Our Journey to Financial Freedom

June 16, 2025

Money is more than just numbers, it's a mindset. Recently, we’ve come to realize that our relationship with money isn’t as healthy as we had hoped it would be.

We're Marco and Dawn, a family of five. We have three beautiful children; our oldest, Lorenzo, is seven, and we have identical twin girls, Reina and Isabel, who are two. Life is full, joyful, and BUSY (or maybe better described as chaotic), and now, it’s about to get a little more intentional.

To be honest, we were shocked (and incredibly grateful) to be chosen by the Summit Project Money team. We weren’t sure what made a family “qualify” to share their financial journey, but here we are, nervously and excitedly writing our very first blog post! We're feeling a lot of emotions: excitement about starting this new chapter, hope for real change, and of course a bit of anxiety about how we’ll actually make it all work...

Still, we’re thrilled to have this opportunity, not only to grow ourselves but to share our experiences with others. We hope these posts reflect the real ups and downs of learning, budgeting, and building a stronger financial future. Most of all, we hope our story feels relatable and helpful to anyone on a similar path.

First Steps: Meeting Our Financial Coach
Our first step in the Project Money program was meeting with our financial coach, Jess. And to be completely transparent, we walked in unsure of what she'd offer us. We both consider ourselves fairly financially literate, so part of us thought, What else could she really teach us?
Boy, were we wrong!

Looking back, we should’ve expected to learn something new, after all, that’s why we signed up for the program in the first place. But Jess exceeded all expectations. She was amazing and instantly felt like the perfect fit for our family.

One of the biggest lightbulb moments during our meeting came when we started talking about our relationship with money. Marco shared about growing up in an extremely low-income household, and Jess gently pointed out that even though he has long transcended his childhood socioeconomic status, some of the anxiety he feels about spending money could be lingering financial trauma from past experiences.
That realization hit hard, and made so much sense. It might seem obvious reading it now, but when something is tucked into your past, it doesn’t always show up clearly until someone helps you unpack it. It was like a therapeutic moment. We walked in thinking, She probably won’t tell us anything we don’t already know, and walked out saying, Everyone should meet with a financial coach at least once!

Our Advice: Try a Coach — Even Just Once
We highly recommend heading over to Summit’s website and setting up a meeting with a coach, even if it's just one session. We’re confident it will have a positive impact on your relationship with money, just like it’s already beginning to transform ours.

👉 Here’s a helpful article from Summit that shares more on the benefits of working with a financial coach:

We can’t wait to keep sharing this journey with you! The good, the messy, and everything in between.

Stay tuned,
Marco & Dawn