominican family members open like IRAs and brokerage accounts and I'm like on them now.

Kara Perez: Now that I've been in it for nine years, right, I'm like, hey. Did you max out your IRA yet? Remember when we did that together? We opened it a couple years ago. Are you, are you, are you maxing that out? Are you like putting enough money in? And so now everyone knows, like I can talk to Kara about money, but I will say, yeah, the background just really highlighted for me, like the need in normalizing. [00:11:00] The topic of money and in diversifying what people think of as wealth, because it's not just a stock market. It's not just real estate. It is also community. It is also knowledge and really trying to bridge that gap for people.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Wow. This, this is so interesting for you to have had that exposure to two different cultural backgrounds, also

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'm thinking about how even just generationally, , your family, some folks have been in the U. S. longer than others. Some folks have had access to the stock market longer than others. And, just you opening up that conversation with your cousins is already, I'm assuming, changing the game and positively impacting the future generations.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And this actually prompts me to I was going to ask another question, but I kind of want to dive into that topic first about why we should even [00:12:00] talk about money, about finances, and we can even, you know, add in the sustainability piece because I feel like it's all interconnected, um, why we should have these conversations with our family members.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I see clearly, I understand right now, just from. What you shared that it's having an impact in your family. Some of us are still learning about these topics, are still new to it. And maybe because of that, they might feel a little bit more shy and bringing it up. So I'm curious for you. Yeah. How can folks start to initiate these conversations with their families?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And especially in light of maybe if they come from cultural backgrounds where this is brand new or like you mentioned earlier, they have this distrust of banking systems or distrust of any kind of financial systems. Yeah.

Kara Perez: it's such an important question and really the, the answer is, I think, Don't expect your family to [00:13:00] have the same views as you right away, or, or ever, maybe. But don't I was so excited to learn about money, and to me it was so interesting and so fascinating, and not a lot of people feel that way about, like, how the stock market works.

Kara Perez: And I, I think a mistake I made earlier on was, expecting everyone to want to spend three hours talking with me about this. So I encourage people to just start with questions and don't come in, not like a question like, are you saving for retirement? That's fine, but we can do so much better. Instead of asking like, what does retirement look like to you, mom?

Kara Perez: You know, what are you thinking of for retirement? What do you want from retirement? And kind of make it special and exciting. Starting from a lifestyle perspective, I think really helps because then people will say things like, well, I want to spend time with my grandkids, or I want to go, you know, split time between here and DR, [00:14:00] right?

Kara Perez: Like people will say the things they want to do. And then you can bring up the, how are we going to make that happen? Are you at is there anything, if your parents are still working, for example do you guys know about, your work benefits? Do you have life insurance through work? Let's check.

Kara Perez: Let's check, you know, let's just go find that information. As opposed to coming in with like spreadsheets and words that they might not know. And then also understanding that they may have different versions or different definitions of what Success or wealth or safety looks like, and they may have different expectations than you, and that's okay because they have different life experiences and they're allowed to have different goals for themselves.

Kara Perez: But I think it is also really important for especially kids that think or know that they are part of their parents retirement plan, right? If you're gonna be, or you already are, supporting your parents financially in some way, I do think these conversations become more [00:15:00] important and you should have them more frequently.

Kara Perez: Like money should be something that ideally you talk about pretty regularly because if, if they are still working, can we get them to invest a little bit while they're working so that they have some money in their own name? You know, that they can pull on 10 years from now, five years from now. Is there a workplace benefit they can take care of or they can take advantage of?

Kara Perez: Do they know what they're Are they eligible for social security? Have they ever checked that out? So getting them involved I think is really important and starting with those lifestyle questions and things that they can get excited about in their future and then pulling back a little bit and saying, okay, cool.

Kara Perez: How do we take steps towards that together? Like I'm here with you. I'm a part of this, whether it is actual financial support or just here to help kind of guide the knowledge. But I need you to be involved too. So what are we doing together?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I just want to add or ask another follow up question tied to this, uh, especially to, to the topic of, you know, what [00:16:00] happens if you are your parents retirement plan, and. One of the things that I, when I have conversations with my peers, I am also 36 and my peers are between the ages of 36 and well, my friends, 36 and maybe 50 ish.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's the range is that same. We all are expected to be our parents retirement plan, or we already are financially providing for them. And there's some pushback in terms of what are you going to do or starting an investing account or even talking about it. Like they just want to brush it off.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Or in my case, my mom flat out says, , I'm going to work until I die. Like I'm going to work until I can't work any longer. And I've brought up these conversations around. you know, what if something happens to you? What if you are no longer physically able to work? And her response is, I'm going to figure it out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And it is a bit frustrating [00:17:00] because it makes it hard to take that next step of, okay. Let's take a look at your social security benefits. Okay, let's take a look at what you have saved up. Okay, can we move that over to an investment account? And even navigating managing all that information can be a challenge.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But in any case, so tied to this ideas uh, what, what thoughts come to mind for you when an individual faces a lot of resistance or pushback, especially from elderly family members in particular?

Kara Perez: Oh my gosh, this is just making me think so much about my Nana my Tibetan grandmother who just has been so grumpy for the last two decades, I want to say, and like I love her so much, but she's 95, she'll be 96 so soon, and she's just grumpy AF, and she doesn't want to. You know, she doesn't want to talk a lot about many things.

Kara Perez: You know, like sometimes she's I don't even want to talk about what we're watching on TV. She just is difficult to get into. And one of my aunts [00:18:00] has really taken on 90 percent of her caregiving and like having these difficult conversations with her. And so, this is something that I think Unfortunately, there is, there is like emotional preparation that we have to do to understand that again, like our parents or our grandparents have different life experiences and they have different, they have different takes on things that are valid.

Kara Perez: She said with a look on her face, I'm like, I want to like respect and honor. where they're coming from, but it doesn't mean it doesn't make it more difficult for you, right, or for us. And there's that emotional frustration that I would say, it's actually really important to stay in touch with and to try and stay in grace.

Kara Perez: So don't try not to pick fights because that's just going to widen the gap. And that means that we have to do more emotional labor and it's not really fair. And just, you know, Accepting that unfairness, actually, [00:19:00] to say, it's not unfair. Sky is blue. This is not unfair. And these are just like immutable facts of life, and that sucks, and it's hard.

Kara Perez: But I think if you can Accept that there will be some conflict or that you will meet resistance. It then leads to the next step of helping them realize that if they're, that no action actually is an action. So if people don't want to look at a budget, right? I work with people one on one as a money coach, and if people don't want a budget, I just ask them, well, how do you think you're going to reach your goals?

Kara Perez: And they'll, no one has an answer to that, right? Much like your mom. She's just I'll find a way, but that's not actually a plan, right? And so having that conversation again and again and again, knowing that you'll have to have these conversations multiple times and asking or trying to get the information.

Kara Perez: Can you make me power of attorney? Can you let me know what's going [00:20:00] on in your bank account? Can I have access to your bank account? Something like that. If you can at some point get access so that you can begin to make some of the decisions, I encourage people to explore that, you know, through legal channels, don't be trying to into your parent's bank account upfront.

Kara Perez: But sometimes you do have to just sort of step in and make. Make calls if people really won't. And finally, don't feel like you need to do this alone. Like in my family, like I mentioned, one of my aunts really has 90 percent of the caregiving burden has, has fallen to her, and she has 5 siblings. And that's not okay, right?

Kara Perez: So getting your siblings involved, if you have any, getting cousins involved, right? Like partners, spouses, whomever, just know that you don't have to do this alone. I think especially like eldest daughters feel that they must be the ones who always have the answers, who are always in charge. And there is at a certain point, depending on how much resistance you're meeting, like I can go no [00:21:00] further here.

Kara Perez: Maybe I need to pass it to my brother. And he needs to come in and talk about this. Or maybe my cousin needs to do this. Or maybe I need to hire an attorney to get my mom to sit down with someone that is in a position of authority that she respects more than me. Right? So just putting together your like Avengers assemble team to help the people in your life, I think is so, so, so important.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, I appreciate that too, because you, you hit the nail right there where you said as a, as an eldest daughter, or sometimes the eldest child, there's this pressure of I have to figure it out. But reminding yourself that you don't have to do this alone, is, is especially helpful. Actually, as a millennial, I also kind of want to bring up What happens when the resistance comes on the other end?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Like I have Gen Z siblings, for instance. And I'm thinking here, this is a sustainability question in particular, tied to investing of folks who are like, [00:22:00] I don't want to invest because I don't want to put my money to support these evil companies. And I know they care. They care about values based investing as well, or if they're going to spend their money on something, they want to make sure it's related to something that they believe in.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Do you have any, any tips or insights on that? Because that's actually something that I even, I feel like I I'm learning. I'm actively learning about this. I feel a lot more comfortable with questions of budgeting, uh, investing for retirement. But when it comes to thinking about investing and sustainability or investing ethically or in a values aligned way, that's still a bit challenging for me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So I'm curious your thoughts on any, any thoughts that come up for you related to that..

Kara Perez: Yes. Well, so this is a huge part of my book, Green Money. So chapter six is all about this and it's, I call it values based investing because there really is [00:23:00] no. One perfect, ethical, sustainable company that like pays its workers perfectly and is the perfect, has the perfect environmental record and has a perfect like supply chain.

Kara Perez: That doesn't exist because we live in a very complicated world that is very profit driven and so under shareholder capitalism If you want to participate in the stock market, you are going to have to make some compromises. And that's, I think, okay. Like a compromise that I have made is I don't invest in fossil fuels.

Kara Perez: I'm an environmentalist. I care a lot about the environment. Fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas are destroying the planet. And we're recording this right as Hurricane Milton is about to hammer Florida and Mexico. And that, those, Hurricane Milton is, I believe the strongest storm that will ever make landfall.

Kara Perez: And unfortunately, if we don't get our butts in gear about climate change as a nation, we're going to see stronger storms than [00:24:00] hurricane Milton, right? Like it's going to get worse. And so I don't invest in fossil fuels. Guess what? I definitely own Google. I, I own companies that. use fossil fuels. I use fossil fuels.

Kara Perez: I drive a car. So there is this level of, it's not about being perfect. It's about doing better because if there's 330 million Americans, right? About 55 percent of Americans invest in the stock market. So let's just say for easy math, like 160 million Americans invest in the stock market. So let's say a hundred million Americans out of that stop investing in fossil fuels.

Kara Perez: That is going to decimate the fossil fuel industry. It's going to force Exxon and Shell and Chevron into solar energy, into wind energy. And that will lower emissions. And so I like to think of it as collective action, that if I do this, and you do this, and we all do this, we can create that social change from our [00:25:00] individual stances.

Kara Perez: I also encourage people, like chapter seven in my book is all about eco anxiety and climate doomerism, because it's so easy to see the problems. It's so easy to just look at this hurricane, or that hurricane, or, you know, in my book, I write about flooding in Pakistan and mudslides, like climate crisis around the world.

Kara Perez: And it's easy to just see the problems. It's a little bit harder to see all of the people that are working on this, but they are out there. And I include myself in that. So I volunteer. I used to live in North Carolina and I volunteered with the tree planting group because trees make cities better.

Kara Perez: Literally cooler, so it helps combat climate change, and trees store carbon, so it also helps combat climate change in that way. So the more trees you plant the better off the entire planet is. So I would plant trees. And I love planting trees because you plant a tree, you're not going to sit in the shade of that tree [00:26:00] tomorrow.

Kara Perez: It's a tiny little tree.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah.

Kara Perez: It's for the next generation, right? You're, I'm thinking. Not about myself benefiting from this tree, but I'm thinking about my kids and their kids benefiting from this tree. And so remembering we're all in it together and there are people already doing stuff today and you can be a part of that, whether financially via your investments or via your time and your energy and your advocacy.

Kara Perez: And that's so, so, so important. And I honestly, you know, I'm very, very climate aware and I'm not really depressed about it anymore because I have. Excuse me, my voice started to give out. I'm getting so emotional here. I'm really not that depressed about it anymore because I've surrounded myself with people who are taking action and I'm a person who takes action.

Kara Perez: And I know that I'm doing the best that I can. I'm giving my, I'm withholding my money from crappy companies. I'm giving my money to good companies and I'm devoting my energy and my platform because [00:27:00] I am lucky enough to have some online following to To helping other people do the same. And I think if you can find that sweet spot in your own life, you will feel energized.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. One of the things I'm hearing you say is that. You don't have to sacrifice your future. You don't have to sacrifice your retirement or your ability to build wealth or whatever goals you have for yourself, uh, for the sake of caring about the planet and caring about climate change, that there are things that you can do to still take action.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: There are compromises that you can make and that. It's that cumulative action that we take that can make a big difference. So I'm so glad I asked now, uh, we're all going to have to pick up a copy of your book. Green money. And actually I want to get back to this topic of balancing cultural expectations around money [00:28:00] and even sustainability with our own personal goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So, I know you already gave some really great insights on figuring out a way to balance your values and, you know, care for the planet and still invest. And you also gave some insights on like, how do we manage resistant elderly family members? But for folks who maybe feel like there's still tension between cultural expectations and what they want to do, what do you have to say to them?

Kara Perez: Yeah, oh my gosh. And this is, ah, it's such a big thing in so many first and second gen communities, right? And I have a lot of friends who are Southeast Asian and their parents have had very specific career directions. That they wanted their kids to go in and they, and the kids didn't And that creates a lot of tension or like I'm child free by choice and that creates a lot of tension, right?

Kara Perez: So there's so many [00:29:00] ways that you can kind of culturally disappoint your family

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah.

Kara Perez: What I have found to be helpful and this is just my personal experience, you know, I I haven't studied this or anything. I don't have data to back this up. But what I have found to be really, really helpful is to celebrate other people's choices that are different from yours.

Kara Perez: So instead of like with the child free thing, instead of blaming or judging one of my aunts who was a stay at home mom for her whole life, being like, God, you were such a good mom. It's so cool that look at what your kids have done and celebrating her choices and what she did with her life.

Kara Perez: Because that kind of opens the path for her to celebrate mine. Right, because now she's not resentful or mean or feels like she has to get even with me. Right? And, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Also just putting up, I just I don't really take people's shit. If you're going to talk shit to me, I'm going to talk shit back to you, right?[00:30:00]

Kara Perez: And so I've definitely come into conflict with people, and I know that's challenging for, there are some people who are like, you know, I will never talk back to my parents or I will never talk back to my elders. That's okay. I have found that pushing back helps. It helps because they need to see you as an adult.

Kara Perez: I have an uncle and I'm like, I'm grown, I'm 36 and I have this uncle who treats me like I am 12 and I just finally had to say to him one time, I was like, I'm a grown ass woman. Like I said that to his face and he clearly was like, what? But I was like, I'm a grown ass woman and I really don't want you to say that kind of thing to me anymore And this was at christmas and we just had a big kind of we had kind of a showdown And guess what?

Kara Perez: We're fine now. I just took his daughter out to dinner like we're fine. It was uncomfortable for a while I think being okay With some discomfort and knowing that [00:31:00] discomfort doesn't have to live forever, but pick your battles. Like this uncle and I were very different people. We could argue about everything all day, every day, but I don't do that.

Kara Perez: And to his credit, he doesn't do that with me either. Right? Like he's not like, why are you wearing that? Or blah, blah, blah. Like he doesn't nitpick at me and I don't nitpick at him. I picked one big battle in my 36 years. We had it out. And now we're fine. And we don't talk about that thing anymore. We just don't talk about it.

Kara Perez: So I think, you know, celebrating other people's choices to let them know that you're not judging them and then also understanding which personal choices you want to make that you want to stand your ground on and being firm with that. I think that helps. That has helped in my own experience.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, I have a similar experience to of celebrating folks and their choices, even though they might be very different from mine. And then having that [00:32:00] mutual kind of support and respect. And also knowing that sometimes you might disappoint others. There might be discomfort. You have to figure out where the line is.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You, for me and my experience has been the, the figuring out what my non negotiables are, what the things that I absolutely will not refuse. I refuse to do one of the things I refuse to do is mixing certain types of money with family. So I can. I can respect and celebrate a family member who may be co signed on a home loan or on a mortgage with someone.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I'm like, that's great. I'm glad that it's working out for you. It's just not something I'm willing to do. Uh, but I, because I know that it's something that I'm unwilling to do, I have to face whatever pushback I get. There might be disappointment on some end and other people might respect or celebrate my choices.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But yeah, I, I think that, Either or, it's like you can celebrate folks, they might celebrate you back, they might not, and then also accept and understand people when they might be disappointed by your [00:33:00] choices, because in setting those boundaries and knowing what you will and won't do, that means not everybody's going to get what they want

Kara Perez: Mhm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: it is what it is.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah.

Kara Perez: And that's life professionally, personally, like, when have you ever gotten 100 percent exactly what you wanted? Rarely, I'm gonna say.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: As we get close to wrapping up, I'm curious if there's anything else that you wanted to mention about your book, Green Money, and how it addresses the intersections of the sustainability and finance. I know you already mentioned some of the chapters that you highlighted earlier, but I would love for you to say more about the book and about.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Where folks can get it. And then from there, yeah, we can get close to, to wrapping up and seeing if there's anything else you wanted to touch on.

Kara Perez: Yeah, I wanna say, I know the topic of money. Can be very big for a lot of people and kind of overwhelming. And it's the same with sustainability. [00:34:00] And those are the two topics my book is about. And so if you're thinking, oh my gosh, this book is too much for me and it's just, I'm not ready for it. Or I don't know what I would do if I read that book.

Kara Perez: I wrote the book. It's filled with stories of people who are already doing the things that I talk about. So I interviewed people who are already sustainably investing. I interviewed people who are already building community. I interviewed people who are already advocating for systemic change. So it's very much so not a, it's not like someday in the future after some like mysterious thing happens, we'll all be happier and better.

Kara Perez: It's here's how we get richer and happier and better and more environmentally friendly. And here are the already doing it. So I really want to encourage people to get it. I would love it if you bought it, but you can also get it from the library because I think of it as so inspirational and very much so, uh, a presentation of Hey, [00:35:00] we're in this together.

Kara Perez: Come help. Come join us. We're already doing it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. I love to hear that. Is there any other question you were hoping that I asked you today?

Kara Perez: No, I have loved this conversation. You've had great questions.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Well, in that case, I would love for you to. Just share a little bit more about how folks can support you, follow you, connect with you, and also, yeah, specifically any particular place that you want them to get more details on the book or to order the book.

Kara Perez: Yes, so the book is available at all major retailers. So it's on Amazon, it's on Target, Barnes Noble, Bookshop, all those places. It's called Green Money, How to Build Wealth, How to Reduce Waste, Build Wealth, and Create a Better Future for All. And then I'm on the internet way too much, so you can come find me on Instagram or TikTok at WeBravelyGo.

Kara Perez: And then I'm also on threads, I'm on Twitter, I'm on YouTube, Bravely [00:36:00] Go, so. Come find me. I'm very Google able.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yes, love that. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today. I. And so I, I'm really excited about your book. I am going to get myself a copy because it really is in alignment with what I believe in.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I think that a lot of my listeners will also get a lot from it too. . So please everybody get yourself a copy or get your local library to order it because the more people get their hands on it, the better off we'll all be.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So thank you so much again for joining us.

Kara Perez: Thank you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and podcast playlists on all things [00:37:00] grad school, productivity, and personal development.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtouring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening and until next time.