5 Money Mistakes Latinos Make—and How to Break the Cycle with Corazón

Many Latinos didn’t grow up knowing the rules of money. In fact, many of us grew up distrusting financial institutions and thinking the stock market is “gambling.”  

I’ve worked with Latino families who are doing everything right—or at least they’re doing everything they thought was right. They work hard. They show up for family. They sacrifice so they can give their loved ones better lives. And yet, our community remains a main driver of economic growth for the economy, but not a driver of building wealth for ourselves and our families.  

Don’t get me wrong—we’ve made some progress. In fact, as a community, we’re building our wealth faster than any other demographic in the nation, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals’ State of Hispanic Wealth Report. But the wealth gap between white and Latino families continues to be a problem.  

And we continue to make mistakes that are rooted in fear, things we were taught were right, and simply not knowing the rules of the game.  

For example, I once knew a couple in the early 1990s who got rid of their bank altogether and opted to store all their money in a “safe” place in their home and buy everything with cash. Obviously that kind of thing wouldn’t fly these days, but that’s just to illustrate the type of mindset with which some Latinos are approaching financial matters.  

But to offer a ray of hope, know that we can learn how to leave behind harmful mindsets that cause us to make these five common money mistakes. But the first step to changing our habits is to be aware of them, so let me dive into the five most common mistakes I see Latinos make:  

Mistake No. 1: Not Tracking Spending 

One of the biggest challenges I see is that many people simply don’t track their money. They don’t have a clear plan, just a hope that everything will work out at the end of the month.  

What ends up happening when you don’t track your spending is you start overspending and living paycheck to paycheck—even on a good income. As a result, you feel constant financial anxiety. Money becomes a source of stress and arguments instead of being the tool for building the life you want. The truth is simple: you can’t grow what you don’t measure. If you don’t know where your money is going, it will always feel like it’s disappearing. 

Mistake No. 2: Helping Everyone Else First and Putting Yourself Last 

Another deeply rooted issue in our culture is putting everyone else first and ourselves last. This is huge in our community. We help parents, siblings, cousins, compadres—family back home—often without hesitation. And let me be clear: helping family is beautiful. It’s part of who we are. But when you give without building your own foundation, the long-term cost is real. I’ve seen it lead to resentment, burnout, and financial fragility. No emergency fund. No retirement. No margin for life’s surprises. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and taking care of yourself financially is not selfish—it’s responsible. 

Mistake No. 3: Staying Loyal to Debt  

I have a client in her 40s. When she was a little girl, she and her mom would go to the mall to buy clothes with her mom’s JCPenney credit card.  

“Pray that the card works, mija,” she’d tell her daughter. The card always worked, but the message my client received was that it was OK to buy things you didn’t need on credit. Debt was OK. She absorbed that mindset and became somebody who had a fair amount of credit card debt.  

As a community, we have a complicated relationship with debt. Many Latinos are scared of debt, refusing to use it and build the credit history that they need to build a solid credit score.  

But then there are those people like my client—people who normalize crippling debt as being just a part of life. UnidosUS found that Latinos are struggling with high debt burdens: car payments, credit cards, personal loans, and buy now, pay later programs. But doing so is expensive over time. Debt delays wealth for decades. It keeps your money flowing to banks instead of to building your wealth. You work hard, but you never quite get ahead. I always say this: debt is a thief.  

Mistake No. 4: Avoiding Investing Because of Fear or Lack of Trust  

I also see a lot of fear around investing, and that fear didn’t come out of nowhere. Many of our parents came from countries with unstable financial systems. Add to that the lack of awareness about how the financial system in this country works and the language barriers and it’s a recipe for staying away from investing.  

As a result, many of us grew up hearing that the stock market is gambling, that rich people always cheat, that investing isn’t for people like us.  

For example, in FINRA Foundation’s Investors of Color in the United States report, one Hispanic male said, “We’re first generation. Most families here are third, fourth, fifth generation, and they know the tricks. We don’t know anything about [investing]. We know how to save our money in the bank, where you don’t get anything back, as opposed to now learning about all these other ways of having your money work for you.” 

One of my favorite things about doing this work is watching my clients learn all the ways their money can work for them, then become financial mentors to their loved ones and the next generation. I always say that saving is important, but investing is freedom, and without that freedom, money always feels tight, no matter how much you have. 

Mistake No. 5: Mixing Money and Family Without Boundaries  

Finally, one of the most painful patterns I’ve seen over the years is mixing money with family without clear boundaries. This is where things can really fall apart.  

Research from Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors (AP-OD) and UnidosUS found that 37% to 42% of Latino families reported borrowing money from their family or friends to make ends meet.  

And what I’ve seen in my work is clients cosigning for loans, lending money without agreements, starting businesses with family members and no paperwork, or making financial decisions out of guilt.  

I’ve also seen when these situations destroy relationships, lead to lawsuits, and create bitterness that lasts for generations.  

We need to learn how to respectfully set boundaries with family and protect our own ability to build wealth. Boundaries are love.  

Let’s Shift to Excellence 

Pew Research Center reported that as of October 2025, 63 percent of Hispanics say their financial situation is “fair” or “poor.” Only 37 percent say their financial situation is in “good” or “excellent” shape.  

Making these mistakes, or being part of that 63 percent of us who say their financial situation is fair or poor doesn’t mean you’re bad with money or that you can’t change. I’ve seen my clients go from feeling their situation isn’t great to being in excellent financial shape. I know it’s possible.  

For many of us, nobody sat us down and taught us how to build wealth. But I think the tide is shifting in our community and we are starting to talk about money to the younger generations. I’m feeling hopeful seeing young Latinos come into the financial planning profession and preaching the good gospel of good finances. But right now, we need to shift the cultural mindsets and beliefs that hinder us from building wealth. We need to make the shift so the next time Pew Research Center conducts that research, the numbers are flipped.  

That’s why I do this work. If this resonated with you, stay with me. Follow me on TikTok, where I’m most active. Because my mission is to help my community build wealth—with heart, with intention, and with corazón.