We sat down with our Executive Director to learn more about her passion for personal finance, her role at the 5 Buckets Foundation, and what she thinks makes 5 Buckets so unique.

Q: How did you find your way to 5 Buckets?

A: I originally did an internship at SD Mayer & Associates. While I was working there Steve Mayer made the decision to create a nonprofit centered around the two personal finance books he had written. He asked me to file the paperwork to officially create the nonprofit. After I completed all the paperwork my 3 month position ended. About 6 months after I left SD Mayer, Steve reached back out to me to let me know that the nonprofit was officially a 501(c)(3) organization and said, “now we need someone to run it, would you be interested?” I said, “of course,” because I had come to love personal finance when I was in my internship at the accounting firm, and I recognized the importance of spreading financial literacy in the Bay Area.

Q: What do you do as the Executive Director of 5 Buckets?

A: I started as the Program Director, so I was really focused on launching our programming and scheduling workshops. Now, as the Executive Director, I wear a lot of hats. My work ranges from program development and marketing, to developing relationships with similar organizations as well as donors. We’ve grown so much in the past year that now we have part-time consultants and we’ve started to focus more on fundraising too.

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Q: What Is your favorite part about being the Executive Director of 5 Buckets?

A: I have truly come to love personal finance. I strongly believe in our programming– it has helped me so much in the development of my own personal finances, so I’m really excited by the opportunity to share our advice with young adults, high schoolers, college students, and everyone in between. I find my work so rewarding and fulfilling and I enjoy sharing our content because it really is life changing information.

Q: What is the most lucrative piece of financial advice you’ve learned since working at 5 Buckets?

A: The most important thing I have learned is to start saving and investing as early as possible. For example, investing in the stock market and putting money towards retirement. Also, having multiple different ways to build your credit is critical. I didn’t have a credit card until I was 23. Thankfully I was connected to one of my parent’s credit card accounts, so I did have a bit of credit building up over the years. I’m very appreciative of that because I wouldn’t have had any credit until I was 23 if not for my parents. I would recommend starting out small with credit cards while trying to build credit over time.

Q: What sets 5 Buckets apart from other financial literacy nonprofits?

A: First, we are not trying to get into the policy side of financial education. A lot of nonprofits are centered around lobbying to get financial literacy curriculum into schools, which I do think is extremely important, but that is not the focus of our organization. We are truly focused on getting information into schools, even if it’s not formally in the curriculum, so that individuals gain exposure.

Second, we have our own personal finance guide, Adulting 101: A Guide to Personal Finance, that we give to every single student who attends our workshops. So, we are unique because not only do we share personal finance information, but we also offer them a tangible resource to walk away with as they continue their education.

Interested in reading our guide to personal finance? Click here to check it out!

Third, the way our organization was built differentiates us from other financial literacy nonprofits. 5 Buckets was founded by a C.P.A. who has 40 years of experience, so he knows the information and he recognizes its importance. Our nonprofit was built on true expertise in the space.

Q: What new things are in store for the 5 Buckets Foundation?

A: We just redid all our curriculum, so we are focused on five topics: banking, credit, student loans, insurance, and investing. In each of the modules we go deeper, so those are just the high-level topics. Our new content is really focused on diversity and inclusion and interactive examples to get our students engaged. We are launching the programming this summer and will be preparing it for fall. If our readers are interested in booking a workshop, we offer all 5 topics together over a specific time period as well as any of the topics individually.

Q: What are your interests outside of the workplace?

A: My personal interests are reading, writing, being outside, and playing sports (yoga, hiking, tennis). During COVID I was really into reading. In 2020, I read 52 books, so one book a week.

Learn more about 5Buckets by exploring the rest of our site.

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