Juliana Salamone, CFP debuts book for first-time investors

What if the only thing separating you from becoming an investor is that no one ever showed you how?

For Juliana Salamone, a Senior Portfolio Manager and CFP (certified financial planner) professional in Naples, Florida, that question is personal. In “The First Generation Investor: Breaking Into Investing When No One Showed You How,” out now, she offers a practical, plain-English guide for people who work hard and save but still feel unsure about investing, and tells the story of how she learned it herself, one concept at a time.

Salamone grew up in a small town in the Philippines, one of five children in a family where money was always tight. She remembers bringing a “promise-sorry” note to school so she could sit her exams when tuition was late.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication from Silliman University.

At 23, already a young mother, she moved to the United States with a few hundred dollars. She worked retail and reception jobs, sometimes two at once, and rode the bus to early and late shifts, until a referral led to an administrative role at Bridgewater Associates.

There, colleagues took her under their wing. She read the firm’s published research and sat in on client and portfolio strategy meetings, and though she did not understand most of it at first, she kept going until it made sense. She made her own first investment: about $100. When she helped a colleague make sense of his 401(k), she realized she wanted to do the work rather than support it. She moved into client services, then to Fidelity Investments in Southwest Florida, earned her licenses and the CFP certification, and today works primarily with institutional clients, as well as individuals and families.

“The people who understood investing weren’t fundamentally different from me,” says Salamone. “They hadn’t unlocked something I couldn’t. They had just been exposed to it earlier. If no one ever explained this to you, that doesn’t mean you’re behind. It means you’re starting now.”

The book walks readers through understanding their money, setting goals, building an emergency cushion, choosing first investments, workplace plans such as the 401(k), robo-advisors, tax-efficient investing and staying invested when markets turn. A dedicated chapter in the book addresses women and money, drawing on years of conversations with widows, divorcees and women who had always left financial decisions to someone else.

“So many women told me, ‘I don’t know where to start,'” says Salamone. “It was never a knowledge problem. They had simply been left out of the conversation. Confidence is hard to build around something you were never invited to take part in.”

The book is written for first-generation investors, for workplace savers who contribute to a retirement plan without knowing what they own, and for women ready to take ownership of their finances. It is educational rather than prescriptive, and Salamone is clear that readers do not need to become experts. “You don’t need to know everything, and you certainly don’t need to be perfect,” she writes. “You just need to start.”

“The First Generation Investor: Breaking Into Investing When No One Showed You How” by Juliana Salamone is available now in hardcover, paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. This is her first book.