Like so many of us, Janice Torres spent the early part of her life in pursuit of the American dream, as defined by her parents, a reliable job with steady income.

And once she had what she'd been taught to want,

Janice realized she was, in her own words, effing miserable. She started her side hustle,

dove deep into financial literacy, and within a few years made a major pivot. Now Janice hosts

one of the most popular money podcast, Jochiero Dinero, and has chronicled her learning in her new book, Financially Lit, the modern Latinas guide to level up your Dinero and become financially Poderosa. Janice and I talk about bringing free of a scarcity mindset, the time it really takes to make a pivot, and answer some of your money questions.

Janice, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

You pose this question to your readers in Financially Lit that I want to pose back to you, which is what are your earliest memories or experiences

related to money? How did they shape your beliefs and attitudes towards money? When you did that

exercise, what came up for you? I definitely saw money as this source of stress and contention.

It was never really seen as something that you could utilize to create a better life,

to achieve financial freedom, independence. It was always like this thing that controlled you

and that you had to just figure out how to find enough of it. It's really ingrained in our

culture as Latinos. The more that I talk to people, the more that I realize, like, how

much of that is a common story, where money is this thing that there's never enough.

It's always hard to get. If you get it, it disappears.

And there's this feeling that it's a limited resource.

I've had to do a lot of internal work to first identify those beliefs and understand that

they have come from generations of trauma in my family.

And also understand that there is a way to flip that script and flip that narrative.

Once you start to become financially literate and realize there's a whole population of people

out here who are using money and are thinking about money in a completely different way,

and it is used as a tool potentially to, like, transform your life.

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