Gisela Hurtado and Pedro Cerdan
“I learned that even people who don’t make much can save, even if it’s one dollar at a time.”
Gisela Hurtado and Pedro Cerdan delight in their two-year-old daughter Nicolle. She runs around their small apartment in Shaw, juice box in hand, climbing in and out of her dad’s lap as her parents talk about saving for her future.
Gisela first learned about matched savings programs through the Latino Economic Development Corporation. Enrolled in CAAB’s Marriage Development Account (MDA) program since March, Gisela and Pedro are saving money to buy their first home. Their dream house has a yard for Nicolle to play in, more bedrooms so they can have more children, and enough space to someday operate their own home-based day care center.
Saving has not always been easy for Gisela, who works as a preschool teacher, and Pedro, who works two jobs at two different DC restaurants. Pedro was trained as a teacher as well, and hopes to return to teaching when he can find a job. Meanwhile, he relies on his restaurant salary, which varies from week to week depending on how business is going. Not knowing how much he will earn in each paycheck can make it stressful to put aside a certain amount each month, but Pedro manages.
“I’ve always wanted to buy a house,” he says. Pedro came to the United States from Peru six years ago. He and Gisela, also Peruvian, have lived together for two and a half years. They met through mutual friends, who introduced them at one of the restaurants where he works. While their plans to marry this past March were delayed because of sick family members and work obligations, Pedro and Gisela hope to wed at the DC Courthouse in August.
The couple has taken classes in personal finance at the Latino Economic Development Corporation and learned about home buying in workshops at the Urban League and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. Gisela said the most important lesson she took away from the personal finance classes was the idea of spending money only on what’s important, and saving the rest.
“I try to save for the things we want to obtain. I try to just spend money on things we need, like food and clothes. But I try not to spend too much on clothes,” she says with a smile. “Before, I would buy things I never used,” Gisela says, but she doesn’t anymore. The couple also cut down on credit card use.
Gisela and Pedro are enthusiastic ambassadors of matched savings accounts. “It’s a great opportunity for us, and for everybody,” Gisela says. “You can save money in the bank, but they don’t match it like this. I would recommend it to anybody. Absolutely.”
Pedro says his friends sometimes don’t believe him when he describes the program. “They think it sounds too good, it can’t be real,” he says. Pedro believes matched savings accounts can be particularly beneficial to Spanish-speaking people who are saving for homes or businesses.
Taking the personal finance classes together helped Pedro and Gisela talk more openly and knowledgably about money. “I learned that even people who don’t make much can save,” Pedro says, “even if it’s one dollar at a time.”
The couple hopes to earn enough in their MDA to put a down payment on a house this fall. Their new home will just be the first of many assets they save toward, they hope. Even though Nicolle is only two, Gisela is already talking about how they can save money for their daughter for school. Gisela and Pedro may also go back to school to receive additional training to run a home-based day care center. “This is just the first step!” Gisela says with a laugh.
