According to a recent Nielsen’s report, The State of the Hispanic Consumer: The Hispanic Market Imperative, Latino buying power will have grown 50% between 2010 and 2015, reaching an incredible $1.5 trillion. To put this in perspective, the report notes that if U.S. Hispanics were a standalone country, their market buying power would be one of the top twenty economies in the world.

No wonder that more than half of Hispanics expect to improve their financial situation over the next year, while little over a third of all Americans can say the same. Yet though Hispanics represent 52 million consumers in this country and the majority of population growth, when it comes to financial planning, or even every day banking and insurance needs, we as a group are still in the minority. It doesn’t help that the median age of Latinos is 28 years old – an age when most people are still looking at 30 as the distant future.

In their pursuit of the American Dream, Hispanics are failing to protect it. Yes, we may feel confident that we will improve our financial situation over the next year. But what about the following year? And the year after that? Are we doing all we can to preserve our surging buying power? Are we protecting ourselves and our families, investing for the future and planning for retirement?

Chris Mendoza is the Assistant VP of Multicultural Marketing at Mass Mutual, where they have been conducting an ongoing set of national research studies on Hispanic families and business owners.

According to their research, even with an improving financial situation, 33% of Hispanics named finances as their #1 stress.

Read the full story at The Huffington Post