378: Fix What’s Broken, Build What’s Next: Financial Resilience, Empowerment, & Rebuilding With Rocío Salceda
The Clever Girls Know Podcast
Bola Sokunbi
4.8 • 898 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, we’re joined by Rocío Salceda, founder of Repair Café El Barrio (@repaircafeelbarrio ), for a powerful conversation about what it means to fix what’s broken and build what’s next. Rocío shares her journey of developing financial resilience, finding empowerment, and repairing more than just things—both in her own life and through her work in East Harlem.
At Repair Café El Barrio, neighbors come together once a month to learn how to fix broken items with the help of volunteer repairers, all offered for free or by donation. It’s a space rooted in sustainability, skill-sharing, and community care. As a Spaniard living alone in NYC and navigating a difficult divorce, Rocío also opens up about how finding support through financial education helped her survive—and now thrive—as she pays it forward by helping others do the same.
WHAT ROCIO DISCUSSED:
- The inspiration behind starting Repair Café El Barrio and how it has grown into a movement of empowerment within her community.
- Navigating major life changes, including divorce, both emotionally and financially.
- How her personal finance journey has evolved and the role financial knowledge played in her healing and independence.
- The powerful metaphor of repairing broken items and the parallels between that work and financial resilience.
- The importance of community support in building both financial and emotional stability.
- Small, impactful steps that helped her regain control of her finances and mindset during a major life transition.
- Advice for women who are starting over financially and looking to rebuild their lives.
- How embracing sustainability and a circular economy mindset can also support personal finance goals.
- Maintaining a donation-based model at Repair Café while keeping the mission sustainable and empowering for others.
- The most rewarding moments she’s experienced since beginning this work.
HOW TO KEEP UP WITH ROCIO:
- On her website: www.repaircafeelbarrio
- On Instagram: https://instagram.com/rociorsalceda and https://instagram.com/repaircafeelbarrio
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to the Clever Girls Know podcast. This is Bola Shokombi. I'm the founder and CEO of Clever Girl Finance. The Clever Girls No podcast is a podcast for women offering a space for conversations around personal finance, business, life, and living. I'd love for you to subscribe to this podcast, |
| 0:23.9 | and you can do that everywhere you listen to your podcast episodes. |
| 0:26.2 | And if you love what you're listening to, |
| 0:30.9 | be sure to leave a review so that other amazing women just like you can find this podcast too. |
| 0:36.4 | Also, don't forget to stop by Clevergirlfinance.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for our weekly newsletter. |
| 0:39.4 | It's a great way to get motivation and accountability sent straight to your inbox as you work |
| 0:44.0 | on achieving your financial goals. We also have over 30 plus completely free courses to help you |
| 0:49.8 | on your financial journey. And if you haven't already, check out our YouTube channel. |
| 0:54.7 | Just search Clever Girl Finance on YouTube. |
| 0:57.9 | You can also find us on Instagram at Clever Girl Finance. |
| 1:01.5 | Okay, let's get into today's episode. |
| 1:05.0 | Hi, Roscio. |
| 1:06.2 | Welcome to the Clever Girls No podcast. |
| 1:07.9 | Hello. |
| 1:09.3 | It's so nice to talk to you. I'm a big fan of what you do. So this is such an |
| 1:13.6 | honor. Thank you so much for being here and for being part of the Clever Girl Finance community. |
| 1:19.0 | I'm really excited to have this conversation. We're going to be talking about how to fix what's |
| 1:24.3 | broken and build what's next. So I'm going to let you tell everybody who you are and what |
| 1:29.0 | you do. So our topic makes sense. Thank you. First of all, I want to say that the title that you |
| 1:35.3 | chose, fix what's broken, build what's next. It's so powerful that my only hope is that I will be |
| 1:40.9 | able to communicate properly from experience the power of that sentence. |
| 1:45.2 | My name is Roccio, Roccio Sardad. I'm a fashion designer from Madrid based in New York City. |
... |
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