BiggerPockets Money Podcast - From $300K in Debt to Millionaire at 39 (Financial Freedom in 8 Years!)

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

From over $300,000 in debt to a millionaire in just eight years?! No matter where you’re at, it’s never too late to get on the path to financial freedom. This entrepreneur is proof that a little discipline, frugality, and creativity can radically change your financial trajectory! Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money podcast! Today, we’re speaking with Bernadette Joy, founder of Crush Your Money Goals. In 2016, Bernadette had dug herself a six-figure hole—a combination of student loans, credit cards, and mortgages—simply by listening to bad money advice. But in just THREE years, she paid off all of her debt and has since built a net worth of $1.8 million! How did she create such an enormous swing in less than a decade? In this episode, she’ll show you the exact steps she took so that YOU can do the same! Want to accelerate your journey to FIRE? Bernadette has all kinds of budgeting tips, debt paydown strategies, and side hustles that will help you reach your financial goals much faster. Stay tuned to learn how to wipe out your debt as quickly as possible, save for retirement, and even make an extra $100 a day alongside your nine-to-five job! In This Episode We Cover How Bernadette paid off $300,000 in debt in just THREE years Making an extra $100 a day with side hustles (while working a W2 job) The three-bucket, zero-based budget that balances frugality and freedom Using the “snowball” method to pay off student loan debt faster Whether you should keep a large cash position (or invest it!) How to manage financial anxiety on the road to financial independence And So Much More! Links from the Show Mindy on BiggerPockets Scott on BiggerPockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Join BiggerPockets for FREE Email Mindy: [e-mail] Email Scott: [e-mail] BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group Grab Scott’s Book “Set for Life” Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area BiggerPockets Money 586 – Average Net Worth by Age (How Do You Compare?) Connect with Bernadette   (00:00) Intro (00:59) Getting Into $300K of Debt (04:52) The Zero-Based Budget (14:00) Starting Side Hustles (18:33) Making an Extra $100/Day (24:44) Bernadette’s Portfolio (37:47) Connect with Bernadette! (39:16) Crush Your Money Goals! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-598 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2016, Bernadette Joy found herself in $300,000 worth of debt, with the only financial education being work harder. She paid off this debt in three years, making mistakes along the way, but taking what she learned and creating a plan that will ensure success. Today, we're going to hear how she crushed her financial goals and how you can follow her path to become a financial rock star. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. and with me as always is my own financial rock star co-host Scott Trench. Thanks, Mindy, amped to be here. Bigger Pockets has a goal of creating one million millionaires.

You're in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you're starting. And that's why we've got a millionaire mentor here on the show today on Bigger Pockets Money. Bernardette Joy, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. We are so excited to talk to you today. So much. I am such a fan of y'all, so I am very excited to be here. Woo-hoo. Well, then you know how we start every episode. Bernadette. Where does your journey with money begin?

Sure. So where I begin, I would say, is in 2016. And that was eight years from today where I looked back and I realized that I did everything right, quote, unquote. I got the good job. I married the cute husband with a good job. We had not one but two mortgages, two houses. I was a good job. I was a good job. I was. getting my MBA in a very good school and I had done really well as a college student. And so I did all the things right. And I realized in January 2016 that actually what I found myself in was a mess that I did not know how to get out of. And that is really where I feel like my personal finance money story started where I realized that following just traditional advice doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be financially free, nor will you be happy. Oh. So following traditional advice, what traditional advice? What traditional advice were you following that you discovered didn't make you happy or financially free?

So the biggest thing that my family taught me, and I'm the eighth of nine kids. So my father had seven kids from his first marriage and two kids from a second marriage. And so I was the eighth of the nine. And the story, as there is probably in many other families, is to work really hard. That's the ticket, right? That you go get a good job. You work for a stable company. You put in money into your 401K.

and you buy a nice home and then you should be good. Except I did all those things and I found myself in that $300,000 of debt without a clear plan on how I was going to pay that all off, without a career that I was really excited about. And most importantly, my mental health really took a toll during those years because I was not only working a day job. I was working multiple side hustles. I was going back to school to get my MBA. I made the mistake of doing all the things probably at the same time versus one at a time. versus one at a time. And that traditional advice of working hard, getting a good education, and trying to make as much money as possible was not working for me and not for my mental health,

absolutely. Can you walk me through what the $300,000 of debt was in? Yes. So it was $72,000 worth of student loans. It was a mortgage on my primary home, but also I had a second mortgage on a investment property that I really had no business being in because I had no desire to be a landlord while I was also going to school and also doing all of these other things. And then it was some of the usual bills of credit cards and car payments, the things that you would normally see on an average American's household. Got it. Okay. And did you have $300,000 worth of debt? But did you, were you in $300,000 of debt? Was your net worth negative $300,000 at this point? Or was it positive because you had assets against

that? Ah, great question. It was slightly positive. And when I say slightly positive, I think around that time, I wish I had known about tools like Monarch, money and Mintz back then, but I just didn't track any of my net worth back then. But if I had to guess what my net worth was, it was probably in maybe like under 50K, at most, maybe 100K. And that was simply because I had some money from investments from my 401K that had grown over time. but it was being canceled out by the student loan debt primarily. So any money that I had in my in my 401k felt like it wasn't really there because my student loans were accruing at a much faster rate. Okay, got it. So you had debt, but you didn't necessarily, this isn't necessarily a financial disaster from this position, but you felt like it was a financial disaster. So what did you do about it?

And how did you resolve the issue? Well, I'm so glad you made that distinction because I think what a financial disaster really feels like is for someone if they can go to sleep at night. That is a much better definition of a financial disaster than what I had coming in here. I can't sleep at night. Love that and appreciate that. But what mechanically did you do to resolve the debt situation after this self-education? So the first thing that I did was really scary, which was I,

significantly drained my savings. I had this fear of having a certain amount of savings about 10 to 20K of savings because a couple years earlier than that, I had a significant health emergency that cost me $10,000 out of pocket. And so ever since then, I was like, okay, I need to at least have as much money as my health deductible is. And so the scariest thing for me to do at first was to look at my total net worth. And first I learned what even net worth was and figure it out, okay, I have this debt, but I do have some savings. I do have some other things. Can I use that to put towards my debt? And so I went down to one month's worth of savings, which was about at the time, like $3,000 to $4,000. And I threw the rest of that money towards debt, which went against

a lot of the advice that was said to have three to six months worth of savings. But I thought to myself, well, I have other things that I want to do to be able to get out of this faster. And it's a little bit risky for me now. But I want to at least have one month's worth. So I can at least have 30 days to figure out my next move should, you know, my income situation really turn sideways. And I threw that money towards the debt. So two of my student loans, smaller ones, when I looked at the snowball to decide, okay, which, how should I go about these student loans? I decided to tackle it based off of the smaller amounts first. I took the $72,000. and I broke it up into the different loans that they were at.

And I said, let me just try to knock out these two $5,000 loans first. That's where I first started. And then once I was really out of money and I was like, okay, I guess you got to go figure out how to make more money is I got in a budget. And I'm very much a proponent of a zero-based budget as many money experts are. But the way that I did my zero-based budget was that I actually broke it out into three buckets. I called it survive, revive, and strive.

And what I found was that a lot of people really hate budgeting. And I hated budgeting the first six months that I did it too because it was so monotonous. It was all about tracking. It was all about making sure that you crossed every little penny off. And I'm more of a kind of bigger picture kind of thinker. And so I used my zero-based budget. And I hacked to the way that other experts taught it to say, okay, I just really care about three categories. Survive, which is your five basic expenses, your health, your transportation, your

food, your housing, and your utilities. And then the other two buckets, which is revive and strive, strive is anything that's going to help me grow my net worth. So paying down my debt primarily was where I was focused on at the time. I decided to pause on every other goal and just focus on paying down debt at that time. And then what was very different from what I was hearing was having this revived bucket of here are things I still want to do to make my life worth living while I'm going through this kind of terrible time period and have at least a couple things in there that really I enjoy. And at the time, it was board games and it was hosting potlux with my friends. I love the focus on the basics here and the emphasis on this is boring and monotonous.

And that's the work. It's called accounting or budgeting or whatever you want to call it. And nobody likes doing this. But it is absolutely essential first step for most people in the wealth building journey and one that most people never get to. So they never begin moving in the right direction and getting out of these traps. It just takes six, 18, 24 months typically. What Dave Ramsey usually says, like the gazelle, the sprint, like a gazelle kind of concept here. And it sounds like you were doing a version of that after following what he talks about there. Yeah. And I think where I also started to stray from that advice, though, too, was, you know, he's very much about like rice and beans. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I actually really like rice and beans. But I wanted to, at the time, I was still in that period where, you know, a lot of my friends were getting married and my friends were starting have young kids and stuff too. And so, you know, for me to say, okay, I'm just not going to go on any vacations for the next year when two of my best friends were getting married that same year. I was like, I'm not going to not go to my best friend's weddings, right? And so I had to figure out a way to balance that advice that I was getting to say, you know, cut everything out and figure out, well, what would make sense for me to feel like I can keep doing this. And I think a really big piece that also was mechanically very important for me is that once I did start tracking my net worth

and at the time it was mint, which, you know, RIP to mint, but I started renaming all of my accounts to things that actually really matter to me. So instead of saying checking account or savings account or 401K, it became, you know, checking account became my cash flow cushion. My savings account became, you're going to be okay. My 401k account said, don't worry about this. now because I actually paused my 401k while I was paying down my debt. And I literally named it, don't worry about this now. And so every time I looked at my net worth, it was also mechanically a reminder to me of what I was focused on. Scott and I will continue this conversation with Bernadette Joy and how she got out of $300,000 in debt in a minute. But first, I want to tell

you about Momentum 2025, Bigger Pockets Virtual Investing Summit. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one

dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code Pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code Pockets.

I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, you know what would make this more fun? calculating quarterly estimated taxes, but somehow every small business owner ends up doing it. Your dreams of creating, selling, and growing get replaced by late nights chasing receipts, juggling invoices, and wondering if that bad sushi lunch with Scott counts as a write-off. Change all that with Found. Found is a business banking platform built to take the pain out of managing money. It automatically tracks expenses, organizes invoices, and even preps you for tax season without

you doing the heavy lifting. You can set aside money for business goals, control spending with virtual cards, and find tax write-offs you didn't even know existed. It saves time, money, and probably. a few years of life expectancy. Found has over 30,000 five-star reviews from owners who say, found makes everything easier, expenses, income, profits, taxes, invoices even. So reclaim your time and your sanity. Open a found account for free at found.com. That's fow-u-undd.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Banking services are provided by lead bank, member FDIC. Don't put

this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leaner Stronger for Fitness, the Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful is its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more, all accessible

in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP money. Welcome back with Bernadette. I love that. That's not something that I have ever heard before. And I think that these mental shifts are really the difference between somebody who is going to be able to make it and somebody who is going to say, well, I guess I'm just going to be in debt forever. You said balance, which I think is really, really important. So many people are, you know, once they find themselves in the, I don't want to say massive debt, I've definitely talked to people with more death than you. But I've also talked to people with less death than you.

$300,000 is not small potatoes. But once they find themselves in this position, there's the, what is the saying if you find yourself in a whole step one is to stop digging? Not everybody stops digging. Some people are like, well, I guess this is just my life now. I'm going to keep digging. You're not going to get out of debt if you keep buying more things and accumulating more debt. And I, but I like the way that you have balanced because you're not going to not go to your best friend's wedding. Great.

That doesn't mean you have to fly there. first class and stay in the penthouse suite of whatever hotel they're at. It doesn't mean that you, you know, pay for her dress and do all these like big, big, big things. You can still attend so you're not missing it without breaking the bank because you're planning ahead. Very lucky that I think I had the foresight to say this is a temporary thing. And I say this quite often.

I said this to myself, I said, debt is a short-term solution, not a long-term lifestyle. That's actually what I wrote on my refrigerator at the time. Debt is a short-term solution. At the time, I couldn't afford to pay these student loans, and I decided to take out debt for it. It doesn't mean I have to hold them for the next 20 years, like many of my friends did. And so one day it will be done, but it's not going to be the rest of my life. I love that. I love that so much. And, you know, like you said, you don't have to attend all of the things. Having a friend who has the destination wedding and the destination bachelor's party and the destination, bridal shower, and the destination this and the destination that you can spend

thousands of dollars attending one event or one like series of events. And what are you getting out of this versus paying off the debt? And I see people getting getting wedding invites and are like, oh, well, I guess I'm going to go to Cancun this month. You don't have to. You can decide not to, especially if it's like a friend of a friend of a friend. you don't have to go to any wedding invite just because you get it. But you made it a priority to go to these. Hey, I can't go to everything. First of all, if it's a friend, you should not,

they should not feel like, oh, Bernadette's poor. Like that, my real friends don't look at me and say, oh, Mindy's poor at like whatever time of my life. They, they understand or they're not real friends. That's right. And I think, you know, being in what I, what we, you know, phrase as like, what feels like financial disaster is it has a funny way. of allowing you to really decipher who your quote unquote real friends are. The people who really support and want to see you thrive are not going to make fun or not going to make you feel bad about where you're at. They're going to say, okay, like, where can we meet you in the middle?

And for me specifically, what I think is really fun is those same friends, they have followed my journey over the last eight years. And they are now telling me that they're teaching their kids what I was talking to them about during the last eight years. So it might feel really crappy while you're in it, but I have, you know, I can look back now. And that's why I said that my journey started in 2016 is that that was really the tipping point for me to realize that I want my life to look differently, not just my finances. Oh, I love that. I want my life to look differently, not just my finances. So getting yourself out of debt, is that where the side hustles came into play?

Yes. So once we ran out of savings and once I budgeted as much as a, I could, then we decided, and when I say, wait, it was really myself and my husband just had to go along with it, is that I had a very aggressive goal of paying off the $72,000 of student loans in two years. So mechanically, what I thought to myself was, okay, and stereotypically, I'm quite, I'm quite good at math as an Asian. So $72,000 divided my two years was $36,000. $36,000 a year was more than what I was making in a salary at the time. What were you doing for work at the time? I was a recruiter for a third-party recruiting company. So if you know how that works, you'd get a draw. And so my salary at the time was 30K. But if you don't make your commissions, you have to pay it back. So they just give you this money and hope that you make it back. So really, I was getting these paychecks, but they weren't technically like solid salary. So note to self, anyone who ever wants to become a third-party recruiter, it's basically sales. Yeah. Well, that's a good caveat there because it sounds like that's particularly challenging profession for the way you view money in particular as well. And the way, especially at the time here where there wasn't a guarantee of a paycheck and there was a commission base. Did reality translate to you not making sales or did reality translate to you doing much better than that $30,000 draw? So when I first started doing that job, it was really, really challenging for me because I had come from doing, you know, more traditional. You get paid a salary every week. And when I decided to do my MBA, I took this role on so that it would have some more flexibility. But of course, the caveat with having more flexibilities that you have potentially more risk and not getting that steady paycheck. So in the first year that I was doing that while I was in my MBA program, my old boss will tell you I was pretty terrible. because I thought operating like a regular salary person would get me sales. And that's just not how that worked. And so it took me about a year and a half to get my feet underneath me. And I finally started breaking even on my draw. So when it comes to the side hustles,

to your point was one of the side hustles I realized that I could create out of this experience was that I was really good at writing resumes. And I was really good at reviewing resumes because I was a recruiter. So I started charging people to, not in my day job, that would have been a conflict of interest. In my personal life, I always had people who knew I had done HR in the past. And so they would always ask me, oh, can you read my resume or can you help me with some job interviewing tips? And I turned that into a side hustle, which funny enough became the predecessor to what is now my financial education company. And in the beginning, I was charging people $19 to review their resume and not realize.

obviously that was very undercharged. And luckily for me, I had a client, probably my 20th or so resume that I had reviewed. I had a client who said to me, you have severely undercharged me. You need to raise your rates. And so I raised them up from $19 to $89. And eventually by the time I got out of my debt, I was charging $400 to do a resume review. Good for you. Good for you for listening and for raising your rates.

Yeah. when you said $19. I'm like, whoa, that's nothing. Even $89 is nothing. And, you know, at the time, and I love that question, Scott, where it's just like, well, did that catch up with reality was I was still grappling with the idea of, you know, okay, I have all this debt to pay and I could go. My husband was also doing side hustles. He was driving, you know, the usual things, driving Uber. One fun thing that we did do, we were extras on TV shows.

And so that was fun. That was totally minimum wage. But it was just so that my husband could get close. to Claire Daines because he had a huge crush on her back then if you know who Claire Daines is, then you know how old you are. And so, you know, those were, you know, 15 to $20 per hour. So I was thinking in my brain, oh, it takes me $19. $19 is a fair rate because it takes me less than an hour to review your resume because I'm really good at it. And that's when I started realizing, oh, actually, it's not compared to the time that you spend on something. It's compared to the value,

obviously, that you provide someone on how much you should charge. All right. So we've got a budget. We've got a, we got our job as a recruiter. We've got side hustles here. Tell us, we started attacking, we kind of left off the journey about removing the debt with attacking the smallest balanced loans first. Can you finish the story and let us know how this translator over the couple of years to, I assume, resolving the situation with the debt? Sure. Sure. So going back to $72,000, my goal was $36,000 a year. So I kept reversing back into, well, what would feel reasonable to me. So $36,000 a year divided by 12 months is $3,000 per month. Okay, that's still a lot of money. Let's keep reversing back. $3,000 divided by four weeks is

$750 a week. That still seems like a lot. So seven days a week, I need to figure out something to do that's at least $100 a day to either save or make. And honestly, I would love to tell you that there was a very clear system around this. But every day I would just wake up and say, okay, Bernadette, what can you do for $100 today? Is it one resume? Is it selling some of these clothes? Is it AJ going and doing Uber?

Is it trying to close that deal that I was, you know, wasting time on on my recruiting job? And so every day, my goal was just to figure out $100. And what I found was that the first couple of months, it was easier because I had lots of stuff to sell in my house. I did the garage sale. I was selling things on Facebook marketplace. I was trying to get more gigs with the resume review.

But I loved your question earlier of like when did the reality set in. Having that goal of $100 per day got me a lot more focused on, for example, in my day job to say, all right, send the email now instead of later to close that recruiting deal or reach out to 10 more leads today because one of them could be $100. Right. So that $100 a day over the next couple of months was really where I had some momentum. But then I hit what most people, I think, feel when they're doing a debt snowball is you hit this plateau. You get some of these other debts out of the way.

And then I started hitting the student loan amounts that were like 20K, 10 and 20K. And I'm like, oh my gosh, these are not going to go away anytime soon. And that's where my husband and I decided, you know, well, what else can we do? that could be a more sustainable, quote-unquote, side hustle at the time that would actually bring some other income. And so that's when I started in my MBA program having this idea of a business that would help me have more sustainable income versus just doing all these other side businesses. And it was a business that was based out of what we talked about, Mindy, about how you can spend like $1,000 just going to all these different weddings. I started a dress rental business,

kind of like rent the runway back then, locally here in Charlotte, where I could take women's clothes, dresses specifically, special occasion clothes, and I would hold them in inventory and I would rent them out to other people, kind of like blockbuster, you know, like I would have this inventory. And then people would be able to rent them out for me. And I turned that into a business that I ran for three years. And that also helped me pay down my debt significantly. That was income that I didn't have before.

What kind of income does renting out these dresses generate? And like how much did you put into this business in the first place? Like did you buy the first few dresses or were you just getting dresses from other people? Cainfully, the first hundred dresses were for my own closet. They're all in a similar size. So I could only help so many people. But what I did actually back then was I put it out to my social media. And I said, does anyone have any dresses just laying around right now?

Can I borrow them from you? and then I will give them back to you whenever you need them. So I actually didn't have very much seed investment that was required for this business other than I had to buy a lot of black hangers and I had to pay for dry cleaning. But I actually ran it out of my house for the first year that I was doing it. And it was in my spare bedroom where I would store all these dresses. And this is, I mean, this is crazy now if you think about this because it's pre-COVID. But, you know, random people would kind of like come to my house and say, I need a dress for a wedding or I need a dress for this 50th anniversary wedding. And I would, you know, give them some example, some options for dresses. And then it turned, it slowly turned into a retail business. But I started out with, I've started all of my businesses with no debt, no cap, like no loans. I've always ceded it with as little capital as I could possibly do. All right. We've got to take one final ad break. And then we're going to talk about how to crush your money goals when we get back.

Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts, and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your

laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch's subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all in one tool that makes money management simple.

Use the code Pock at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch. Monarch.com code pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites.

Indeed's sponsored jobs helps you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored posts. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide.

There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Just go to Indeed.com slash bigger pockets right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Terms and conditions apply.

Hiring, Indeed is all you need. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S.

With over 1,500 corporate guides who are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data and all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit Northwest registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with you.

Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money free. I'm not an astronaut. I don't need an astronaut. Audiences have spoken. Project Hail Mary is an awe-inspiring masterpiece. So, I met an alien. If you've fallen out of love with going to the movies, this one will bring you back.

Ryan Gosling, in the first must-see movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary. Only theaters March 20th. Thanks for sticking with us. Let's get back into it. Would you categorize yourself as financially anxious in the beginning? I would categorize myself as financially anxious now. I'm forever financially anxious, which is why I think, you know, financial independence and this idea of, you know, the fire movement really appealed to me because I was like, oh, is that a way to get out of my anxiety?

I've actually been a clinically diagnosed with anxiety in the past. So not only would I say was I financially anxious in the beginning, I think the finances was actually exasperating my anxiety that was actually really there. Do you feel less anxious now that you don't have the debt? Or is it, does it continue? I definitely feel way less anxious. I would say back then my anxiety from a scale of 1 to 10 was probably a 15. I would say now my anxiety level around finances is like around a five. I would not be able to say, oh, I don't worry about money ever.

But I think it's a lot more manageable. And I know that in the moment that when I do have anxiety around finances that I have, this eight years of experience that allows me to come up with better plans than I did before. How does your financial portfolio translate to your reduced anxiety? Could you tell us what you invest in and how much cash you have specifically, at least relative to your spending? Yeah. So full transparency. My current net worth, I'm 39 years old. My husband and I have a joint net worth of 1.8-59 as what I looked at it this morning. And about half of it is in cash right now. And the other half of it is spread among our retirement accounts. So both of us have 401ks and both of us. have IRAs, both traditional and Roth, from our past rollovers and stuff. And the reason that I actually

am holding onto what I would say is a significant portion of cash is because my goal, as I turn 40 in February, is to become an angel investor specifically for women-owned businesses. So I am holding onto that cash with, I have an accelerator program right now that I am hosting to see if any of those businesses are ones that I would put that money into. Okay. I'm glad you clarified that the reason for the half in cash, because that prompted a question that you have now answered. Thank you.

You said your net worth is $1.859 million. Is there any net worth that would cause your anxiety levels about money to drop to zero? The theoretically, the number has been 2.5, but I said that when I was at 1.2. So I say that in the sense of there is this challenge that I don't think a lot of people talk about in financial independence, and this is me just being fully transparent, is that there's always this idea of like, once you hit the goalpost, like you will be fine and you will feel great and your life will change. And then you meet the goalpost and then you're like, oh, no, I still feel the same. So there is work to be done both, and this is why I talk about the work that needs to be done

both on just the financial numbers of it, but actually having the skill sets around the emotional challenges that come with personal finances. And there's still a lot of work I have to do. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I'm the eighth of nine kids. That hasn't changed with me becoming a millionaire. And so in the past couple of years, for example, like my father passed away unexpectedly. My mom had a kidney transplant and kidney disease runs in my family. And so when I think about where would I feel really comfortable, I don't think my anxiety level,

to be honest, will ever be a zero because I'm always still thinking about, well, what can I do to prevent some of these things that I know are coming down the path, i.e. health challenges or the economy or dips in the stock market, which inevitably will happen at some point. Bernadette, when did you begin, can you remind us of the year that you had $300,000 in debt? How long ago was that? 2016, eight years ago. Okay. So in eight years, you went from basically zero, maybe $100,000 in net worth with $300,000

in debt, to a debt-free, $1.8 million position. How did you come to pass that you have $900,000 in cash over those eight years? So remember when I said earlier that in 2016, we had the two. mortgages. So we focused on, after we paid off the $72,000 of student loans through all that muscle is we decided to pay off that first mortgage. So that became a rental property that we rented out for a couple of, for I think three years after 2016, so 2019. And then we decided to sell that property and we used the proceeds of that property to pay off our primary home at the time. And as you guys have so astutely diagnosed, I'm an anxious person. And so at 34 years old to have a

paid off home going into a 2020 pandemic allowed me the ability to take a lot more risks than I think people were able to take in 2020. So in 2020, I decided to close that dress business. 2019 actually is when I went to my first FinCon. And at that FinCon is where I learned that, wow, there's ways that you can make money, including making content and all of that. And so I decided to close the dress rental business because it was a business that required me to work nights and weekends. And I wanted to share more of what I was learning in personal finance. And so in 2020, I launched what is now crushed your money goals.

And that $900,000 in cash has been. the summation of my husband and I sold all of our real estate positions. So we actually rent now, which is another topic people find fascinating, is that we are millionaires who rent. And then we also have basically not taken much out of my business. My business is about to cross over a million dollars of revenue in 2025. And we have run that business completely death-free. Okay. So the answer at the highest level is we made a couple of tweaks here. but we generated what we generated so much income in the last eight years that after tax, you were able to max out these four,

what you were able to max out these four okays and then after tax generate $900,000 in liquidity and pay off your home for that, which is an extraordinary offensive play in the game of finance here. So congratulations on that. And you're going to parlay that into using that experience in business, into investing in what on a risk adjusted basis could be a higher yielding investment than your traditional S&P 500. index fund because you are an entrepreneur and are going to build a network and proactively

curate this angel investing fund. I see why you get paid the big bucks, Scott. That was a very succinct summary of everything. I love it. I just, I just think it's fascinating to hear different stories here. And everyone has such a different set of circumstances around why they make the money decisions they do. And yours make perfect sense in the context of your situation and how you view money. And I just, I just find it endlessly fascinating to learn about different viewpoints on this. no doubt that you will continue to be extremely successful over the next couple of years with this and probably hit on a couple of big winners with this approach. Well, that's the hope.

And, you know, I really appreciate that you made that distinction, too, of, you know, because I'm an entrepreneur now, that the reason that I have this, like, large cash position is because it's sitting and waiting to be an investor into these other businesses. But, you know, you, without me even saying it, you said that my husband and I, over the last couple of years, we have maxed out both of our 401ks, both of our IRAs. I also, because the 401k is sponsored by my own company, I also do my own matching and my own profit sharing on that. So I'm able to put more into my 401k than a typical employee. And so a good portion of that money that we have sitting in investments is just from the traditional investing that we've done over the years.

But I finally got the courage in the last year to say, wait, if I was able to build a successful business myself and I have an interest in seeing representation that I do not see in the stock market, then am I willing to take that risk? And I think because I am debt-free specifically, again, with my anxiety, that gives me the opportunity where I don't know that I would have done that had I still been carrying this debt all this time. So a couple more observations I want to make here. Mindy and I did an episode discussing the net worth of average Americans. And in that episode, that I observed and that that wealth number is likely vastly understated. Americans vastly understate their wealth.

And I want to call that out as an example in this situation as well. This is a, we've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs and you are very similar in terms of how you manage your money to lots of classical entrepreneurs here in that you have a large cash position. I would be willing to bet that over the next couple of years, you will not invest more than 60% of that cash position in angel companies, you'll continue to maintain a large cash position. Tell me if I'm wrong, as those things come on. That's correct. That's 100% correct.

I believe, is your home included in your net worth that you share with us? No, because I'm renting. And is your business included in that $1.859 million net worth number? I was waiting for you to ask me that question. It is not because I have not done a proper valuation on my business yet. So that is something that we're working on in 2025. Okay. So you have this incredibly ultra-conservative financial approach, which allows you to then be very aggressive with these angel investments that could potentially take off.

And again, I just think it's just a wonderful, classic different view of how people view their financial situation. I would imagine your net worth is maybe two to five times as big as this number if you have a million dollars in revenue and a profitable business, depending on how essential you are to that business, which is probably very essential in your particular profession. But that's another major chunk of the story here that is not reflected in there. And I think that that's, I think that that's how most people in your situation would view their financial situation. That's absolutely right. I, I love that observation. And that's something that I, like I said, I still have a lot of room to grow, even though I consider myself to be very savvy in personal finances. And one of the things that I am working on right now is that I've said this to people before. I've worked for seven other companies. And the only time I was at a company. that had a female CEO of color was when it was my company. So for me to now say, oh, I have a company that could be potentially valued at this amount of money. It's still, it hasn't fully sunk in yet. And so the nice thing is for anyone who's an entrepreneur, this is why you have a board and this is why you have a really good CPA and tax people on your

side to say, hey, you are in fact operating as a CEO here. We need to do some of this due diligence. So thank you for reminding me that. And last question, do you have any other assets that other people might consider part of their net worth that are meaningful like cars or assets that your business owns or anything like that that you don't include in this number as well? Well, I think it is part of the company valuation, but we haven't done it yet, is we have several trademarks and copyrights that we have not really done a value on. And because I had some significant things come out like a book and the podcast and stuff with these trademarks, it's probably gone up a lot more since we last looked at it. So that's something that we really want to look at.

And then the, not necessarily something that's other people don't have, but, you know, my husband and I, and this is classic, you know, entrepreneur kind of thing. We drive a $25,000 $100 Hyundai Sonata and it's not fancy or anything like that. But it's paid off in full and it gets us to and fro. And we are still very proud of the fact that we have one car instead of two. And if you all know Charlotte, North Carolina, it's not an easy place to go around with public transportation. So the fact that we've gone away with having one car for the last seven years is pretty remarkable to us. Okay. So this begs a question. What does $2.5 million in net worth mean to you? Like what would you, what, what is what does that success look like in the context of this conversation? So my husband and I just had this conversation. So it's fresh in my mind. My husband, if you can't tell, if you ever meet AJ, y'all, he is the exact opposite of me.

He is the least anxious person in the world. Nothing bothers this man. So there was a sit down conversation we had three weeks ago where I said to him, the reason that I am doing all these things and constantly fiddling around with the way that we structure the business and where we're putting our investments in is I want to get to this number. And he asked me the exact same question. Well, what does 2.5 really mean to you?

I don't understand. We seem to be pretty fine right now. And part of it, if I'm being totally honest, is it's the calculation of, okay, that was my fire number. 2.5 would get us to where if that's sitting in the investments, then we would be okay to potentially not have to work anymore. And that's really what I'm looking for is that second half, that I don't have to work anymore. And theoretically, I, you know, and I tell people that right now I do have enough saved up for retirement if I were to take a step back. But the reason I still work, and this is what people ask me all the time, is like, well, why are you still work? I'm like, because I really love K-pop music. And for anyone who is also a fellow K-pop

stand, K-pop music is very expensive to have as a hobby. So 2.5 would get me to have all the things that I need, plus go to at least a couple of K-pop concerts a year. Okay. So going to concerts is expensive. I was like, I, you know, I've heard Gungham style. Oh, we get you up on your K-pop references with my friend. That's a 15-year-old song. Okay. Well, awesome. So that, that's Thank you for sharing this awesome story here. Can you tell us about what the latest and greatest is with your business and where people can find out more about you? Awesome. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation.

You guys asked the best questions. You can find me at crush your money goals.com. That's the trademark that I had mentioned earlier. And we just came out with our first book. I have it. Oh, look, Mindy has it. It's 25 smart habits. I'm so glad I got to actually give you the advanced copy in person because I, like,

I said, I've been a fan of y'all for a long time. And so the book is out now. And specifically, I wrote this book as the 25 smart habits that I wish I had known eight years ago that are simple and that people can actually implement. This is not the book that tells you what you need to know. This is the book that tells you what you need to do. And so we are just spending the next year doing a lot of workshops for people who want to get their money habits right. All right, Bernadette. This was super, super fun. Where can people find you again online? Sure. We are at Crush Your Money Eagles.com. We have a free guide if you want to check out some of the resources that we talk about. And then I also am primarily on Instagram and on YouTube at Bernadette Joy spelled with the word

debt. D-E-B-T. Yeah, I love the way that you spell Bernadette Joy on your socials. That's awesome. All right. Bernadette, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your time today. And we will talk to you soon. Thank you so much. All right. That was Bernadette Joy. And that was a fantastic story. I love how, well, I don't love that she was in $300,000 worth of debt, but I love that she decided to get herself out of it and then made a specific plan to do so. Scott, what did you think of her debt payoff journey and her subsequent story after that? I thought it was a great example. Her persona, Bernadette, kind of really reminds me of a lot of the entrepreneurs, like I mentioned in the show, that I've talked about money with or come to know over the years.

in that she's so ultra-conservative. Like she wasn't $300,000 in debt. She had $100,000 net worth, right? Like if we were to finance Friday, we'd say you have $100,000 net worth. Like, let's figure out how to do all these things. But the debt was so confining to her mentally that it changed the way she had to approach her financial situation. She, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, in some ways, took huge risks with her commission-only job as a recruiter and then going into business for herself. and mitigated those risks with $900,000 in cash accumulation over the last eight years and a hundred

percent payoff of all debts while maxing out a 401K. Her position will continue to be that conservative forever, which will allow her to then make some investments in very quote unquote high risk investments like angel investments in angel companies or complete startups with no revenue whatsoever. And I just think that's a really interesting dynamic. And that's how a a small percentage, but a very notable percentage of the population manages their money. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's just a completely different worldview. It's just, it's funny how it doesn't seem as conservative, I think, to most people listening. I think she thinks her position is a lot more risky or a lot more indebtedness than most people

who work a regular job, W-2, have a steady paycheck would feel about a similar set of circumstances to where she started from. Yes, but without that W2 safety net, having a larger cash position is the way that she is able to take her financial anxiety from a 15 to a 5. I thought it was very interesting that she fully realizes that her anxiety is never going to be at a zero. And I think that's important to come to the realization yourself. If you have financial anxiety, ask yourself the same question I asked Bernadette, what number, what? what position, what does your portfolio have to look like for your anxiety level to be zero. And if it's never going to be zero, that's your story. And you should not try to change that because anxiety is such a difficult obstacle to tackle.

But as low as you can get that number and keep revisiting that so that you continue to stay on top of it. I think that's going to be such a successful. position to be in when you are somebody who does have that financial anxiety. I am skeptical that Bernadette's anxiety will ever get to zero around money based on what we heard today. But I do think it will continue, she will continue to improve as she reaches her financial goals, continues to amass cash, makes a couple of more successful investments, and grows her business. And it sounds like the $900,000 in cash really helps her husband sleep well at night at the very least. So that's great.

Well, should we get out of here, Mindy? We should. Scott, that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Of course, you are Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying, bye-bye, Octopi.