Cristina Tello-Trillo takes great pride in her work ethic. It's how she's been able to obtain her Ph.D., secure a six-figure salary and purchase a small portfolio of investment properties all within the last 10 years.

"I see money as a thing that you work really hard for," she says. 

In 2023, she earned over $161,000 as a senior economist at the U.S. Census Bureau and teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. In 2024, she'll earn $201,564 from those positions, plus income from three rental properties she bought in 2023.

She and her husband live comfortably in Bethesda, Maryland, with their 5-year-old son, Leo. Tello-Trillo says she's starting to teach Leo little money lessons he can grasp, like giving him a $5 limit to get whatever he wants at a store. But she's not currently putting aside any money to pay for him to go to college.

"I don't expect to pay for my kid's college," she tells CNBC Make It. "I hope that he gets a scholarship, or he gets a loan so that he can pay for his own college."

Her son has quite a bit of time before he'll start thinking about whether or not he even wants to go to college, and Tello-Trillo says maybe she'll change her mind. But here's why she's not eager to start saving for his higher education just yet.

'I want him to fight for the things that he wants'

Though she was born in the U.S., Tello-Trillo grew up in Peru and came back to the States to earn her Ph.D. at Yale University — on a full scholarship. She used that degree to land her job at the Census Bureau, which has helped her become a part-time real estate investor. 

"My husband and I worked really hard for our money. And both [my husband's and my] parents also did," she says. "They show us that you have to work hard for money, so that's what I want to show [Leo]." 

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It's that reasoning that also makes Tello-Trillo hesitant to leave her son a hefty inheritance in the future. She doesn't want him to slack off in life because he knows he has a fortune coming his way through an inheritance.

"I would not like my kid to feel that he has enough of a safety net so he doesn't make an effort to succeed in the world," she says. "I want him to fight for the things that he wants, and maybe I'll save some money so he can get a decent inheritance, but not a lot."

A handful of high-profile wealthy people, including Warren Buffett, Anderson Cooper and Guy Fieri, have similar outlooks.

Buffett is well-known for his massive wealth — his net worth is currently over $140 billion — but has earned a reputation for his commitment to philanthropy as well. While each of his children have their own foundation funded by Buffett, he says he won't leave them the bulk of his money when he dies.

"Leave the children enough so that they can do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing," he said in a 2021 note to shareholders.

Tello-Trillo first became interested in how money works while playing Monopoly as a child, she says. Though her son is too young to play now, she's excited to show him when he's older and hopes he'll take those early money lessons to heart when he does.

"I expect him to get his own money, get his own savings, because that's the way that life works," she says.

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