‘A lot of our parents were paid by the hour’: a first-gen money coach’s blueprint for wealth

Maria Melchor, who immigrated to the US when she was just 9 years old, is now a money coach with her first book on the way. Photograph: Courtesy Maria Melchor

Maria Melchor remembers her first paycheck: $1,414. Fresh out of college and into a paralegal job at the Legal Aid Society in New York City. With student loans still in their grace period, for the first time, she had more than she needed.

“It felt like a lot of money,” said Melchor, now 30. Melchor was born in Mexico and immigrated to the US at nine years old. She grew up undocumented in Connecticut, watching her parents struggle to make ends meet.