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Latinos are said to donate a significant percentage less to charitable causes than their mainstream counterparts. One statistic I read was, “53 percent of Latino households make charitable contributions to charities as opposed to 72 percent of all U.S. households.” But I’ve seen numbers even lower. Given that we’ve talked about the challenges with wealth …

According to a report published by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), Latino first-time homebuyers are the key to the housing recovery due to its population size, high desire and buying clout. NAHREP believes first-time homebuyer purchases will accelerate the nation’s economic recovery. The other side of the coin is that Latino …

When I was growing up in a small, dusty town in South Texas, one of nine children, the “economy” was always tough, much as it is today for millions of people across America. We had the unemployed and the under-employed, those who lost jobs or those who never found jobs. We had women who sewed …

In the last two posts we talked about my money story – how I went from welfare mom to corporate lawyer. I also shared with you one of the best exercises that I’ve found to help you uncover your true relationship with money so you can address any issues you find. In this post, I’d …

In part one of this post, I talked about some of the issues that arose for me during the shift from welfare mom to high-earning corporate lawyer. While there was confusion, there was also excitement to be part of a world I had never been privy to before, and anticipation of learning a new skill …

How is it that our attitude about, and feelings toward, money can get so complicated? While talking about the intimacies of someone’s sex life is almost the norm these days, it still remains taboo to ask someone their salary, for instance. Why is it that money is the last great taboo? Our societal views about …

How are we as Latinos learning to handle our money? We all learn life skills — either directly via people who set out to teach us, or by default, from watching what those around us do. And although Latinos are starting businesses at unprecedented rates — and therefore must have start-up capital from somewhere — …

As Latinos, we need to be savvy about the fact that the products we buy, the services we use, and the media we consume all are our ‘vote’ as to what we want more of. How are we using this ‘vote’? Although Latinos over-index as, for example, online shoppers, movie-goers and influencers among our peers …

Latinos are young, we’re *the* growing sector of the work force, and we’re tech savvy. We have challenges — we still need to raise our individual and family income levels, for example (see prior post) — but we’re also making some amazing strides. Increasing our educational attainment is one thing we can be proud of; …

We keep hearing that Latinos now have over $1 Trillion annual general market buying power. But where is all this supposed cash anyway? First, let’s look at the breakdown a little more carefully. The 2009 Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the U.S. (compiled by the Census bureau) shows that almost 30% of our households make …