For years, we have heard the same investing advice many of us First Gen Latinas get once we finally start making decent money:
Put money into the stock market. Buy index funds. Keep contributing to your 401(k). Set it and forget it.
And I understand why this simple advice gets repeated over and over. It makes investing feel less intimidating and complicated. Which is great when you first start learning about finances.
But once you start getting out of survival mode and look around, you realize that something is not quite right.
Key Takeaways
- Blindly investing in stocks is part of the problem, but the system is designed that way.
- To invest like a mother means looking beyond financial returns and considering what your money helps create.
- Values-based investing approach asks whether an investment supports your financial security while also considering its impact.
- There are investments that you can participate that will still build wealth and align with your values.
Are we the problem?
Today’s economic climate has people struggling to pay for groceries, gas and other essentials. Yet while we are struggling, big corporations are reaching record profits. According to a 2026 GAO report, Walmart repeatedly ranked among the employers with the largest numbers of workers relying on SNAP. Meanwhile, Walmart reported a record $713 billion in annual revenue and nearly $22 billion in net income. It raises a serious question: Why are taxpayers helping feed the employees of one of the most profitable corporations in America?
Walmart is one of the top Fortune 500 companies and is included in S&P 500 index funds. So not only are we subsidizing Walmart’s employees but also giving more money to Walmart.
Thus, it makes us wonder: Are we the problem?
How we got here.
When someone starts investing in the stock market, they feel like they are making a smart money decision. And they are. But you are told to put your money in this jar, leave it and don’t look. “Don’t worry about it.” “It will compound and grow.” And it does grow. The problem is, so does the funds that those companies get.
Now that wouldn’t be a problem if they shared the wealth. The so called “trickle down economics.” Yet we know that does not happen. Instead they take the profits and use it to make themselves richer. Meanwhile, the employee makes minimum wage.
So does that mean that we are contributing to the problem? Truthfully, yes. But we aren’t to blame either. The. system is. We are forced to play this game. Remember when they had us saving the turtles by getting rid of plastic straws and bags? Meanwhile the real issue continues to be the companies packaging everything in plastic. Stock investing is similar. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something.
Investing Like a Mother
I recently had Tina Berger, author of Invest Like a Mother, on the MoneyChisme Podcast, and our conversation gave language to something I had already been wrestling with in my own investing journey.
What if a “good investment” is not determined by return alone?
What if building financial freedom and caring about your comunidad do not have to be competing goals?
That is where ethical investing for beginners gets much more interesting.
What does “invest like a mother” actually mean?
First, investing like a mother is not about gender. Tina mentions that she views it as more of the qualities of a mother. The protectiveness. The community building. The collective well being. Think of “mother” as a nurturing framework.
When someone is caring for a family, they rarely make decisions based on one number. You might choose the cheaper option sometimes, but other times you pay more because something is safer, healthier, more sustainable, or simply better for the people involved.
Investing can work the same way.
Traditional investing conversations tend to focus heavily on questions like:
- What is the expected return?
- How much has this investment grown historically?
- How risky is it?
- How quickly can I access my money?
Those questions still matter. Acuérdate, we are trying to build wealth here, not donate our retirement account and survive on pan dulce y café.
But values-based investing adds additional questions:
- Who benefits from this investment?
- Who could be harmed?
- How are workers treated?
- What happens to the surrounding community?
- Does this company or property operate in a way that aligns with my values?
- Am I solving a problem or extracting as much money as possible from one?
That last question hits differently when you are a real estate investor.
How to invest like a mother in 5 steps
You do not need to sell everything tomorrow, move onto a commune, and start bartering tomatoes. We are not striving for perfectionism here. The goal is awareness, intentionality, and making better decisions where you realistically can. Tina shares a few ways to start.
1. Define what financial security means for you
Investing like a mother does not require sacrificing your family’s financial security. It asks you to define “enough” instead of blindly chasing an ever-growing number because somebody on the internet told you your net worth should be bigger.
Start with your emergency savings, debt, retirement goals, monthly expenses, insurance needs, and long-term plans.
If you are still organizing that foundation, read my Personal Finance for Latinas: A Guilt-Free Guide to Managing Money.
2. Decide what values matter to you
Ethical investing becomes impossible if everything matters equally. Pick a priority or a goal. Remember that it should be achievable where you are now. Sometimes we think because we can’t make a huge change, that it is not worth it. But small steps can lead to bigger ones.
For example, I want rental properties to build financial freedom for my family, but I also know someone has to live inside those properties.
That changes how I analyze a deal and how I manage my rentals. The spreadsheet matters, but so does the person behind the rent payment.
3. Ask more questions before investing
Instead of asking only:
“What return could I make?”
Try asking:
“What return could I make, what risks am I taking, and what am I helping create?”
That tiny change makes you look at investments differently.
For a stock or fund, you might investigate the companies included, labor practices, governance, environmental risks, or community impact. This does require some effort. But after you can “set it and forget it” guilt-free.
For a rental property, you might examine housing quality, neighborhood conditions, safety hazards, realistic rent, maintenance needs, and the experience you are creating for tenants.
For a small business investment, you might examine the founder, mission, business model, employees, expected return, and how your capital will actually be used.
4. Explore investments beyond the default options
Many of us were taught that investing means 401(k), IRA, stocks, and index funds.
But they are not the only possibilities. Here are a few to consider:
| Investment option | Potential benefit | What to investigate |
| Rental real estate | Income, equity and appreciation potential | Cash flow, safety, tenants, neighborhood impact |
| Small businesses | Direct connection to entrepreneurs | Business fundamentals, legal structure and loss risk |
| Crowdfunding investments | Access to early-stage businesses | High failure risk, liquidity and offering documents |
| Self-directed IRA assets | Broader retirement investment options | Custodian, IRS rules, fees, prohibited transactions |
Ethical real estate investing is investing like a mother
Now, this is where this conversation became especially personal for me because I invest in rental properties. You can see the direct impact of your investments. Especially if you self-manage your rentals.
Many investors may just focus on maximizing profits. Some go too far and become slumlords. But you can choose to be different. This means addressing safety hazards and keeping rents affordable.
That is investing like a mother.
There is a huge difference between running a profitable rental property and squeezing every possible dollar from a property while allowing the housing itself to deteriorate.
Safe housing, timely maintenance, fair communication and responsible property management are not enemies of wealth building.
They are part of how I want to build wealth.
If you want to learn more about this approach, read Real Estate Investing for First-Gen Latinas: How to Start Building Wealth, where I break down how real estate can build wealth while still being approached with compassion and strategy.
You do not have to choose between wealth and your values
I think this is especially important for First-Gen Latinas. Many of us already carry complicated feelings about money. We already feel behind and have the weight of being our parent’s retirement plan. Therefore, we have a lot of pressure to build wealth.
But we also don’t want to contribute to the system that is drowning our community.
However, refusing to build wealth does not magically fix those problems either. Instead we can build wealth, while being part of the solution.
What if more rental properties were owned by people who cared about housing quality?
What if more Latina entrepreneurs received investment capital from people in our own comunidad?
What if more of our money circulated through businesses and institutions serving neighborhoods historically ignored by traditional capital?
We need more of this type of mindset when it comes to wealth building. More investing like a mother. Learn more about what that could look like for you by purchasing your copy of Invest Like a Mother here.
FAQ: Investing like a mother
What is ethical investing?
Ethical investing means considering personal values or social, environmental and governance factors alongside financial considerations when choosing investments. You may also hear terms such as socially responsible investing, sustainable investing, ESG investing or impact investing. These approaches are not identical, so always research how a specific investment defines its strategy.
Do I have to stop investing in index funds to invest ethically?
No. Investing like a mother is not an all-or-nothing strategy. You may decide diversified stock funds still make sense for part of your financial plan while exploring other investments or examining what your existing funds hold. Your financial security, risk tolerance and goals still matter.
Can real estate investing be ethical?
Yes. Real estate investors can earn profits while maintaining safe properties, responding to repairs, communicating respectfully, setting sustainable rents, understanding neighborhood impact and treating tenants like human beings.
Can I invest directly in my community?
Potential options include local businesses, community-oriented real estate projects, certain crowdfunding investments and other community investment structures. Every opportunity has different risks, rules and liquidity, so investigate both the financial fundamentals and the social impact before investing.
How do I start values-based investing as a beginner?
Start by defining your financial needs and choosing two or three values you care about most. Then review your current investments and ask what you own, why you own it, what risks exist, what returns you need, and what impact matters to you. You do not need to redesign your entire portfolio overnight.
