This photo is from my last day at Bloomberg: my badge on one of those iconic Terminal keyboards. Not bad for someone who arrived from Brazil not knowing what a 401k was.
And not knowing cost me. My job before that one offered a 401k, and I never signed up. But I didn’t make that mistake twice, mainly because instead of just sending me a benefits signup link, Bloomberg gave me one-on-one training with a financial advisor.
That’s when I understood: my colleagues weren’t getting ahead because they worked harder. They had expert guidance.
However, that guidance didn’t speak to my reality as an immigrant. The examples and assumptions were built for people who grew up here.
So I put my journalism skills to work. Years of reporting for publications like Marie Claire, Refinery29, and Vogue Brazil had taught me how to dig. This time, I went digging into the unspoken rules of the U.S. financial system.
The more I learned, the more I noticed immigrants around me making big money decisions without seeing their full options. So I became a Certified Financial Education Instructor through the National Financial Educators Council and founded Out of the Mattress.
Now, I help immigrants see what’s actually possible with their money, so they can make choices that fit their lives.
