How This Immigrant Started Investing With an ITIN in One Session

Jessica already had the wealth mindset

Jessica blew us away. We told her during the call probably three times: we have no doubt you’re going to be so successful. You’re going to be a very wealthy investor. We can teach all the strategy in the world, but the mindset piece is where we see the most results with investing.

Jessica works in restaurants, so she’s constantly talking to people and hearing about what they do with their investments and finances. She understood from talking to all these people what was possible for her, even though she herself is in a situation that is limiting in terms of the immigration laws and her options in that realm. She doesn’t know a lot of people in her community who’ve been able to break out of the situation she’s in financially.

But she understood from talking to her customers at the restaurant – before we even talked to her – that it’s not like you have to be the smartest person in the world. You don’t have to be born with a trust fund. Investing is a way that people are able to get to a really good financial position on their own, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of money. You can invest small amounts per month that really compound over time.

She really understood from all her conversations that you just have to commit. You just have to have a diligent mindset. Even if you’ve been told certain things aren’t possible for you, or that people like you don’t invest, you just have to believe it’s possible for you. She said, “I know my options are limited in all these areas of immigration, but I know I can do this.”

“I want to know I’m not getting scammed”

We want to give some reality too about the journey of being able to help her, because our clients and community members are going through so much. Many, many immigrants have been taken advantage of, preyed upon, even scammed. It’s so hard to know who you can trust, especially if you’re not meeting in person.

We don’t expect people to be ready to get started becoming an investor within one minute of talking to us, especially if they’ve been told their whole life that they can’t do that.

Jessica first reached out about four months ago. In our consultation, she was really ready to get started with investing. But she was going on vacation and wanted to get in the right mind space, so we agreed to touch base when she was back. We made a note to check in with her, and we reached back out.

She was really honest. She said, “Hey, listen. I have trust issues. I want to know I’m not getting scammed.” And we said, listen, we understand, because so many of our clients have been scammed before. You want to be a smart consumer. So we validated her and offered to give her a call to talk it through.

We’re sharing all this so you get a sense of how we work, because we actually really care. Our goal is to see you succeeding, whatever that takes. We can’t tell you how many people over the years we’ve taken the time to support in that way. Then they have the confidence to go forward, they become investors for the rest of their life, their children become investors, and future generations. The impact is incredible.

We are a social impact business and a certified B Corp. That means we go through the highest standards and certification for social and environmental protections, with a whole third-party audit to confirm we prioritize people and planet in our business. That’s very important to us as a mission-driven company.

What we did in one session

Jessica ended up deciding to get started with a single session, which is a fantastic option for a lot of people, especially folks who have already been researching investing online. You may not need more than one session to get started.

In that one session, we were able to:

• Start the process to get her investment account open with an ITIN, as an immigrant
• Give her a crash course on foundational strategies for investing
• Help her really know her priorities and her risk tolerance, so she can make decisions on her own going forward to manage her investments

Toward the end of the call, she said, “I think I might be good. I’ve researched this a lot. I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos.” There’s so much amazing information online for personal finances. We gave her the missing pieces strategy-wise and helped her connect all the dots so she really understood what she was doing. And the most important piece: we started the process to actually get her account open.

So we told her, we honestly think you’re going to be good too. If you ever have more questions, feel free to reach out. We also recommended a book we thought would be a good next step.

We are here to support you, whatever it is you need

That’s often what it looks like. A lot of the students we work with do need more support, especially if they are totally new to investing, feeling really overwhelmed by it, or want to make sure they’re doing everything correctly. A lot of folks do our full Immigrant Finance School program, a 90-day program. Some people just need one session to get going. For some folks, it’s just one of our free consultations, and that is more than okay.

Jessica had the confidence that made us know she’s going to be successful. We helped her clarify what is possible for her, and we wish the same for you.