Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabbi Cerezo.
Hi Gabbi, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
When I was asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” in elementary school, my response was “Retired.” I was lucky enough to have my grandparents take care of me instead of going to daycare and I thought the retired life was great after seeing theirs! They got to hang out with me and my cousins all day. Why would I want to be anything else?
So really it’s no surprise that eventually I became a financial planner.
I used to think that financial advisors were scams – and some of them still are, so beware!! But thankfully, I found the world of fiduciary, fee-only financial planning and get to help people answer questions like “what is this 401(k) thing I have a work and what should I do with it?” or “how can I quit my job and do something fun, even if it pays less?”
As the daughter of two teachers, I always looked at the $10,000+ fees my old companies were charging for yearly financial advice and thought – “how could my parents ever afford this? how could I even afford this?” I knew I wouldn’t even be able to hire myself for financial help. I began looking for a company to work for that was more in alignment with my values and heard my now boss do a podcast interview about starting her financial planning firm to help teachers and government employees.
“FINALLY!” I thought. I had found someone who wanted to work with regular people, not only the wealthiest people. So I desperately emailed her to ask if she would hire me.
Unfortunately, that was a no. But it was a soft no, asking me to check back with her in a year or so.
3 yearly emails later, I was lucky enough to get hired at Sustain Financial Inc to pursue my dream of helping teachers and government employees with their money.
Regular people, like teachers and government workers, deserve quality financial advice too! Now I’m on a mission to help as many teachers as possible so they can feel secure and at peace with their money.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I feel like I’m the opposite of what you imagine when you picture a financial planner – I am a woman of mixed heritage (latina, filipina, white), short, with green hair. I absolutely hate wearing a suit. I don’t look at the stock market every day.
Therefore, you can imagine that I felt really out of place when I entered the financial planning world. I remember literally googling “latina certified financial planner” in the hopes of finding someone who looked like me to look up to in this industry. We’ve really come a long way, but when I started in 2019, I couldn’t find anyone at first. So I felt alone and couldn’t relate to most of the older (taller) men at financial advisor conferences and questioned if this was really a career path for me.
What has helped me the most is finding wonderful communities like the annual SER Latin@ Advisor Summit or seeking out diverse voices in the money space to listen to like Paco De Leon.
As you know, we’re big fans of Sustain Financial Inc. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I used to be a middle school teacher and I loved it! But what annoyed me the most was that as a society, we are NOT looking out for our teachers. You’ve heard the usual things about teachers not making enough, about teachers dealing with bad parents and badly behaved kids, about teachers having to use their own money to buy supplies for their classrooms.
But have you heard about how bad teacher’s retirement plans are?
I’m not talking about their pensions. Thank goodness they have one shining good thing to reward them for their service to society. I’m talking about their retirement accounts, called a 403b or 457, that are like the 401(k)s people have at private companies.
Teachers often get sold really high fee, bad investments because their retirement plans aren’t regulated like private company retirement plans are. How ridiculous is this??
I discovered this when I was reviewing my mom’s 403b account and realized her money hadn’t grown in over 10 years. When I looked into it further, she had been sold this investment where the tiny amount of investment growth was getting eaten up by fees going to the person who sold it to her. My poor mom! I was both angry and sad for her. How could these people be taking advantage of teachers like this??
In my work at Sustain Financial, we help teachers understand and improve their finances. In my personal life, I really enjoy doing free calls to help teachers who can’t afford our services to do the same. Teachers seriously deserve better!
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I love seeing more and more diversity in the financial planning industry, which is a big shift I’ve been seeing the last 5 years and will continue happening. Another big shift is accessibility to good personal finance advice. I have seen more and more options for folks who can’t afford to hire a full-time financial planner, like robo-advisors and people who charge per hour or per project. There is so much more flexibility in the financial planning industry that is exciting to see.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.sustain-financial.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellacerezo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@teachersdeservemoney
