We were lucky to catch up with Monique Cervantes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Monique, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Monique The Money Coach was created initially as a solution for me and my family. The solution was just so damn good, I couldn’t keep it to myself!

As a full-time working mom of two young, beautiful kids, I found myself missing out on special moments with them. When my oldest went to kindergarten, I missed a lot of her school activities. It bothered me so much that I would cry on my commute to work after dropping her off at school. All I could think about was how much of her life I was missing.

I thought this was how it was for working parents. We just have to miss out on certain events because we have to work. So, I toughed it out. I took comfort in knowing that if I couldn’t be there to support her, at least her dad could since his work schedule was different from mine. I told myself that moms had gone through this and it had worked out fine, and that I just needed to get used to it.

Until the start of her 1st grade year, when the routine of me crying myself to work started all over again. One morning, when I got to work, I googled “how to make money doing nothing”. I needed a way to have all of my time available to be at her school on a random Tuesday at 10am without worrying about a job or how to bring in money.

I was desperate for change, but had to accept that it wouldn’t happen immediately. That was a little heartbreaking because I wanted to be available for my kids immediately.

Then, halfway through her first grade, my husband got sick and then the pandemic hit, and the world shut down. The family illness was devastating, but the shut down provided us exactly what we needed, a pause from the hustle of life. This is when I was allowed to slow down, calm down, and not rush into anything and everything with the promise of “making money doing nothing”. Also at this time, we were forced to take a good look at our money situation. How much were we bringing in? How much were we spending? What were we spending on?

Searching led me to the term “financial freedom” and that’s when everything changed. I knew what I was looking for and now I just needed a way to get there. Again, I had to accept that there was no quick AND easy AND cheap way to reach financial freedom for my family. There are many ways to reach financial freedom, and the way that felt the most aligned with our family was long term investing in the stock market.

In the beginning, it was scary. This was something we’d never done before, or ever seen anyone else do before. After doing some calculations I found that there was an actual timeline as to when my husband and I would meet our ultimate goal of time freedom.

This gave me so much relief and optimism, to know that it wouldn’t be like this forever. To know that there is better for us.

Having a basic level of understanding of how money and budgeting and saving and investing works was a game changer for us and I knew others, especially women of color, needed this information as well.

Women of color especially would benefit from financial literacy to get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle, to plan for their future, to be a representative to our community of what is possible, and to live more free, joyful lives.

That’s when an early version of Monique The Money Coach was started. I was consumed with the mission to teach financial literacy to everyone I knew. I started giving online seminars to family and friends. I hosted vision board parties. I wanted everyone to feel the relief and optimism that I had discovered through financial literacy.

After the shutdown ended and businesses started requiring workers to go back to the office, I had to make a decision about what I would do with my new mission. I officially started Monique The Money Coach in 2023 and began charging for my services. It feels amazing to see women of color, especially Black and Brown moms achieving things they never thought possible and I feel this business is a way for me to pay forward what God and the universe has given to me — an answer to my biggest desire.

Because of my experiences with life and money, my money coaching approach is different than the typical money coach. I look at the person first, taking into consideration their individual, unique situation, and we work together to develop a plan to get them to where they want to be. This is all done without shame, without judgement, without guilt. I understand everyone is doing the best they can with the information they have at the moment, and I want to create a space that is compassionate and understanding, not judgement.

My biggest mission is to teach financial literacy to Black and Brown women so they can live their most free, joy-filled lives. We deserve it. When women of color thrive, it spills over into their community and into the world.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am Monique aka Monique The Money Coach, a self-taught financial educator. My husband and I have paid off over $100k in debt and currently have a net worth of over $650k & rapidly growing.

I am self taught through books, podcasts, and most impactful, personal experience. I’ve been through the experience of paying off over $42k in student loans, over $55k in auto loans, over $50k in our current mortgage, and countless credit card debts.

This experience, not just learning about money from others but really experiencing it, allows me to provide my money coaching services from a place if understanding and compassion. This experience forces me to create a safe space for my clients to learn and grow with their money in a judgement-free, shame-free, guilt-free environment.

I take a lot of pride in making my clients feel safe in their vulnerability so they can work through their challenges and achieve their goals of getting out of debt, increasing their savings, getting out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle, investing for their future and investing for their kids.

I help clients achieve their money goals through bi-weekly, one hour, one-on-one coaching sessions where we together go through a four-step process.

1. Define their money and life goals, short term and long term.

2. Asses where they are currently with their money, how much they bring in and how much they spend.

3. Identify the spending areas that do not bring value to their lives that can be re-allocated things that bring them joy and meet their goals.

4. Develop and take action a plan to get them from where they are to where they want to be with their money goals.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A misconception I had to unlearn is the idea that business is linear, and that I was one big break away from skyrocketing my sales. Currently, my business is mostly word of mouth, community groups, and Instagram. After my first viral reel reached almost 13k views, I thought my business was going to be changed forever. In reality, literally nothing changed. I got a few followers, but that was it. I truly learned that business is about consistency and communicating your value to your audience.

Also, social media metrics can be consuming. So to protect myself from burnout, I turned off certain notifications and I try to post and log off to prevent getting sucked into the vanity metrics.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When my oldest child was born, I was in a career that required a lot of hours. After becoming a mom, I had to make a choice between staying in that field and continuing to growy career and salary, or starting from the bottom in something new. I chose to pivot into something new for my family, and I have no regrets about that decision. It’s pretty much the same thing I’m doing currently in my business — started something from the bottom for my family.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.moniquethemoneycoach.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moniquethemoneycoach?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoniqueTheMoneyCoach?mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@moniquethemoneycoach?si=OCurrI8EvrYw-cL5