Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking about Crushing your Money Goals with Bernadette Joy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joel, So we're joined today by expert money coach
Speaker 2: Bernadette Joy, who we actually met for the first time
Speaker 2: last year at this nerdy personal finance and media conference
Speaker 2: that we often go to. We actually gave a talk
Speaker 2: while Bernadette was the host for the entire conference, and
Speaker 2: I've got to admit, I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 2: met someone who was more enthusiastic about personal finance. So
Speaker 2: we're pumped to be talking with Bernadette today her new book,
Speaker 2: Crush Your Money Goals that came out last month, and
Speaker 2: we're excited to dig into a ton of topics today,
Speaker 2: like her one dot why she hates the term emergency fund.
Speaker 2: Of course, we're going to cover her crush strategy for
Speaker 2: goal setting as well, and hopefully we'll have time to
Speaker 2: maybe we'll dig into her history as well, because she
Speaker 2: has an incredible debt payoff story as well. But Bernadette,
Speaker 2: thank you for taking the time to speak.
Speaker 1: With us today.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much. You for having me, and
Speaker 3: that was the best intro I've had in a long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, who's introducing you? Then? Come on, you's
Speaker 1: got to get better.
Speaker 3: In Oh great question.
Speaker 2: Right, So the enthusiasm for personal finance is that more
Speaker 2: of like a you're stepping into the role of being
Speaker 2: host at a conference or is this like a deep
Speaker 2: seated desire of yours to spread the personal finance gospel.
Speaker 3: I think it was both. I definitely have a deep
Speaker 3: seated passion of the biggest word that people often use
Speaker 3: for me is energy, But I think it was probably
Speaker 3: times ten because at the time that you and I met,
Speaker 3: we were at the end of the conference. I was like, woaho,
Speaker 3: we're going to go to a happy hour after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't motivate anyone, right, Well, the first question
Speaker 1: we got to ask you, Bernadette, is what do you
Speaker 1: like to splore? John Matt and I we call it
Speaker 1: our craft beer equivalent because we spend decent trucks of
Speaker 1: change on good craft beer. Boy, Hey, it's okay because
Speaker 1: we're still being smart, saving and investing for our future.
Speaker 1: What's that thing for you?
Speaker 3: So my craft beer equivalent is k pop and it
Speaker 3: comes in a lot of different forms. It's going to concerts,
Speaker 3: it's buying merch, it's supporting the artists. It's something I
Speaker 3: spend a lot of money on that a lot of
Speaker 3: people may not understand.
Speaker 2: All right, So is BTS? Are they still the biggest
Speaker 2: oh good yeah pop band out there?
Speaker 3: So K pop?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like they disbanded because some of them
Speaker 2: had to serve in the South. So I'm half Korean
Speaker 2: by the way, so I have some familiarity with kpkay
Speaker 2: and all things k k okay.
Speaker 3: So BTS has not disbanded because people get very upset
Speaker 3: if you tell them that they disbanded. They're just basically
Speaker 3: on hiatus right now while they serve in the military.
Speaker 3: They will be back in twenty twenty six, they said,
Speaker 3: with a new album. In concert tickets, But I follow
Speaker 3: a lot of different groups in K pop, BTS is
Speaker 3: my favorite. I've spent a lot of money. I've seen
Speaker 3: them in concert four times and those tickets are not cheap.
Speaker 3: And as a K pop fan I mentioned to you earlier,
Speaker 3: I actually do go to Atlanta quite a bit because
Speaker 3: K pop never comes to Charlotte. They usually stop in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: So if you add up all of the money that
Speaker 3: you have to spend to just get to these concerts.
Speaker 3: It can add up to a lot. But I can't
Speaker 3: tell you where else in the world or where else
Speaker 3: in history have I felt more joy than being at
Speaker 3: a btsest.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean when you know that it's worth of
Speaker 1: poning up the money and yeah, it's not like you're
Speaker 1: going into debt for it, So it's totally fine. Right.
Speaker 2: Would it be so sad if the guys come back
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty six and it's like so much more
Speaker 2: serious because of their exposure to the military.
Speaker 1: They say the drama album.
Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because they're actually they've all done solo
Speaker 3: albums and there's already been some of that happening. So
Speaker 3: I think we're a little more prepared for when they
Speaker 3: all come back.
Speaker 2: Okay, man, I know who to go to if I'm
Speaker 2: looking for some behind the scenes, Right, But did that
Speaker 2: Let's kind of dig into your your past a little
Speaker 2: bit what happened back in twenty sixteen, because it sounds
Speaker 2: like that that was the year that you know, maybe
Speaker 2: you start taking personal fight and it's a little bit
Speaker 2: more seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So twenty sixteen was the year that I was
Speaker 3: set to graduate from my master's in business. I went
Speaker 3: to the Kingdon Flagler School and expensive degree. It was
Speaker 3: over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars when I looked
Speaker 3: back on it. I didn't realize it was that much
Speaker 3: when I signed up for it. And I was in
Speaker 3: my last semester of my program in January and I
Speaker 3: had ten weeks left, and I said to myself, I
Speaker 3: should probably go check out how much I owe in
Speaker 3: student loans. But it can't be that much because I
Speaker 3: have been paying for it some along the way. I
Speaker 3: did get a little bit of a scholarship, so how
Speaker 3: much could it possibly be? Not realizing it was seventy
Speaker 3: two thousand dollars, and I essentially had what I called
Speaker 3: my quarter life crisis, where I literally dropped to the
Speaker 3: floor and started crying about how I had gotten into
Speaker 3: so much debt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not alone in that, right that. I think
Speaker 1: that's a common experience for people, and especially hopefully we're
Speaker 1: more more cognisant of student loan debt on the front end.
Speaker 1: Now maybe there's a little bit more education around it,
Speaker 1: but there's still a lot of seventeen eighteen year olds
Speaker 1: going to college not thinking about the costs, and then
Speaker 1: four years later, they're like, oh my gosh, what have
Speaker 1: I done? You had what three hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: debt overall? And I believe you said your plan was
Speaker 1: just to work hard, maybe take some of the notes
Speaker 1: of the grindstone mentality. How did that work out?
Speaker 3: It worked for a little while until I got completely
Speaker 3: burned out and started rethinking all of my life choices.
Speaker 3: And I'm first generation Filipino American. My father had nine kids.
Speaker 3: I'm the eighth of the nine kids, and there is
Speaker 3: just always this mentality that you have to work hard,
Speaker 3: and that money is scarce, and that it's actually hard
Speaker 3: to make money. And so I thought that the solution
Speaker 3: to this was, Okay, after I graduate from this prestigious program,
Speaker 3: I'm going to get a really great paying job and
Speaker 3: then just work on paying off the student loans and
Speaker 3: work off paying all of these other debts, and then
Speaker 3: everything will be fine. Right. Except when I was planning
Speaker 3: to graduate, I had no desire to go back to
Speaker 3: a corporate job, and I was actually thinking about becoming
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur someday. And that's where I realized that working hard,
Speaker 3: especially working hard for another employer, might not be the
Speaker 3: right path for me.
Speaker 2: Did any of the fact that you being a Frisian immigrant,
Speaker 2: I guess how much did that impact maybe how you
Speaker 2: viewed the world, how you viewed your debt, how you
Speaker 2: viewed your career, and maybe sort of the path that
Speaker 2: you might pursue.
Speaker 3: It was a huge part of how I viewed not
Speaker 3: just the world, but finances in general and specifically personal finance.
Speaker 3: My father was actually an accountant by trade, my mom
Speaker 3: was a bookkeeper, and then my younger brother ended up
Speaker 3: becoming an accountant also, and so there's this whole idea that, oh, well,
Speaker 3: if you're good with money kind of academically, that it
Speaker 3: should be fine personally. But it turned out that my
Speaker 3: father was not great with money personally for a lot
Speaker 3: of different reasons. He had a ton of debt actually
Speaker 3: throughout his lifetime also, and he was someone who was
Speaker 3: supposed to be good with money because he did finances
Speaker 3: for a company. So when I realized specifically that there's
Speaker 3: also these kind of cultural values in Filipino culture where
Speaker 3: you don't talk about how much money you have, but
Speaker 3: you show people by your nice car and your nice
Speaker 3: house and your nice clothes, but you are never allowed
Speaker 3: to tell people that you're struggling. I really had a
Speaker 3: hard time reconciling my cultural values with what was actually
Speaker 3: happening to me personally.
Speaker 1: What did your debt payoff strategy look like? What were
Speaker 1: you tapping into and what sort of route were you
Speaker 1: trying to take when you realize, because that could be
Speaker 1: an overwhelming amount to be like, okay, three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in debt racked up, where do I even start?
Speaker 1: Some people get just completely frazzled, up ended in the
Speaker 1: beginning and they just kind of go Ostrich effect and
Speaker 1: buried their head in the sand. What were the practical
Speaker 1: steps for you when it came to kind of getting
Speaker 1: rid of that debt going down that path?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, if I'd be totally honest, I did bury
Speaker 3: my head in the sand for a good forty eight
Speaker 3: hours for I let myself feel my feelings about what
Speaker 3: kind of decisions they had to make, and really thinking
Speaker 3: about what I wanted to do next. But once I
Speaker 3: got my head out of my butt, I would say
Speaker 3: I started first looking at just the student loans, which
Speaker 3: was seventy two thousand dollars of the three hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: and I went and looked at what that total amount
Speaker 3: was broken up to, and it was actually broken up
Speaker 3: into several smaller loans. A couple and we're twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: A couple of them were ten thousand, a couple of
Speaker 3: them were five thousand dollars. And I decided to go
Speaker 3: with a snowball approach because truth be told, back then,
Speaker 3: all I did was google what was out there, and
Speaker 3: at the time, the guy with the most advertising dollars
Speaker 3: was Dave Ramsey, and so I just listened a lot
Speaker 3: to his podcast, and I tried this snowball method, which
Speaker 3: felt felt like it resonated with me in the sense
Speaker 3: of I am the type of person who if I
Speaker 3: don't see progress in a short amount of time, I
Speaker 3: will just give up. I will just get home and
Speaker 3: not keep going.
Speaker 1: I think most people know what the snowball method is,
Speaker 1: but will you just quickly explain what and why you
Speaker 1: went with that and kind of the thinking behind why
Speaker 1: that's superior?
Speaker 3: Sure, So, the snowball method simply says that, regardless of
Speaker 3: interest rate, you go for tackling your debts from smallest
Speaker 3: amount to biggest amount. So in the case of my
Speaker 3: student loans, I decided to tackle these smaller five thousand
Speaker 3: dollar loans first before I tried to tackle these twenty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars loans. And I broke it up into these
Speaker 3: different segments versus thinking, oh, I have seventy two thousand
Speaker 3: dollars all together, I don't know where to start with that,
Speaker 3: But can I figure out how to just pay off
Speaker 3: this first five thousand dollars to get some momentum. And
Speaker 3: that was hugely helpful for me to actually see these loans,
Speaker 3: say closed, have zero balance on them before I moved
Speaker 3: on to the bigger ones. But I will say that
Speaker 3: I did that snowball method in the sense of you
Speaker 3: have to pair that with well, how are you actually
Speaker 3: going to get money to pay towards the debt? And
Speaker 3: I did what everyone else did in the beginning. I
Speaker 3: just I hustled a lot. I got my husband to
Speaker 3: hustle a lot. I mean we were doing all sorts
Speaker 3: of stuff. We were extras on TV, we were I mean,
Speaker 3: he was driving uber, I was selling jewelry. I mean
Speaker 3: I started I actually started charging people to help review
Speaker 3: their resumes because back then I was in HR and
Speaker 3: that eventually turned into my financial education program. I never
Speaker 3: knew that was going to turn into my next career,
Speaker 3: but we tried a lot of different things of okay,
Speaker 3: instead of trying to figure out new skill sets, like
Speaker 3: what skill sets do we already have and how could
Speaker 3: we make even a little bit of money towards it
Speaker 3: better than trying to waste time trying to figure out
Speaker 3: something new.
Speaker 1: So, okay, I'm curious. I want to dig just a
Speaker 1: little bit on the side hustle. Thing Like driving for
Speaker 1: Uber is one thing, right, I think that's like the
Speaker 1: easy button. But it sounds like you were able to
Speaker 1: find other ways to make money that were more in
Speaker 1: line with the skill set that you had, that could
Speaker 1: potentially earn you more than just like the lowest common
Speaker 1: denominator side hustle. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had two side hustles back then. Both of
Speaker 3: them ended up turning into full time businesses later down
Speaker 3: the road, and they were completely unrelated. One of them
Speaker 3: was to help people review their resumes. I would literally
Speaker 3: either just give them feedback on their resume or I
Speaker 3: would edit their resumes for them. Obviously, editing them would
Speaker 3: cost them more money, and I started charging nineteen dollars
Speaker 3: for that, and then I eventually over time was able
Speaker 3: to charge four hundred dollars for that. See a pretty
Speaker 3: big increase, Yeah, pretty big increase. It was little by little,
Speaker 3: But I actually had a really great client one day
Speaker 3: who told me he was the nicest person. He told me,
Speaker 3: you severely undercharged me for this, so you did a
Speaker 3: really good job. Yeah. I thought that was really nice.
Speaker 3: I'll always remember that. And then my other side hustle
Speaker 3: was actually helping women get dressed for special occasions. And
Speaker 3: so I collected all of these dresses from different women
Speaker 3: who weren't using it at the time. I said, let
Speaker 3: me borrow these dresses and lend them to other women
Speaker 3: and help them get dressed for these events. And that
Speaker 3: turned into another side hustle that I actually found to
Speaker 3: be really fun, but also started started helping me think
Speaker 3: about personal finance because I saw how much women were
Speaker 3: spending on these dresses that they were only wearing one time.
Speaker 1: That's like rent the runway, but on a very individual level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. Actually I built it as the local
Speaker 3: rent runway in Charlotte. I was the only game in
Speaker 3: town Belk at the time. I used to have people
Speaker 3: who would come to me and they would say, oh,
Speaker 3: I went to Belch to go look for address there
Speaker 3: and they told me to come here, and so that
Speaker 3: was pretty fun that people did.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, And so you eliminated all that debt. And
Speaker 2: at this point, you know, it seems like you're set
Speaker 2: to retire like in your forties because of all this
Speaker 2: hard work and the smart money moves that you've made.
Speaker 2: But I've heard you say too that you don't have
Speaker 2: any desire to actually retire early. And maybe that has
Speaker 2: something to do with the energy that you.
Speaker 1: Bring to life.
Speaker 2: Why then, have you worked so dang hard and invested
Speaker 2: in the way that you happen over the past few years.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm still unraveling what that might mean for me.
Speaker 3: I turned forty this year, and I never imagined that
Speaker 3: I would have enough invested that I could retire if
Speaker 3: I wanted to. So I spent so much time I'm
Speaker 3: in the last couple of years, and I think this
Speaker 3: is some of the downside I think of being very
Speaker 3: enamored with personal finances that you can get wrapped up
Speaker 3: in it so much so that you don't really think
Speaker 3: about what you would do once you actually complete the
Speaker 3: goal later on. And so I'm unraveling that right now.
Speaker 3: And I've had really interesting conversations with other financial experts
Speaker 3: in their fifties and sixties. I had another financial expert
Speaker 3: who told me, he said, you know what, BS, I
Speaker 3: bet you you're going to be back in three years
Speaker 3: if you decided to retire now, because you're not going
Speaker 3: to be able to sit still. And I said to him,
Speaker 3: you know what, that might be true three.
Speaker 1: Years, more like three months.
Speaker 3: I said, that could be true. But you know what,
Speaker 3: I have never had in an extended period of time
Speaker 3: in my forty years on Earth where I just did
Speaker 3: whatever I wanted and I didn't think about money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so I just want to try it. So this
Speaker 3: year I'm planning to travel a ton more than I
Speaker 3: have before. My husband and I are actually going to
Speaker 3: do that whole full time digital nomap. We were kind
Speaker 3: of part time at this point. And I also decided
Speaker 3: that I want to just focus on some of the
Speaker 3: things that I have been interested in but have been
Speaker 3: scared to do. So I mentioned to you before we
Speaker 3: got on here that I am taking improv classes and
Speaker 3: I'm excited for that. I just signed up for swimming lessons.
Speaker 3: Here's a fun fact I don't know how to swim.
Speaker 3: I have never carved out the time to go learn
Speaker 3: how to swim, and it's kind of embarrassing to go
Speaker 3: look for adult swimming lessons because all of the swimming
Speaker 3: lessons are for kids. But I found one yesterday and
Speaker 3: I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: You don't understand full immersion swimming is evidently what it's
Speaker 2: all about.
Speaker 1: Oh really, what does that mean? I think you were talking.
Speaker 2: About it like a decade ago, but like basically like
Speaker 2: there's a natural instinct to keep your face above water,
Speaker 2: but it's sort of like the exact opposite of the
Speaker 2: natural inclination and just literally maybe forcing your face into
Speaker 2: the water because that's how you're able to essentially streamline,
Speaker 2: and that's how you swim, and not only swim, but
Speaker 2: swe fast. But aside from that, Oh, you said something
Speaker 2: about y'all doing like the full nomad thing like you've
Speaker 2: done sort of like maybe the part time digital no
Speaker 2: mad life. I think a part of maybe what allows
Speaker 2: you to do that is the fact that you don't
Speaker 2: own your own home.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Is that still the case? From what I understand?
Speaker 1: You rent?
Speaker 2: And is that flexibility a big part of what factored
Speaker 2: into that for y'all.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, my husband and I, part of some of
Speaker 3: that debt that we had paid off was also a
Speaker 3: mortgage debt, and we decided one day to sell all
Speaker 3: of our real estate that we had and we decided
Speaker 3: to go back to renting, and people around us really
Speaker 3: thought we were crazy. They were like, I don't understand
Speaker 3: why you would have a paid off home and then
Speaker 3: sell it, And my husband and I one day we
Speaker 3: realized and unfortunately it wasn't a kind of happy scenario.
Speaker 3: But my father passed away suddenly in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: and it was still when the pandemic wasn't allowing people
Speaker 3: to have these mass gatherings, and so my husband and
Speaker 3: I had to fly to Las Vegas, where my mom
Speaker 3: and my father lived, to help take care of things,
Speaker 3: and I had to take some time off of work,
Speaker 3: which I was so grateful by that point that we
Speaker 3: had saved up enough money that if I needed to
Speaker 3: take time, an extended period of time off of work,
Speaker 3: I could do that. But when we came back and
Speaker 3: we had done the whole airbnb situation, we were like, Okay,
Speaker 3: well we still need to make money off of this property.
Speaker 3: Let's try to airb and be it, and I had
Speaker 3: this airbnb guest who was complaining about she didn't know
Speaker 3: where to put the soap in the shower, and at
Speaker 3: the time, I was thinking, Okay, my father just passed away,
Speaker 3: Like this is really not a problem that I care
Speaker 3: about right now. And so I thought about, well, if
Speaker 3: we're going to travel like this for extended periods of time,
Speaker 3: either we leave the house empty or we're going to
Speaker 3: rent it out, but have potential scenarios like this where
Speaker 3: people are reaching out to us for things that we
Speaker 3: need to do for property management. So we said, you
Speaker 3: know what, let's see what it looks like to not
Speaker 3: have real estate. And we also wanted to live closer
Speaker 3: to where we wanted to be. We had lived out
Speaker 3: in the suburbs, and there's no shade against the suburbs.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed living there, but for us at this
Speaker 3: moment in our our our lives, we were more interested
Speaker 3: in being closer to the arts and closer to where
Speaker 3: my clients were, and so we decided to rent. But
Speaker 3: now it's afforded us the ability to not only travel
Speaker 3: more frequently, but I've taken the amount of money that
Speaker 3: we took from real estate and started practicing other types
Speaker 3: of investment.
Speaker 1: I think you're pointing out something here like this is
Speaker 1: like a perpetual debate in personal finance. Right is the
Speaker 1: rent versus buy conundrum? And there are brilliant points on
Speaker 1: both sides of the equation. There was somebody the other
Speaker 1: day in our Facebook group who lambassed us for offering
Speaker 1: any sort of nuanced take about buying versus renting, and
Speaker 1: he was basically saying buying is always the right decision.
Speaker 1: Buy now before prices continue to go up. And that's
Speaker 1: just not taking into account people's different individual situations, their hopes,
Speaker 1: their dreams, their desires, like their desired level of flexibility,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know. How do you help people
Speaker 1: think through whether they should be buyers or renters.
Speaker 3: I do this frequently with all of my coaching clients.
Speaker 3: And one of the first things I do when I
Speaker 3: take them on as a coaching client is I do
Speaker 3: this exercise with them. It's called it would be cool
Speaker 3: if and for five minutes, I just have them do
Speaker 3: this stream of consciousness, just keep answering this question. It
Speaker 3: would be cool if X, y Z and almost always
Speaker 3: travel comes up. It would be cool if I could
Speaker 3: travel the world. It could be cool if I travel
Speaker 3: to Europe, or it would be cool if I could,
Speaker 3: you know, spend more time in these other places. It
Speaker 3: has never come up on anyone's it would be cool
Speaker 3: list to say it would be cool if I, you know,
Speaker 3: had chores and mowed the lawn and had to fix
Speaker 3: the roof. Like, no one ever says that on there
Speaker 3: it would be cool if. But they do say it
Speaker 3: would be cool if I owned a home. But then
Speaker 3: when I ask them, well, what does it mean to
Speaker 3: be a homeowner to you? Maybe it's because some of
Speaker 3: the clients that I work with tend to be kind
Speaker 3: of older millennials or Gen xers, But their immediate reaction
Speaker 3: is quite surprised because they've never been questioned on why
Speaker 3: they even want to own a home in the first place.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they've been indoctrinated and that our culture
Speaker 1: has told them, Hey, when don't you reach a certain age,
Speaker 1: that's what you're supposed to do. And the essentially the economics,
Speaker 1: the facts be damned, because it doesn't matter if it's
Speaker 1: like fifteen hundred dollars a month cheaper to rent and
Speaker 1: you could massively you know, increase your investments and fast,
Speaker 1: you know, fast track your financial success and continue to
Speaker 1: grow your net worth. It's like, well, that's the thing
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do, so I guess that's the direction
Speaker 1: I'm going in.
Speaker 3: That's literally what they say, they've said to me. I
Speaker 3: had one person in particularly, she said, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: And I said, why do you want to own a home?
Speaker 3: And she said to me, isn't aren't I supposed to
Speaker 3: want to? And I said, well, are you? And then
Speaker 3: she said, oh my god, no one has ever asked
Speaker 3: me this question before. My whole world is turned upside down.
Speaker 3: And and so before you decide that you want to
Speaker 3: buy home. I do think it's important to weigh the
Speaker 3: pros and cons of owning a home. I was a homeowner,
Speaker 3: so don't get me wrong. I do there's value in
Speaker 3: owning a home. But I also think that there's value
Speaker 3: in owning home homes at certain stages of your life.
Speaker 3: And I also think that there is always a trade
Speaker 3: off when you decide to put most of your money
Speaker 3: or most of your wealth building kind of energy towards
Speaker 3: real estate versus For me, as a trade off, I
Speaker 3: decided to take a lot of that money, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: and put it towards other investments, particularly looking towards becoming
Speaker 3: an angel investor for other underrepresented companies, but then also
Speaker 3: to invest into my own business, which just for me personally,
Speaker 3: I get a lot more joy out of running this
Speaker 3: membership that I have writing this book than I ever
Speaker 3: did on painting my bathroom. And you know, planting every
Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys have this in Atlanta tube,
Speaker 3: but in Charlotte, clay is such a thing where it's
Speaker 3: really hard to plant things. And so I was constantly
Speaker 3: fighting with my yard, and I finally just decided I
Speaker 3: don't want to fight with my yard anymore.
Speaker 1: Do that.
Speaker 2: Let's just go ahead and zero escaping enough but rocks
Speaker 2: exactly exactly, But no, I think that's so true. It
Speaker 2: oftentimes folks aren't taking the time necessary to self examine
Speaker 2: and to figure out and it takes time. You can't
Speaker 2: just like decide you know what it is that you're
Speaker 2: drawn to like. It takes some exploration, and oftentimes we
Speaker 2: are not giving ourselves the space to be able to
Speaker 2: do that. But Bernadette, we've got more to get to.
Speaker 2: Of course, we're going to talk about your crush framework
Speaker 2: to attacking your goals.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that and more right after this. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. We're still talking with Bernadette Joy. We're talking
Speaker 1: about crushing your money goals. So much fun information already
Speaker 1: and great conversation. But let's specifically get to goal setting, Bernadette.
Speaker 1: And this is the time of year still where people
Speaker 1: are really thinking about their goals and what they want
Speaker 1: to accomplish in a new year. And we've all heard of,
Speaker 1: I think at this point, smart goals. But you say
Speaker 1: that your crush approach is superior. What is your crush
Speaker 1: approach to goal setting? And why?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I do have a beef with smart goals
Speaker 3: because I was an HR professional that used to teach
Speaker 3: smart goals in the corporate.
Speaker 1: World and it sounds demoralizing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And actually that's really what my beef with it
Speaker 3: was was that, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 3: smart Goals teaches is about being realistic or relevant, which
Speaker 3: I understand the concept of it in the R but
Speaker 3: what I found is that people end up making goals
Speaker 3: that are too small and then really not being able
Speaker 3: to reach financial freedom. And that's really what I teach
Speaker 3: versus financial literacy, and so crush is my kind of
Speaker 3: anecdote to the smart goals where if you want to
Speaker 3: be more than just financially literate, but you actually want
Speaker 3: to reach financial independence, you can use this framework that
Speaker 3: spells out the word crush and it's fun.
Speaker 1: By the way, the goal setting inside of a company,
Speaker 1: you want to make it really easy to attain. That's
Speaker 1: so that you look good to your boss at the
Speaker 1: goal review time, Whereas when we're talking about setting goals
Speaker 1: for your personal life, you can be a lot more
Speaker 1: ambitious and audacious.
Speaker 3: You know, that is a great distinction. I never thought
Speaker 3: about that until you said it. So thank you that
Speaker 3: that is so true.
Speaker 1: And I mean I remember setting mine back in the
Speaker 1: day and I was like, I'm not going to make
Speaker 1: this too hard.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. You want to put stuff that you
Speaker 3: know you can achieve, so when you come at year
Speaker 3: end review, you're like, oh, I did all that stuff.
Speaker 3: And oddly, what I train people to do and it's
Speaker 3: not for everyone, but I train people to reach financial independence,
Speaker 3: which is a very lofty goal for the vast majority
Speaker 3: of us. And so the thought process is to really
Speaker 3: train more like an Olympian and say all right, I'm
Speaker 3: going to go for the gold medal. But you know
Speaker 3: what if I end up only reaching silver or bronze,
Speaker 3: or not even making the podium, or not even making
Speaker 3: it to the Olympics, I think I'm going to still
Speaker 3: be better off if I give.
Speaker 1: It a go.
Speaker 3: And I really like that mentality for financial freedom, but
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of rewiring for people because we're
Speaker 3: so used to, like you said, setting the bar low
Speaker 3: for ourselves so we can feel like we checked it
Speaker 3: off a list, versus setting the bar high and even failing,
Speaker 3: which will be better than where we are now.
Speaker 2: I totally get that, but I guess that thinking back
Speaker 2: to your story, there's something to be said about checking
Speaker 2: things off your list, right, Like for you, you mentioned
Speaker 2: the snowball method to paying down your debt, and like
Speaker 2: when you get those little wins, like that's so encouraging
Speaker 2: to have that win at your back. But maybe maybe
Speaker 2: the idea is to be able to transfer that into
Speaker 2: something bigger, something more audacious. But we want you to
Speaker 2: unpack this crush approach and the sea stands for curating
Speaker 2: our accounts? Can you explain that?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Why is that the first thing you want?
Speaker 1: Folks? To do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So to your point, I realized I used to
Speaker 3: have people start off with a big lofty goal first
Speaker 3: and then and then people would get really deflated and
Speaker 3: not do anything. And so the sea stands for getting
Speaker 3: a quick win fast, which is just to figure out
Speaker 3: where all your accounts are, get them into one tool
Speaker 3: that you can see everything that goes in and out
Speaker 3: of your assets and liabilities, and having a clear picture
Speaker 3: of what you have. What I found with most people
Speaker 3: is that they have no idea where all their stuff is.
Speaker 3: For example, I mean everyone doesn't know where they're for
Speaker 3: to one k from their old company is sitting. They
Speaker 3: have no much, they have no idea how much it is,
Speaker 3: They don't know exactly how much their debt is. And
Speaker 3: so curating your account simply says to act like a
Speaker 3: curator and not a hoarder and make sure that every
Speaker 3: account that you own actually has a very clear purpose
Speaker 3: and is accounted for. And I like to use the
Speaker 3: tool of monarch money. It's not something I'm sponsored on
Speaker 3: or anything. I just really like the tool where I
Speaker 3: can see every single account that I own in one space,
Speaker 3: versus just looking at my checking account or my savings account.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the accounts that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have and that a lot of personal finance
Speaker 1: experts US included. So you're charding on some toes. Over here,
Speaker 1: Bernadette is having an emergency fund. We talk about that.
Speaker 1: You don't like that term, so let's battle it out.
Speaker 3: So I call it my keep comm fund. What I
Speaker 3: found I had a specific client. This is why I
Speaker 3: changed it is she was so excited. She never had
Speaker 3: an emergency fund before. And so when she finally saved
Speaker 3: up her emergency fund, two months later, her basement legit
Speaker 3: flooded and I'm talking about, you know, up to your
Speaker 3: knees kind of flood. And she ended up putting it
Speaker 3: back on a credit card, and I when she when
Speaker 3: she and I met, she said, oh, yeah, my basement flooded,
Speaker 3: and so now I have to pay off this credit card.
Speaker 3: And I said, wait, why did you put it on
Speaker 3: the credit card? Why didn't you use the cash that
Speaker 3: you had on hand? And she was just like, I
Speaker 3: thought that was for emergencies. I said, what other emergency.
Speaker 2: Is there.
Speaker 3: Other than your basement flooding? And so I realized that
Speaker 3: a lot of people literally think of emergency as life
Speaker 3: or death and so that framing wasn't working for a
Speaker 3: lot of my clients. But I also reframed it to
Speaker 3: say it's a keep calm fund, as in, this is
Speaker 3: the fund that you can tap into, not even when
Speaker 3: there's just emergencies, but when you need to stay calm
Speaker 3: and you need to just get through something versus you know,
Speaker 3: trying to save every bit of money. So as a
Speaker 3: prime example, this is, I hope my in laws don't
Speaker 3: hear this, but sometimes my in laws will just like
Speaker 3: magically appear, and for some people they're in laws, showing
Speaker 3: up unexpectedly can be a little bit anxiety into sing.
Speaker 3: But it's not an emergency, right, So I tried to
Speaker 3: tell people, here's this fund that you can use for
Speaker 3: anything that's unexpected, not just in an emergency fund, but
Speaker 3: for a lot of people it still serves at similar purpose.
Speaker 3: The other reason that I to kind of straight away
Speaker 3: from the emergency fund because the age old advice of
Speaker 3: three to six months, which is a great intent, but
Speaker 3: the vast majority of people that I worked with were
Speaker 3: still very riddled with debt and we're oftentimes living paycheck
Speaker 3: to paycheck, so three to six months felt very overwhelming.
Speaker 3: So I tell people to start off with a one
Speaker 3: month's keep calm, fun and just focus on getting that
Speaker 3: one month first, and then we can figure out three
Speaker 3: to six months down the road.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 2: No, it sounds like your in law showing up is
Speaker 2: a social emergency. And are you using some of that
Speaker 2: money to put them up in a hotel or go
Speaker 2: ahead and order take out because you're not going to
Speaker 2: cook for him.
Speaker 3: It's the latter, order takeout. And then I usually get
Speaker 3: a massage after.
Speaker 2: A little bit of self care phat in there. Well,
Speaker 2: all right, so let's see talk to us about r
Speaker 2: which for you, that's reversing into financial independence. Why is
Speaker 2: why is it important to start with five and then
Speaker 2: kind of backing into it?
Speaker 3: Yes, So going back to what I said earlier, I
Speaker 3: just I just taught a investing class for women and
Speaker 3: I asked the group. There's one hundred women on the call,
Speaker 3: and I asked them, how much money do you need
Speaker 3: to save up for you to be able to retire?
Speaker 3: And no one knew the answer. So I said to them,
Speaker 3: this is not you know, the hard and fast, absolutely correct,
Speaker 3: but it's a good, you know, back of the napkin
Speaker 3: kind of math that you can do. And it's the
Speaker 3: four percent rule, which I'm sure you may have talked
Speaker 3: about in the past, but essentially it says that if
Speaker 3: you save twenty five times your annual expenses, if you
Speaker 3: invest that money, you theoretically would not run out of money.
Speaker 3: And so immediately a lot of people will go into
Speaker 3: what about inflation, what about interest rates? What if I
Speaker 3: put into the wrong investment? And I always have to
Speaker 3: tell people, hey, let's just have this number first, and
Speaker 3: then let's just back in to the simple steps you
Speaker 3: can take today that might get you closer to that number.
Speaker 3: And so for me, that goes back to some of
Speaker 3: the story I told you earlier of Okay, once I
Speaker 3: calculated that number for myself at the time it was
Speaker 3: nine hundred thousand dollars, then it became very clear to
Speaker 3: me that I had to pay off my debt versus
Speaker 3: thinking of debt as just a separate goal. Debt was
Speaker 3: actually a smaller milestone in this in this quest for
Speaker 3: financial independence. And I was able to do that because
Speaker 3: I said, well, if I pay off this these student loans,
Speaker 3: even though they have low interest rates, I would say,
Speaker 3: you know, X amount of money, and that can go
Speaker 3: towards my investments instead, And so I really like this
Speaker 3: idea of reversing into independence, meaning that you actually calculate
Speaker 3: that number, and for everyone it's overwhelming because it's likely
Speaker 3: over a million dollars, especially if you live in the US.
Speaker 3: But at least now you know, and then you can say, well,
Speaker 3: am I really going to reach that number or even
Speaker 3: have a shot at it if I don't make some
Speaker 3: changes today.
Speaker 1: I remember starting off and being so over whelmed at
Speaker 1: some of the things that people were suggesting, whether it
Speaker 1: was like max out your four O one K and
Speaker 1: I was like, who does that? How's that possible? And
Speaker 1: I get I think especially for younger listeners who are
Speaker 1: you know, half student loan debt or a car payment
Speaker 1: on top of a student loan debt, and they haven't
Speaker 1: progressed very far in their career, those things do seem
Speaker 1: completely unattainable. And yeah, breaking it down into bite sized
Speaker 1: pieces that allow you to make small but significant moves
Speaker 1: over time, like continually in the right direction, it pays off.
Speaker 1: And then you find yourself ten, twelve, fifteen years later
Speaker 1: and you're like, wait a second, I'm like I've made
Speaker 1: a lot of progress towards this thing. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those slow moving things. I think we're used to
Speaker 1: get rich quick. It sounds so good on the surface,
Speaker 1: but then underneath it's pretty rotten to the core. But
Speaker 1: the opposite is true. It doesn't sound very sexy on
Speaker 1: the surface, but like deep down, it's pure gold, and
Speaker 1: that's actually how you get to where you want to go.
Speaker 1: One of the things you talk about is budgeting with
Speaker 1: other people. You call it positive peer pressure. And you're
Speaker 1: not just speaking of married folks, right, You're not even
Speaker 1: just talking to like people who have a spouse or
Speaker 1: a long term partner. What are you advocating in terms
Speaker 1: of budgeting, but doing it with your peers.
Speaker 3: So I first advocate for finding two peers specifically just
Speaker 3: in case one of them is busy. Then you have
Speaker 3: a backup person and every month at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the month at least running some ideas by them or
Speaker 3: things that you are considering for things that you want
Speaker 3: to potentially accomplish during that month, or just want accountability
Speaker 3: and say to someone out loud. So I have a
Speaker 3: client who I just worked with recently. She was like
Speaker 3: star student client, and one of the biggest challenges that
Speaker 3: she had was up until this point, she had nobody
Speaker 3: to talk to about these finances, and so one she
Speaker 3: was just going around with a lot of preconceived notions
Speaker 3: that just actually were not materially accurate. But too she
Speaker 3: always felt like she was worse off than she actually was,
Speaker 3: And so she came for coaching with me, and in
Speaker 3: her last session she had all of these updates. There
Speaker 3: was nothing for us to even talk about in terms
Speaker 3: of next step. She just said, I just want to
Speaker 3: share with you all these things that I did. I
Speaker 3: just paid off this credit card. I actually have my
Speaker 3: one once worth contingency fund, and I told my parents
Speaker 3: about what I was doing. They were actually really supportive.
Speaker 3: I thought they were going to be mad at me.
Speaker 3: And I say that to anyone who's listening here, is
Speaker 3: that a lot of what we could tastrophize about our
Speaker 3: finances is in our heads a lot worse than they
Speaker 3: actually are. And when I talk about the you and crush,
Speaker 3: which is understanding your net worth, it is really helpful
Speaker 3: to have at least one other person other than yourself,
Speaker 3: whether it be a spouse or a friend or whoever,
Speaker 3: who actually knows what your net worth is, so that
Speaker 3: they can make some recommendations that are based off of
Speaker 3: realistic numbers or the reality of what your situation is
Speaker 3: versus oh, just max out your four o one K. Well,
Speaker 3: if my net worth is negative three hundred thousand, that's
Speaker 3: probably not the first thing I'm doing today.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you just touched on understanding your net worth,
Speaker 2: like you talk about pretty early on in the book too,
Speaker 2: just how your self worth combined with your net worth,
Speaker 2: Like that is what you need. So You've worked with
Speaker 2: a lot of folks, and you've come across a lot
Speaker 2: of different just individual scenarios and life stages that folks
Speaker 2: are in. How debilitating have you seen that this lack
Speaker 2: of self belief is for most folks? Like, have you
Speaker 2: found that that led has led to just slower progress
Speaker 2: with folks? Has that led to just continued poor decisions?
Speaker 2: Talk to us about that self worth, that self belief
Speaker 2: aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I talk about understanding your worth, I
Speaker 3: talk about both your net worth and to your point,
Speaker 3: your self worth. And I can genuinely say that the
Speaker 3: everyone that I've worked with as a client, their picture
Speaker 3: of self worth was not accurate. It just literally was
Speaker 3: not true. They were, so in doing this exercise of
Speaker 3: self worth, I forced my clients lovingly to actually calculate
Speaker 3: what their net worth is. As of today, I have
Speaker 3: never had a client who actually was accurate about what
Speaker 3: their net worth was. They always thought it was worse
Speaker 3: than it actually was, even the ones who both had
Speaker 3: a lot of money and who didn't have much money
Speaker 3: at all. The ones who didn't have much money at all,
Speaker 3: they thought they were, you know, just completely hopeless. And
Speaker 3: then the ones who had a lot of money just
Speaker 3: couldn't believe they had that much money and so tying.
Speaker 3: While I say, you know, your net worth is not
Speaker 3: your self worth, it should at least be based off
Speaker 3: of some accuracy of the data. But to your question
Speaker 3: of you know, how debilitating it is, I have found
Speaker 3: the area that where it's most abilitating for people is
Speaker 3: in fact in investing, because I have to consistently convince
Speaker 3: women in particular that they are already investors, and they
Speaker 3: always say, oh, I'm not smart enough, or I just
Speaker 3: don't know enough, or I'm not a math person, I'm
Speaker 3: not a numbers person, and I have to consistently have
Speaker 3: these conversations and messages to say, hey, if you had
Speaker 3: student loan debt. Guess what, You're an investor. If you
Speaker 3: have ever bought any sort of property, you are already
Speaker 3: an investor. If you've ever spent any money on something,
Speaker 3: whether or not you made money or not on it,
Speaker 3: you are already an investor. And having those conversations combined
Speaker 3: with the self worth aspect and also the reality of
Speaker 3: what it requires to become financially independent. You cannot become
Speaker 3: financially independent if you don't ever invest is really critically
Speaker 3: important and a lot of it is based off what
Speaker 3: you said, This stabilitating idea that I'm less than what
Speaker 3: I actually am.
Speaker 1: What do you think it is? It fuels that? Is
Speaker 1: it that we see other people out there touting maybe
Speaker 1: faux examples of wealth or we just assume that everyone
Speaker 1: knows more than we do, and how do we maybe
Speaker 1: like counteract whatever negative thing is in our brain. I
Speaker 1: was just thinking that Matt Matt has and I just
Speaker 1: started running like a year ago, and Matt's always like,
Speaker 1: you're a runner, and I have not thought on myself
Speaker 1: as a runner literally until like a week ago. I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, I think I'm a runner and I
Speaker 1: don't know why, because I've been doing it long enough
Speaker 1: and consistently enough. But really I was probably a runner
Speaker 1: like nine months ago or ten months ago or something
Speaker 1: like that. Why do we always like think less of
Speaker 1: ourselves than we actually should? And it does seem like
Speaker 1: the less inclinent we are to think of ourselves in
Speaker 1: a positive light, the less in client we are actually like,
Speaker 1: continue doing the thing and continue rocking it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we could have an entire other episode
Speaker 3: about the reasons why we all think that we're less
Speaker 3: than I mean, the patriarchy, like systematic you know, exclusion
Speaker 3: of certain groups. Also culture, also just you know, good
Speaker 3: old fashioned media. But I think in particular, like right now,
Speaker 3: in this moment, I honestly believe social media is the
Speaker 3: biggest contributor to this because, just like you, I don't
Speaker 3: consider myself a dancer, right because in my head, I'm thinking, Oh,
Speaker 3: a dancer is someone who's a backup dancer for Justin Timberlake,
Speaker 3: or who's a dancer in music videos, or can actually,
Speaker 3: you know, memorize a dance after just half an hour.
Speaker 3: I'm not any of those things, obviously, but I love dancing,
Speaker 3: and I think the same thing goes with personal finance.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm not rich. For example, in the US. I
Speaker 3: find this so fascinating as someone who, again who grew
Speaker 3: up with immigrant parents. Anyone in the US is by
Speaker 3: far richer than the vast jority of people in the Philippines,
Speaker 3: where my parents are from. But social media keeps making
Speaker 3: it trying to convince us that our life isn't enough
Speaker 3: and that you need this extra thing in order to
Speaker 3: then become the dancer or the runner or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And so one of the things that I really advocate
Speaker 3: for is what I call screenless Sundays, where I literally
Speaker 3: lock up my phone in my glove compartment in my
Speaker 3: car and then I along with my family members. Of
Speaker 3: my family members are with me. We are not allowed
Speaker 3: to look on our phones, we're not allowed to look
Speaker 3: on television, and we're not allowed to look at laptops,
Speaker 3: and we just have to talk to each other. I know,
Speaker 3: it's a wild well concept. We go analog for the day.
Speaker 3: We play board games, and we listen to records, and
Speaker 3: we go take walks in the park, and we meal prep,
Speaker 3: we do all these other things. And just one day
Speaker 3: of not constantly being hit in the face with you're
Speaker 3: not enough, you're not good enough, your house is not
Speaker 3: nice enough, your car is not fancy enough. It actually
Speaker 3: does a lot for It doesn't completely solve the problem,
Speaker 3: but at least for me, it helps me RESETX dictations.
Speaker 1: I think it's great advice. And I saw I've read
Speaker 1: that about your screenless Sundays, and it's just it's like
Speaker 1: this old it's like a version of a sabbath, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's certain religious practices that institute a sabbath of sorts,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that is like typically the more conservative that
Speaker 1: sect is, the more likely they are to make the
Speaker 1: Sabbath even stricter and including no screens or potentially like
Speaker 1: no lights or you can flip on the light switch.
Speaker 1: And we might think of that as antiquated in this
Speaker 1: day and age, but there are significant benefits in psychological benefits,
Speaker 1: especially given kind of the society we're in right now,
Speaker 1: the always connected society, that they can be derived from it.
Speaker 1: So I think that's really good advice and something that's
Speaker 1: well worth considering. It's something that I need to consider
Speaker 1: more for my family. Brendeat, We've got more to get
Speaker 1: to with you, including we want to talk about the
Speaker 1: one dollar rule and why you say eating out is
Speaker 1: good for our budgets. Oh hot take, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that right after this.
Speaker 2: We are back from the break talking about how we
Speaker 2: can all crush our money goals this year with Burnanette
Speaker 2: Joy and you talk about choice overload when it comes
Speaker 2: to all the different decisions we have to make. Do
Speaker 2: you have any just practical tips for folks when it
Speaker 2: comes to simplifying in order to reduce all of the
Speaker 2: decisions that we have to make on a not even
Speaker 2: just a daily basis, but like I don't on the
Speaker 2: hour kind of.
Speaker 3: Basic Yes, yes, I am not an advocate for tracking
Speaker 3: at all, and so when people hear that the S
Speaker 3: and crush stands for spend intentionally, their automatic assumption is
Speaker 3: that I have to track every single penny that goes
Speaker 3: out of my budget. And what I actually advocate for
Speaker 3: people is not to track, but to spend more time
Speaker 3: planning at the beginning of the month and using what
Speaker 3: I call the dollar rule, which I absolutely love. I
Speaker 3: get questions about it all the time, where it's very simple.
Speaker 3: It basically is just a slight twist on the cost
Speaker 3: per use idea, and it just says that if you
Speaker 3: are going to buy something, and this works with material goods,
Speaker 3: so clothes and accessories and tech gadgets and furniture. If
Speaker 3: you're going to buy something and it comes out to
Speaker 3: a dollar per use, just go ahead and buy it.
Speaker 3: Don't make it a big deal, don't make it a thing.
Speaker 3: You're going to get a good use out of it,
Speaker 3: and it's going to actually be worth it. And what
Speaker 3: I found is that helps a lot of people actually
Speaker 3: feel relieved about not feeling so guilty about spending things
Speaker 3: that they don't quote unquote need, and also not spending
Speaker 3: all of this time trying to find the best deal
Speaker 3: ever if it's going to be an inordinate amount of time.
Speaker 3: I will give you a prime example. One of my
Speaker 3: best friends, he has hated his couch for years, and
Speaker 3: it's because he just keeps saying, well, I can't spend
Speaker 3: more than this amount of money on a couch. But
Speaker 3: I said to him the other day, this was literally
Speaker 3: over Thanksgiving. I said, hey, had you just employed the
Speaker 3: dollar roll back, then it would have paid off by
Speaker 3: now for a couch that you actually really liked and
Speaker 3: so rad So your.
Speaker 2: Budding it once a day because you said it all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and he's a big college football fan, so
Speaker 3: he's been. He's in there all day long, right, and
Speaker 3: suffering and suffering, And so I really like the dollar
Speaker 3: rule to remove some of that back and forth and
Speaker 3: over analysis for decisions that are in the grand scheme
Speaker 3: of things not going to be that detrimental to your budget.
Speaker 1: All right, we've gone through CRUs. What's the H?
Speaker 3: So the H is my most underrated topic and I
Speaker 3: don't think we talk about it enough in personal finance.
Speaker 3: It's what we call healing your money wounds. And specifically
Speaker 3: I wrote about this because I noticed that a lot
Speaker 3: of people who do not do well with money, or
Speaker 3: so they think, they think it's because they don't know enough,
Speaker 3: or because they're not smart, or they're just bad with money.
Speaker 3: But what I found is that usually I can pinpoint
Speaker 3: almost an exact incident that caused them to be afraid
Speaker 3: of making money choices. I will give you a prime
Speaker 3: example for myself. I am turning forty. Like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: So in my first job in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 3: I was an HR professional in financial services, and then
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight I was in New York
Speaker 3: City laying people off. In two thousand and eight and
Speaker 3: occupy Wall Street was literally outside my tour and I
Speaker 3: remember realizing, Wow, you know, you can do exactly what
Speaker 3: everyone tells you you're supposed to do, but still end
Speaker 3: up basically out on the street, like people were literally
Speaker 3: getting walked out if you remember that, people were getting
Speaker 3: walked out with their boxes that day. And that also
Speaker 3: led me to realize how many people were on that
Speaker 3: other side of the table from me. I remember, this
Speaker 3: Guy'll never forget. There was this one guy who I
Speaker 3: was handing in his severance papers and he said, I've
Speaker 3: been working at this company longer than you've been alive.
Speaker 3: Why do you have a job And I don't. And
Speaker 3: I have encountered so many clients, for example, who were
Speaker 3: laid off at some point in their career, or maybe
Speaker 3: they saw their parents finding about money, or maybe they
Speaker 3: made a bad investment choice one time and now they're
Speaker 3: afraid to make other investment choices, and that's actually what
Speaker 3: holding what's holding them back, not lack of knowledge.
Speaker 2: Like what's the balance I guess between because you want
Speaker 2: to address those wounds, some of the events that happened
Speaker 2: in your past and your history, but at the same time, man,
Speaker 2: you don't want to dwell too much on some of
Speaker 2: those things that happened in the past, Like, how do
Speaker 2: you recommend to your clients to address those things without
Speaker 2: having them like totally consume their thoughts and everything about them.
Speaker 3: M hmm. Well, one thing is therapy, of course, and
Speaker 3: I don't bill myself at all as a therapist, so
Speaker 3: I actually require most of my clients to also have
Speaker 3: a therapist on hand while they are working with me,
Speaker 3: because sometimes we uncover things and they're like, wow, I
Speaker 3: didn't realize that was hurting me as bad as I thought,
Speaker 3: And I said, okay, great, now go talk to your
Speaker 3: therapists and come back to me, come back to you later.
Speaker 1: Oh that's true.
Speaker 3: But I also the reason I say healing your money
Speaker 3: wounds is because I really do think of it as
Speaker 3: a wound. If you think about a wound on your body,
Speaker 3: if you keep scratching it, then it'll just keep staying open,
Speaker 3: it'll keep stinging, and it'll never heal. But if you
Speaker 3: acknowledge that it's a wound, and you actually you know
Speaker 3: true it as in, you try to talk about it,
Speaker 3: You try to have conversations with people, you try to
Speaker 3: find some you try to in my case, find some
Speaker 3: other people who have overcome it and get some ideas
Speaker 3: on how you might be able to heal from it.
Speaker 3: Then it might not ever go away, and you still
Speaker 3: might have a scar, but at least you're not scratching
Speaker 3: it open every single time you make a money choice.
Speaker 1: All Right. One of the pieces, one of the things
Speaker 1: you suggest in your book is that eating out is
Speaker 1: good for your budget, which never heard that one before, Bernadette,
Speaker 1: That's usually it's the opposite. So like cooking home to
Speaker 1: save money. You know, you can do it for like
Speaker 1: two to three dollars per person per meal, right, whereas
Speaker 1: you go out to eat, and it's that adds up quickly,
Speaker 1: especially given what's happened over the past few years and
Speaker 1: how expensive it is to eat out. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: can you explain that one for me?
Speaker 3: Yes, So one of my clients, who's Latina, she said,
Speaker 3: when I told her this, I said, hey, you can
Speaker 3: actually go eat out, she said, Bernadette in Spanish, we say,
Speaker 3: you know, I komita and casa, right, there's food at home.
Speaker 3: You're not You're literally not supposed to do that. And
Speaker 3: so she was just baffled as to why I was
Speaker 3: saying that she could eat out, And I said to
Speaker 3: her in particular, I think it'd be good for you
Speaker 3: to go eat out once a week because all you
Speaker 3: do is work and you don't talk to any of
Speaker 3: your friends, and I don't, and I think you should
Speaker 3: go out to eat if you're going to go hang
Speaker 3: out with what are your friends? Because I think you're
Speaker 3: a little lonely right now, and I and I think
Speaker 3: that's where we've gotten so far away with personal finance
Speaker 3: advice to say at all costs, we should save every
Speaker 3: penny at the sacrifice of cultural experiences, community and actually
Speaker 3: having some healthier, uh healthier choices at times. Now. I
Speaker 3: know most times, especially again in the US, that the
Speaker 3: food that you're eating out isn't going to be that healthy.
Speaker 3: But at least where I live in Charlotte and I
Speaker 3: know where you guys are, that there are definitely places
Speaker 3: that you can go and get relatively affordable choices for
Speaker 3: if you if you're smart about it. So what I
Speaker 3: say in the book is one, we know that American
Speaker 3: American portions are out of out of control. They're usually
Speaker 3: two and a half times the size of what you
Speaker 3: should be eating. So if you can take that same
Speaker 3: meal and split it up into two or three meals.
Speaker 3: You're saving money there.
Speaker 1: Just stay my leftover Chinese food for lunch parnadette and.
Speaker 3: There you go. You see, you're making good choices on that.
Speaker 3: And for me in particular, food is very much part
Speaker 3: of how I experience other cultures. And so no, do
Speaker 3: I think that eating uber outs and eating McDonald's every
Speaker 3: day is a good use of your food food budget
Speaker 3: or your health choices?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: But do I think, For example, yesterday I went to
Speaker 3: an Asian festival in Charlotte. And when I tell you
Speaker 3: there's very few Asian festivals in Charlotte, I was you
Speaker 3: sure bet I was going to go there, and I
Speaker 3: was going to support every business owner there and make
Speaker 3: sure that they know that, you know, they're appreciated. And
Speaker 3: so I got so much joy out of going there.
Speaker 3: And of course, you know you're not going to go
Speaker 3: and spend, you know, frivolous amounts of money on eating out.
Speaker 3: But when I think you're doing it intentional for the
Speaker 3: sake of culture and community and connection, then I think
Speaker 3: it's worth spending the money.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: No, I you know, this kind of takes me back
Speaker 2: to the second letter in your acronym the R, which
Speaker 2: is reversing into financial independence. Like then the way you
Speaker 2: get there right, you start with the end in mind.
Speaker 2: Essentially you look at the number that you need and
Speaker 2: so in a similar way, we sacrifice the kind of
Speaker 2: life that we want to lead. We don't envision what
Speaker 2: we want that end result to look like, but I
Speaker 2: think we can think about, like you said, the community,
Speaker 2: the kind of culture that we want to be a
Speaker 2: part of, and then essentially back into it from there,
Speaker 2: like you start their plan backwards, and then that can
Speaker 2: inform the decision that we're making today, even if they're
Speaker 2: not the most financially optimized. And I love that you've
Speaker 2: got that built into your framework as well, But we
Speaker 2: really appreciate you sharing your thoughts just how you approach
Speaker 2: personal finance, especially with your clients and all that note, Actually,
Speaker 2: how can folks learn about this the coaching community that
Speaker 2: you've put together, and where can folks also learn.
Speaker 1: About your book?
Speaker 3: Yes, well you can learn about both of them at
Speaker 3: Crush Yourmoney Goals dot com. You can find how you
Speaker 3: can buy the book as well as the audiobook, and
Speaker 3: then we host regular monthly masterclasses if people just want
Speaker 3: to check it out. And what's really lovely is that
Speaker 3: once a month we open up our membership to anyone
Speaker 3: who's interested in joining, so you can see what it's
Speaker 3: actually like to be part of our community. And if
Speaker 3: you're just interested in hanging out on social media for now,
Speaker 3: you can check me out at Bernardette Joy, primarily on
Speaker 3: Instagram and on YouTube. And then I also write a
Speaker 3: ton of articles for places like Forbes and CNBC and
Speaker 3: c net, So if you just google my name, you
Speaker 3: can find articles where we talk about these different topics
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Cool. Just do not try to connect with Burnet on
Speaker 1: social media on a Sunday. She won't respond.
Speaker 3: I will not respond to you at all.
Speaker 1: Bernadett, thanks so much for joining us today. We really
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me all right.
Speaker 2: Kind of feels like we're chatting with an old friend,
Speaker 2: even though we've all hung out with Bernadette once or twice. Now,
Speaker 2: do you consider virtual hangs as like real hanks or friends.
Speaker 2: That's a good question, Probably not, because I'm not. Typically
Speaker 2: I'm never virtual hanging with my friends.
Speaker 1: That I have in real life, I guess. But texting
Speaker 1: this sets something up, irl, That's that's how I roll. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But that being said, I'm not gonna look a
Speaker 2: gift horse in the mouth. And this felt like a
Speaker 2: treat being able to sit down and chat with with Bernadette.
Speaker 2: But did you have a big takeaway from our conversation
Speaker 2: with heard today? I did.
Speaker 1: It came really early on in the conversation when she
Speaker 1: was talking about her side hustles and how she turned
Speaker 1: multiple side hustles into legit businesses that were profitable.
Speaker 2: And this is why we talk.
Speaker 1: About starting your own business even if it's small and
Speaker 1: making very little money in the beginning, Like you can't
Speaker 1: instantly turn it on and start making money like you
Speaker 1: can driving for uber or something like that. But the
Speaker 1: possibilities are much larger, right What it can become is
Speaker 1: is much more grand. So learn from Bernadette. Realize that
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of little things that you can
Speaker 1: do to start a business where you live, based on
Speaker 1: your interest and based on the needs you see in
Speaker 1: your community. Starting that business could be far more lucrative
Speaker 1: than just kind of going with the tried and true
Speaker 1: side hustle that's going to be essentially training time for
Speaker 1: money without the ability to build something larger and more scalable.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: That's a big vote for entrepreneurship. My big takeaway is
Speaker 2: gonna come from when she was talking about this exercise
Speaker 2: that she does with her clients as they're sort of
Speaker 2: looking off into the future and envisioning what life could
Speaker 2: look like. She called it the it would be cool
Speaker 2: if I love that exercise and it's just okay, write
Speaker 2: down all the things like brainstorm, it would be cool
Speaker 2: if I could fill in the blank. And I really
Speaker 2: really like that, But at the same time, there's something about.
Speaker 1: It that it doesn't worry me.
Speaker 2: But I would hate for folks to conflate that which
Speaker 2: is cool with that which is rewarding. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of times your mind, like if I think through, oh,
Speaker 2: it would be cool if my mind immediately goes to
Speaker 2: like things that are easy, things that are like in
Speaker 2: the moment, super fun, but like there's a difference between
Speaker 2: that versus something that is hard that takes a whole
Speaker 2: lot of work, where there's a lot of sacrifice on
Speaker 2: the front end, but then at the end of that
Speaker 2: or even like part way through that, you're able to
Speaker 2: look back at at something and say to yourself, man,
Speaker 2: that is cool, right, and like I think about just
Speaker 2: the it's not easy to start to start a family
Speaker 2: and like raise kids, but that is something where the
Speaker 2: older I get, like and the more I'm able to
Speaker 2: look at the years I've had with him in particular,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that is cool, and it just makes me
Speaker 2: want to do more and more cool things with them.
Speaker 2: And it's not something I would have said, well, it'd
Speaker 2: be cool if I could do that, like on the
Speaker 2: front end. And so I think there's just a slight
Speaker 2: delineation between those two things.
Speaker 1: Basically when you're saying, wouldn't it be cool if don't
Speaker 1: just think about going skydiving, although like that could be
Speaker 1: on your list, nothing wrong with that, but like maybe
Speaker 1: think about the bigger, more meaningful things that take a
Speaker 1: lot more effort.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think that just the thinking through
Speaker 2: just some of the fun things could be a great
Speaker 2: way just to spark some creative thought and to cause
Speaker 2: you to really buckle down and do some of these
Speaker 2: things that you've never thought would have been possible. A
Speaker 2: lot of oftentimes it is travel. But if you only
Speaker 2: focus on what feels like these like sugar rushes, like
Speaker 2: these quick hits of things that might fill the bucket immediately.
Speaker 2: I think over the long term, that could potentially leave
Speaker 2: somebody feeling hot over the course of years and decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think some of those pursuits, if
Speaker 1: taken to the extreme, can be incredibly self centered, right,
Speaker 1: and so we want to say, like, no, push yourself
Speaker 1: to think about the things are going to be ultimately
Speaker 1: gratifying over the years and decades too. So I think
Speaker 1: that's a good one. All right, Well, Matt, let's get
Speaker 1: back to the beer we had on this episode. This
Speaker 1: is Asahi. It is a Japanese super dry beer. Although
Speaker 1: made in Italy. There's product of Italy, so I don't
Speaker 1: know what that's about. I have no idea. We aren't
Speaker 1: they brewing that Japan.
Speaker 2: I mean, I thought it was a Japanese brew. No,
Speaker 2: I think it is originally, yeah, because it says here
Speaker 2: that it's brewed under the supervision of Japanese brewery.
Speaker 1: They flew one dude over to Italy.
Speaker 2: He's like hanging out, living the life and wherever they're Lalan,
Speaker 2: wherever they're Oh, I'm supervising, all right, But I will
Speaker 2: say I did enjoy this. It was just an easy drinking,
Speaker 2: light and dry lagger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really dry, like it almost evaporates off your tongue.
Speaker 1: I haven't had many beers that are this dry. There's
Speaker 1: only like one of the beer I remember it was
Speaker 1: like a serra bought a collab that it like hit
Speaker 1: your tongue and it flew right off of it. It was crazy,
Speaker 1: and and that was like I think, more of a
Speaker 1: sour and there were yeasts in it.
Speaker 2: But it's hard to explain the lightness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. It's hard to explain how it's
Speaker 1: a butterfly.
Speaker 2: It just barely lands before flittering off.
Speaker 1: Which is just kind of it's a It's an interesting
Speaker 1: sensory technique, so I like this one. It's it's probably
Speaker 1: something especially probably more of a summer beer in my
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, or if you're just really thirsty in the winter,
Speaker 1: I guess, although your ear doesn't say siate your thirst.
Speaker 1: But still I could see why it's wet, Joel, isn't
Speaker 1: it It might feel like it? No, in fact, it's dry.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this is a style that we don't typically have,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of fun to have some of these
Speaker 2: more foreign ish on the show.
Speaker 1: But hey, Italy still foreign.
Speaker 2: I know exactly it's like, well it is technically foreign,
Speaker 2: but yeah, glad you and I got to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: We will make sure to link to Bernadette Joy's site
Speaker 2: where it did. You can buy her book The Mastermind
Speaker 2: Group that she has all that up on the website
Speaker 2: at how tomoney dot com. But buddy, that's going to
Speaker 2: be it for this episode. So until next time, best
Speaker 2: Friends Out, Best Friends Out,