The holiday season is a great time to sharpen up our money management skills. To get us straight with all the right information, HOT 97’s Nessa hosted “The Bronx Talks Money!” The forum covered several financial topics including budgeting, investing, saving, and building credit. Held at the Chase Bronx Community Center on Thursday (December 19), the session was sponsored by HOT 97 and Chase Bank.
Along with Nessa, panelists included Monica Nation, Regional Director for Consumer & Community Banking at Chase, and Sherlyn Santana, Vice President and Community Manager at Chase. Lorane Rodriguez, Executive Director for Community & Business Development at Chase, was the moderator for the event.
During the conversation, Nessa spoke about her own financial journey and how she didn’t have access to forums that dealt with financial health.
“In my 20-year career and just in general, I made a lot of mistakes with money. I didn’t have the financial workshops ahead of time to avoid certain mistakes,” Neesa said. “So that’s one part of it because finances are so broad. There’s budgeting, credit, debt, savings, or opening a bank account. It’s just so much to tackle and deal with.”
Along with her partner Colin Kaepernick, she founded “Know Your Rights.” She shared how the campaign also teaches financial literacy to youth.
“During one of the camps in Chicago, one kid said he didn’t want to leave his community. He wanted to make money to take care of my family and his community,” she recalled “I thought that was so powerful at 15 years old. When I was 15, I was trying to get lip gloss and spending all my money at the movie theaters. It just dawned on me just how brilliant our youth are, and imagine if they had the resources.”
Nation spoke about the critical role that HOT97 plays in helping its audience with financial health.
“HOT97 is the home of hip-hop. These are people that are trusted. They’re the voice of the people. That’s who we want to reach out to and they’re connecting with people we want to connect with,” Nation said. “They’re the truth tellers. It’s not going to be fluff and we really want to be intentional. We want to speak plain English, not lawyerism.”
Santana explained the power of having good credit and how it can be leveraged to create generational wealth.
“I think that credit is the foundation of financial health. Why? Because it helps us obtain generational wealth. If you sit here and look at the data, Latinos and African Americans own the least amount of homes. It’s because it was never taught to us. We need to go home and talk to our kids about the things that we never had,” Santana said. “I didn’t know that you needed a bank to buy a home. I learned that here [Chase] in my early 20s.”
Concluding the informative session, Neesa advised the audience to save for emergencies because everyone will experience them.
“It’s very concerning when I hear that a couple hundred dollars on a rainy day can completely bankrupt a family. That’s the reality that a lot of families are in,” Neesa shared. “So when we’re sharing all of our mistakes, I hope that what you take away from that is to save your money. Because I promise you, there will be a rainy day. It’s a scary thought to know that a couple hundred dollars can change your entire life. That could determine whether you’re in a house or not.”
To view the entire forum, check the link below:
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