What is Sisters for Financial Independence?

For too long, many of us have shied away from critical money conversations and actions. Despite graduating at record levels, earning more, and running complex family households, we continue to live in financial fear and insecurity.

Sisters for Financial Independence is committed to educating all people through all stages of life how to better manage their money so that they can build a life that positively impacts everyone around them today and tomorrow.

We are Catherine, Anna and Elaine. This site is about learning, growing and creating a life of impact using money as a lever. We learned it’s OK to care about money. Money is a tool and it can be a very powerful tool for change.

We emigrated from the Philippines when we were 9 and 8 respectively. For us, the traditional path included thousands of student loans, credit card debt, a general lack of money management, and a period of time living from paycheck to paycheck. Thanks to the example of our mother, an immigrant herself, we started learning more about how we can truly make money work for us and follow a journey towards financial independence.

Our sister Elaine, who is 12 years younger will join in on the conversation as she provides insight on finances as a newly minted graduate student. Our goal is to start a more authentic conversation regarding money. Strange that even in 2021 this is still necessary, but it's now more important than ever.

Sisters for Financial Independence isn't just Catherine, Anna and Elaine, it is all of us who are pursuing something greater than money. At Sisters for Financial Independence, we will focus on strategies to create a secure future for ourselves and our family so that we can do the things we want to do. We are told to dream, but we are rarely told how to build the scaffolds to reach that dream. We hope to do that here: one story, one lesson, on workshop, one post at time.

At this time, Catherine is the primary lead at Sisters for FI. She is a Certified Financial Educator. Prior to transitioning to the personal finance world, she worked in the IT and AdTech field streamlining operations.

Anna is currently Controller at a New York City firm.

Elaine is a budding Architect with a New York City firm.