I don't see a lot of women on YouTube talking about investing.
A lot of them are focusing on budgeting and saving, which is amazing, but I
think we need more women talking about the power of investing.
My name's Wendy Gonzalez.
I am 24 years old.
I live in L.A., and I make $80,000 a year.
I currently work for a Bay Area auto tech company and I am a logistics
supervisor. I live in Pasadena, California, so it's definitely not in like
the L.A. area. You have to drive out here, but we love it.
It's a very peaceful and quiet community.
Since I live with my boyfriend, we do split the rent.
Both my boyfriend and I work for the same company.
So every two weeks we have $500 deducted from our pay that we don't see, and
it goes into our joint checking account, which we use for our expenses at
home. We love to
buy our food at Trader Joe's.
We love the freshness and the different types of options they have.
And once in a while, our parents actually bring us food on the weekends so
that kind of helps us stick with our food budget.
Chris and I, we do go out and eat, but we don't like do sit down meals.
We just do maybe like takeout, like we'll go somewhere and grab food and
come back. So our roughly like monthly expense on eating out is maybe like
$50 each maximum.
That's on like a very expensive month.
So I normally don't eat out, but when I do, I like to go to places like
Chick-Fil-A. And one, it's kind of cheap.
And also, I love the waffle fries.
So, yeah.
So every year I would apply to different opportunities to do research for
UCLA. I did work-study, so I worked at the library, and I think I earned
like $12.50.
And that just helped for like meals and expenses that I had to cover on my
own.
Graduating debt free felt amazing.
I did not have anything to worry about.
I was able to just, you know, jumpstart my career.
Recently, I was actually diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
It's called pupillary thyroid cancer.
Back in August, I went in for my physical and I had an ultrasound done on my
thyroid since I've been suffering from an autoimmune disease called
hypothyroidism. The ultrasound did come back positive for a suspicious
tumor, which after a biopsy, it was confirmed to be cancer.
So these are little letters of hope that family members leave for their
loved ones that are currently going through either chemotherapy, radiation
or any type of cancer surgery.
So they have like lots of meaning and there's prayers on these and there is
just little words of wisdom and hope.
My thyroid cancer surgery will actually be covered through my insurance,
fortunately. So there will be zero out-of-pocket costs for me.
This is a monkey.
"Hello!".
I actually wake up pretty early around 3:30 to 3:45 to start my class at
4:00 a.m., and my classes end typically at 6:00 a.m.
And then from there I get ready for my full-time job.
Being an ESL teacher is definitely fun.
You get to interact with so many children from China and they're just so
bubbly and so eager to learn English, so it's definitely fun.
I would say that it does take a toll on you.
You know, you do get tired and it's hard to stay focused during the day, but
I think that as someone who has a goal to invest money and save money, I'm
definitely sacrificing my sleep right now so I can build my investment and
savings accounts.
I know that I release at least three videos every week, so if you want to
get notified every time, make sure you hit the bell notification.
So the goal with my YouTube channel is to eventually be able to have enough
income from that to essentially live off YouTube income and also pursue my
MBA. I would love to make YouTube videos and be a business student at the
same time, so that is the long-term goal.
After business school, we'll see essentially where I land in the finance
world.
I drive a BMW, and I love my car, but I hate the monthly payment.
I'm currently paying $720, which is almost as much as I pay for rent.
The goal is to pay it off in a year to a year and a half so that I can have
the freedom to start looking for a home.
I regret buying the BMW because it is a nice car.
It drives amazing.
It looks great, but I don't really need that type of car in my life.
I think it was an ego thing.
Because I did graduate debt free, I felt like I deserved a nice car, and I
didn't have my parents pay for it.
About eight months ago, Chris and I got our first puppy together.
His name is Techno.
He is a Blue Nose Pitbull.
We spend roughly $100 a month for his food.
He eats a lot of food.
That expense does come out from our joint checking account.
You know, I tend to be more on the conservative side when it comes to money.
And he's more on like, you know, you only live once, so do the things that
make you happy. Although we have like little fights about how each one of us
should be spending our money, I think we've realized that living together is
a great way to save and it's much better to live with someone you love and
that you want to be with versus living with a roommate you don't really
like. So I'm happy that I get to split the costs with Chris and that we're
building a little family together.
The goal with that account is to save up for a home, but at any point, if
something does happen, I know that I can tap into that money and use it as a
rainy day like expense.
I love the idea of knowing that the money I'm investing in my retirement
account will grow tax free, which means when I hit age 65 and I decide to
withdraw that money, I will not have to owe a penny to the IRS.
I do want to eventually open up a 401(k), but I really need to first pay
that BMW and then that way I can go ahead and contribute roughly 10 to 15
percent a month into the 401(k).
I think I have beginner's luck, but I honestly don't know if it was like my
timing. But I started investing back in like late December, early January.
That's when I initially started opening up different positions, and my
account is almost at $20,000 and my initial investment was a total of
$14,000.
So prior to starting my hardcore investing and saving journey, I was able to
travel all around the world.
I'd been to Dubai, Brazil, Spain, Belgium, London.
But now that I live with Chris, and now that we want to save together and
work towards a goal together, I haven't had a chance to travel.
So my goal is to definitely travel more, but to do it for free.
We would love to go to Europe together next year in the summer, so hopefully
we get to do that for free or if not at least for like half the costs with
some points. I consider myself to be pretty good with
money. I've been working since I was 15 years old.
I think coming from immigrant parents, I was always told you need to save
every penny. And so I've always had that mentality that you should strive to
save for the future.
Although I make $80,000/year and I live comfortably in L.A.,
the goal is to actually make roughly $95,000 a year.
I think with that I'll be able to maximize my savings for my future home and
not find myself struggling at the end of the month to have extra cash after
paying all my expenses and investing and contributing to my Roth IRA.
So the goal is for about $95,000 a year.