Meet TravelerCharly, the Nonbinary Latine Money and Business Wizard

TravelerCharly BELatina Latinx
Photo courtesy of YouTube.

Charly Stoever is a nonbinary Latine money and business coach who is focused and dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ and BIPOC folks “make money their bitch.” 

We at BELatina had the fantastic opportunity to ask them a few questions about their journey, inspiration, experience, and advice. Here is what Charly shared:

Tell us a little bit about your journey. Were you always interested in money? 

For the longest time, I was scared of money! I was born in Morelia, Mexico, and moved to rural Washington State at age 3. We had no family or friends there-my dad just wanted to be as far away as possible from my family. Growing up without barely seeing any family members and living in a tense household full of arguments was pretty hard. 

I was undocumented until getting my green card at age 14, after my mom divorced my dad and married a U.S. citizen. I went through an emotionally turbulent childhood like so many kids of immigrants and witnessed financial manipulation. As a kid, I inherited the scarcity mindset my parents showed me through how they acted with money and talked about it. 

I was always a saver because I learned that it was scary to lose money. As an adult, I would share budgeting/credit card hacks with friends, and then I learned about investing, and all of these areas are what I help clients with now as a money coach, as well as shifting our mindsets from one of scarcity to one of expansion. 

What made you take the leap and start your business? What was the motivation? Or was there a specific event that triggered that drive? 

I was tired of being exploited for my labor in my 20s and underpaid as a teacher, tour guide, and blogger. I was never taught how to negotiate my salary and instead was told to be grateful I even had a job. 

I started listening to personal finance podcasts while backpacking in Latin America alone for six months and decided I wanted to help people like me learn how to build wealth. 

I got a job as a stockbroker with no finance background. When covid hit, I was excited the stock market was crashing, even though I was only making 40k at the time. I understood how to take advantage of market crashes instead of freaking out about them, and I realized that I needed to quit my job and help LGBTQ+ and BIPOC folks approach the stock market in this way. I quit my job and got a full ride to my Social Impact MBA program at the Heller School (the full ride came from having taught English in Nicaragua with the Peace Corps). On the side, I started money coaching, starting with my friends and then their friends. 

I have my MBA now, and I’m doing money coaching full time. Like so many of us, covid pushed me to look at what I wanted for myself and my community and not look back, as scary as it was. 

How was your experience as a stockbroker? What lessons, financial or personal, did working in that environment teach you? 

It showed me how much WEALTH is available in the U.S. and how many casual millionaires there are. It showed me that it’s mostly white, middle/upper-class people that inherit not only money but also investments that are growing on their own. They also inherit the language to talk about investing, whether through properties or the stock market. 

Financially, it taught me that I really did deserve to invest in the stock market. The stock market doesn’t care that I’m queer or Latine. If we just have cash sitting there, it will lose value over time because of inflation. Investing helps your money not lose value over time, and it can grow your money if you set yourself up to do it. 

Personally, this experience taught me that finance is a very white, cishet male-dominated industry but that I still deserved to take up space in my own way, which is what I did when I left and started my business. 

Throughout your career/interviews/podcasts, you mention the high value you place on investing in oneself, whether on coach investments, life, personal, or mental health investments. What was the most challenging investment (financial or otherwise) you had to make that has impacted you the most? 

Setting boundaries and not settling for being mistreated, whether in romantic or family relationships, has been the toughest investment I’ve made in myself. Boundaries are hard to set but even harder to enforce. I’ve had to stop talking to family members who treated me badly because I realized that some people cannot accept you as you are and your leveling-up journey, and that’s on them. Family estrangement is real, and there’s a lot of shame around it, so I talk about it to remove the shame. I haven’t seen either one of my parents in a combined 17 years, and it is hard because, at the end of the day, we all just want to be accepted and supported, but even asking that of others is too much. So, I invest my emotional energy into building my community and chosen family because those are the people that have shown up to help me out, whether it was picking me up from the hospital after my top surgery in 2017 or simply congratulating me for being the first in my family to get a master’s. 

How has your nonbinary Latine identity shaped the way you do business? How do you think your identity is helping other minorities succeed? 

I am so myself that I either repel people who can’t stand my light or attract people who are down with my glittery, rainbowy, booty-short-wearing self. Money is scary. Being queer can be scary. Being a minority can be scary, but they can also make life more fun as long as you have support and are really believing in doing what you’re aligned with. I help normalize that someone Latine and queer can twerk upside down while doing a handstand against an ATM to make money less scary and accessible to us all!

Tell us a little bit about your services, what you offer, and how to best contact you.  

I have a 1:1, 6-month money coaching program for LGBTQ+ / BIPOC who want to make money moves and build generational wealth. We cover money mindset, credit card points hacking, budgeting, investing, and I do business coaching. Before starting my business, my highest salary was $40,000. In my first year of business, I generated $57,000 while in grad school because I hired a business coach to show me it was possible as long as I did the work. Making $17,000 more working for myself has been challenging but exhilarating, and it showed me that I have potential within me. I love coaching my clients to live up to their potential, too! You can book a free call to chat about coaching here, find me on Instagram at @travelercharly and watch the free workshops on my website!

You are such an inspiration! What advice would you give to other folks trying to follow your footsteps, not only in making money their bitch, but heal the inherited conflicted relationship with it? 

Go to therapy, and seek out coaching, whether 1:1 or in a group program. Sometimes we feel stuck and guilty for not moving forward in our lives or doing the things we feel like we want to do because it’s scary. Not everyone in our social circles will understand or encourage you to invest in yourself, so it’s important to surround yourself with people who do support you and your vision for yourself. You’ve got this!

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