Financial planning a must to face life events

We all face moments in our lives when we need money for life events: A quinceanera for our daughters, our children’s weddings, their education, traveling to see our families in our countries of origin but also, peace of mind for our retirement or long-term care.

For years, I helped my elderly parents and other family members sending them money to Argentina, as probably many of you do. Although it was a great satisfaction that compensated for the geographical distance between them and our family, now I want to ensure that I won’t be a burden to my children when I grow older while being able to travel to see them as much as I can. (I have a daughter that lives in Argentina and a son that is here in the USA.)

As many Latinos and Latinas, I found it difficult to understand the way the financial system worked in the United States because we come from countries where saving and investing practices are culturally and practically quite different.

When Anthony and Gaby Privetera found out about LatinasinBusiness.us, they reached out to me to contribute as a financial planner and a financial analyst to help our readers facilitate this task, learn through them and in simple terms the options we have, and how we can build a future for us, for our children and their children.

Through the years, I’ve learned that money is not a bad thing in itself; it is what you make with it that can be good or bad! In fact, I’ve learned that we can help a lot of more people when we have some peace of mind and some money in our pockets. Let’s work for the common good and bring abundance into our lives. Let me introduce you Anthony and Gabriela Privetera and their story.

Hola! We are Anthony and Gabriela!

We are excited about the opportunity to work with the fastest growing group of business women in the country who are making headway in so many different industries!

Gaby: Anthony and I met in Costa Rica in 2009 while studying for our Master’s degree in International Agribusiness Management. I was coming from El Salvador and Anthony from the Dominican Republic. We met on the ride to school and have not been apart since!

Anthony: After completing our studies, we lived in El Salvador and traveled for work throughout Central America. We returned to the United States from Latin America in early 2014. Presently, I work at Morgan Stanley as a Financial Advisor and Gaby works at Accounting Principles as a Financial Analyst for their project at Bloomberg.

Gaby: Anthony is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who worked at FINCA International before returning to join his family financial advisory team. He helped FINCA –an organization that provides financial services to the world’s lowest-income entrepreneurs so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living– to write and administrate a US $6MM grant for an agricultural lending. Now he focuses on helping families and businesses plan for retirement and create formal financial plans.

Anthony: Gaby worked for seven years at the Ministry of Agriculture in El Salvador where she out her skills learned as an economist into the Statistics, Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics Fields. She later joined the Japanese International Cooperation Agency where she helped governments in Central America to secure funding for infrastructure projects such as bridges, highways, waste treatment plants and geothermal power plants. Now she makes sure Latin American companies are properly portrayed in the Bloomberg media system.

Gaby: The Latin American population is expected to represent 20.5% of the U.S. population and hold between $2.5 and $4.4 trillion dollars in wealth by 2025, according to a 2014 study published by the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Financial planning is a critical tool we can use to make sure the money we work so hard for can become savings that will meet your needs for life events such as education and retirement expenses. Through his work, Anthony is committed to helping others build their own dreams here in the United States.

Anthony : Studies like the U.S. Department of Education’s 2010 report “Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups” and U.S. Department of Labor’s 2010 report “Disparities for Women and Minorities in Retirement Savings” show that Latin Americans are still not reaching the level of other groups in these important issues because cultural and language barriers are still an important obstacle.

Gaby: We want to help by doing our part in sharing information on these important topics. We will be posting articles that hopefully will clarify information on topics like contributing to 401(k) plans, managing your finances and your personal or business budget, and how to handle your assets once you are heading to the top so you can get there faster. In addition, you can ask questions to us directly either in English or Spanish –we are both bilingual– posting your comments and questions on LatinasInBusiness.us site.

Welcome to LatinasinBusiness.us, Anthony and Gabriela!