If I see an opportunity, I never want to miss it.
I feel like for me, there is no limit.
My name is Gabriela Ariza, and I am 27 years old.
I live in Brookfield, Illinois, and I am about
nine miles from the city center of Chicago.
Currently, I assist government, military and
police making sure that their infrastructure is
protected through cybersecurity.
I think there's always ways to learn more about
your money. I don't think I'm that great with
money, but I feel like if I keep watching and
reading more financial stuff, I can get better
with money. I actually feel really comfortable
with my salary. I think I don't really need to
work as much as I do right now.
But I have major goals and I just want to get to
them as fast as I can.
My mortgage is $1,707 a month, and that includes
property taxes and interest.
I don't want my possessions to own me.
I actually want to be able to make my possessions
work for me.
The way I learned about money was actually a very
unfortunate event.
My family, we grew up pretty well off.
My parents invested a lot in real estate.
We were doing really well, and one day my dad
decided to take all the money and leave.
And so my college fund was also taken from that
as well. And my mom had to file for bankruptcy
and we were pretty much out in the streets.
Sorry. I think seeing that struggle
with money that my mom had to go through, and
even trying to get through college really, put me
into her perspective and realized, "Hey, I don't
want to depend on other people for money.
I want to make sure that I'm well off."
I decided to do a two-year program in one year,
and I was also working 60 hour weeks.
It just really helped with my career and just
advancing in it. It was definitely an investment
in me.
I owe $55,000 in student loan debt.
I think it was worth taking it on because now I'm
looking at myself and I'm making even more than
what I owe in just a single year.
I'm hoping to pay them off in about 13 years, and
that's pretty much if I pay like once every six
months, like a big amount of money.
Currently with Motorola, I have a Roth 401(k) and
I contribute 15% and then they match 4 % and then
I also have another Roth IRA, and I contribute
about $250/month to that one.
Sometimes it's harder to save just because there
are home repairs and home repairs are really
expensive.
So, Rob will call you back because he has to look
it up. Great, thank you.
I appreciate it. Yeah. I've been working at the
library for about three and a half years, and I
just can't seem to leave it because I love the
people I work with and the work is very
enjoyable. It's definitely different than my 9 to
5 job. And that's kind of what I like because I
get to do all aspects of I.T.
I'm really big on consignment and actually buying
used. I like to buy used furniture.
I like to buy used clothes.
Definitely it's a great way to find quality
pieces.
So I usually try to meal prep, but sometimes it
can get really difficult because I'm always on
the go.
I'm really fortunate that I have friends who live
all over the world. So what I usually do is I buy
the plane ticket and then I'm able to stay with
them. And it's kind of nice because they know
either the language, the culture and the places
to go. One of
my financial goals is actually to be able to save
enough to purchase another property.
And I think I'm leaning more towards buying in
the city and buying more of a condo because a
house can be a lot of maintenance.
I actually wanted to create a center of
technology to be able to teach other people how
to do cybersecurity and be able to teach children
and teens and be able to get more people into
this type of field, especially when there is a
lot of need in this field.