My Call to Action

I studied Finance at a university known for producing Wall Street investment bankers. After graduating from college and spending seven years in commercial lending, underwriting multi-million dollar deals, many have asked what prompted my career change to personal financial planning.

It started with some troubling statistics, some of which haven’t changed much over the years:

• African American investors earning over $55,000, per year, have roughly $48,000 in savings compared to $100,000 for Whites. This means that Blacks are saving roughly 52% less than their counterparts (as noted in the 2006 Ariel-Schwab Black Investor Survey).

• The median net worth for African American and Hispanic families is between “$20,600 and $18,600, respectively as compared to $140,700 for Whites. At this rate, it would take 634 years for us to achieve wealth equality”, as noted by Dedrick Muhammad in his 2008 article “The economy discriminates against blacks, Latinos”.

• In the wake of the subprime crisis, minorities experienced the greatest decrease in home-value wealth. African Americans lost $71-$92 billion and Hispanics lost $75-98 billion, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. The United for a Fair Economy non-profit organization described this decline as the “greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern U.S. history”.

These statistics were alarming and called me to action. In our communities, we have strong family ties and none of us want to see our parents (or ourselves) retire in poverty. However, this is the risk we face if we don’t step up our level of savings and investing. This not only affects our generation, but could preclude us from establishing generational wealth.

Despite the lower rate of savings, many minorities report they are willing to make the commitment to improve their situations, but need more guidance and education to help them reach their goals. This is where I come in. I have made the commitment to focus my efforts on increasing wealth among minorities through education and financial consulting.

This blog will serve to introduce you to me and my beliefs about the color of money. The goal is that this blog will provide a place where minorities can open up and start to discuss our feelings about money, ways to increase our wealth, and some of the issues that impede us from reaching our personal financial goals. Lastly, I will be sharing my tips on how to save money, many of which have saved me and my family members thousands of dollars over the years.