Yo Quiero Dinero

Today we're talking to a brujería. Depending on how you grew up, that word might feel like home or it might make you nervous. Wendy Mata, founder of Bruja Power Botanica and author of Bruja Curandera, spent 20 years in cybersecurity and digital forensics before a Día de los Muertos dream from her late grandmother changed everything. Now she runs a seven-figure business teaching people to recla...

We were taught to work hard and save money, but nobody explained how taxes fit into building wealth. So this week, I'm joined by Laura Zarrate, CPA and founder of Athena CPAs and Advisors. Laura immigrated from Bogotá, Colombia, at 14 with her dad and two 40-pound suitcases. She started her career at Deloitte, then built her own firm. Today she and her team serve 200+ business owners across th...

So many of us are waiting on "someday" to go after the thing we really want. But what happens when someday stops feeling guaranteed? Yvette Ramirez is a bilingual Cuban and Salvadoran American, a tech professional, and the founder of Kuro Libros, a children's picture book brand that helps families teach their kids Spanish at home. In February 2023, Yvette was diagnosed with stage 4 l...

This week's episode came from a very real, very tearful moment on my Instagram: the realization that there is no magic number that makes you feel financially secure. So I brought back someone who can actually help us unpack that. Jacent Wamala is the founder of Wealth and Wellness University where she helps high-earning women of color break the cycle of financial anxiety and build real, lastin...

If you've ever stayed calladita when you should've spoken up, this episode is your permission slip to stop. This week Jannese sits down with Hady Mendez — bestselling author of Calladita No More, speaker, and leadership coach — to talk about what happens when you finally decide to use your voice. They get into Hady's corporate STEM career, the promotion that got away, the negotiation that made her...

Let's talk about the conversation that sends me over the edge every single time: the gender pay gap, and what it REALLY costs women of color. This week I'm joined by Jocelyn Frye, President of the National Partnership for Women & Families, to break down what's actually driving the gap (spoiler: it's not "women's choices"), why the national averages hide what's happening to Latinas and Black wo...

Most of us didn't grow up learning about venture capital — it can feel like a world you're either born into or invited into by elite networks. This week, Jannese sits down with Lolita Taub, General Partner at Ganas Ventures, who has done it all: founder, angel, LP, GP, and ecosystem builder. Lolita breaks down what venture capital actually is (no jargon, promise), how to become an accredited inves...

I've ghosted y'all, and I need to apologize — because it wasn't intentional, and we need to talk about why. For years I shared everything: the brand deals, the $144K year that replaced my corporate paycheck, all of it. But after crossing a quarter million in revenue, I got quiet. In this episode I'm breaking down why success got harder to talk about than struggle, the family side-comments that mad...

This week on Yo Quiero Dinero I sat down with Leslie Priscilla, a Parent Coach, founder of Latinx Parenting, and author of the brand-new book CHANCLA: Healing Our Families, Ourselves, and Our Culture. Together we talk about the things that aren’t always so easy when it comes Latino parenting: the good, the bad, and la chancla itself. We're getting into intergenerational trauma, why "gentle parenti...

Mi gente, this one is going to trigger you — in the best way. This week I’m sitting down with Denise Soler Cox, a cultural excavator, award-winning filmmaker, keynote speaker, and author who's spent the last decade going inside the cultures that shape how we lead, belong, and become who we are. After speaking on stage, women kept pulling Denise aside to share secrets they'd never told anyone. From...

It's been a minute since I gave you a full behind-the-scenes update, so today's episode is a solo catch-up plus is Nara Smith a trad wife or a genius businesswoman cosplaying domesticity? A mom informed her three adult daughters they now owe her $300/month, should they pay? And OpenAI took a group of creators on a luxury brand trip that the internet did NOT let slide, but who actually deserves the...

This week on Yo Quiero Dinero, Jannese sits down with Jessica Rivera — proud Boricua, mom at 19, and 20-year corporate vet who climbed from receptionist to senior leadership without ever following the "traditional" path. Jessica is here to help us decode the psychology of corporate power, promotions, and why your work ethic alone will never be enough to get you promoted. This episode gets into the...

Hola mi gente! This week I'm switching things up. My husband Ray is joining me in an actual whole ass podcast studio to talk about the real estate business we've started building: house flipping. We closed on our first fixer-upper here in Florida, in cash, and we're pulling back the curtain on why we did it, what the real numbers look like, and how we keep being business partners from turning into...

This week we're picking up where we left off last week after I shared my own journey selling my condo in PR — and this time we're going deep on buying real estate on the island. I sat down with Krystal Vias, a proud Nuyorican and founder of Buy The Block PR, who's on a mission to reconnect la diáspora with Puerto Rico, one block at a time. Krystal didn't step foot on the island until she was 38 an...

By now you've probably seen me post on social media that I sold my condo in Puerto Rico, and the reactions have been... a lot. So let's get into it. In this solo episode, I'm taking you behind the scenes of why I bought that condo right after my divorce, what it represented to me, and why — three and a half years later — I decided to let it go. This is not a "never sell real estate" episode. This...

This week Jannese sits down with executive coach, speaker, and author Diana Bernal to talk about something a lot of us never learned how to do: build a career on purpose instead of just falling into one. Diana is a first-gen success story who climbed the corporate ladder in nonprofit fundraising, hit "senior vice president" energy, and realized the corner office wasn't actually the goal. Now she c...

Let's talk about something a lot of us have been quietly researching — cosmetic procedures. Whether you've gone down a TikTok rabbit hole on facelifts or you're seriously considering something, the money side of this decision matters just as much as the medical side. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Ruslan Zhuravsky — board-certified facial plastic surgeon and founder of Z Face Plastic Surgery i...

Today's episode is basically my love language: multiple income streams. I'm joined by Meghan Lim, AKA Meghan Makes Money, who went from a $78K corporate finance job to building a six-figure creator business with 160K+ followers, all in about two and a half years. We're talking side hustles, affiliate marketing, brand deals, pricing your worth, and why "selling" isn't a dirty word. WE GET INTO:&nbs...

The Guardian recently featured my plan for how I'm raising my toddler to become a millionaire and it got me fired up about something I've been sitting on for a while. Today I'm calling out the financial patterns that Latino parents normalize that are actually keeping our community from building real wealth. I'm not talking about our elders who came here with nothing and survived on grit. I'm talki...

Earlier this year, I posted a question on Instagram asking Latinas making over $200K what they do — and the answers revealed something that most people in personal finance aren't willing to say out loud: you cannot build wealth on a median income when the cost of just existing has gone through the roof. In this solo episode, I'm breaking down why traditional money advice keeps failing us, what hig...

What does it actually look like to not become a statistic? Dr. Xochilt Alamillo — Chicana therapist, PhD, business coach, podcast host, and retreat creator — is the living proof. She grew up in Compton, moved to Colorado as a teenager and experienced full-on culture shock, fell into the wrong crowd, and ended up with a criminal record by 20. Fast forward through community college, side hustles, th...

What does your financial plan look like when the traditional script doesn't apply to you? In this episode, I'm sitting down with Bri Conn, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and co-host of the Child-Free Life by Design podcast, to break down everything child-free people need to know about building wealth, planning for the future, and defining legacy on their own terms. If you've ever been asked "but who...

She beat Bobby Flay with her Abuela's Arroz con Pollo. She trained under Wolfgang Puck, Thomas Keller, and José Andrés. She was a Hell's Kitchen finalist. And then she walked away from all of it to build a career entirely on her own terms. Chef Mia Castro is a Puerto Rican chef, cookbook author, food influencer, and TV personality, and her debut cookbook, Cocina Puerto Rico: Recipes from My Abuela...

If you've ever fantasized about packing up your life, leaving the US, and actually doing the damn thing — this episode is your sign. I'm sitting down with Alicia Sanchez, founder of Felicita & Faustina studio shop, marketing expert with 20+ years in the game (American Express, ESPN, Klaviyo — the girl's got credentials), and now a full-time entrepreneur living her best life in Southern Spain w...

If the word "credit" makes you want to hide under the covers, this episode is for you, mi gente. I'm sitting down with Carol Pope — personal finance writer and author of Credit 101 — to break down everything you need to know about building credit from scratch, paying down debt, and protecting your score. No shame, no judgment, just an honest conversation. Carol and I have almost identical money or...