BiggerPockets Money Podcast - Naseema Went Bankrupt at 25, Became a Single Mom at 30, and Built $1.3M by 45

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

How do you go from nearly $1 million in debt to building a $1.3 million net worth? In this BiggerPockets Money episode, hosts Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench sit down with Naseema McElroy to hear how she rebuilt her finances through intentional money decisions, strategic debt payoff, disciplined investing, and strong financial systems. Naseema shares how selling a home helped her eliminate debt, how she learned to control major expenses, and why boring, consistent investing became the foundation of her wealth. She also opens up about navigating real estate setbacks, life transitions, and the path toward financial independence. If you’re paying off debt, investing, rebuilding after a financial setback, or working toward financial freedom, this episode is packed with practical lessons you can use to build wealth.To go beyond the podcast:Interested in a Flat Fee Financial Planner? Go to https://biggerpocketsmoney.com/fipro/Interested in Learning More About Buying a Franchise? Check out: biggerpocketsmoney.com/franzyGet 50% Off Your First Year of Monarch by using code ‘Pockets’: https://www.monarch.com/pocketsConnect with Naseema McElroy:Website:financiallyintentional.comSocial: @financiallyintentionalWe believe financial independence is attainable for anyone no matter when or where you’re starting. Let’s get your financial house in order!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's guest is Naseema McElroy. In the last 20 years, she has gone through a bankruptcy, a divorce, another breakup, and now has three kids as a single mom, yet still managed to become a millionaire by age 45. We are going to be hearing her actual numbers and how she's built this impressive portfolio. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always, is my loves a money story with many twists and turns, co-host Scott Trench. Thanks, Minnie. This is definitely an up and down story here. And wow, the resilience and the foundation that Nesema brings are really what's what saved her financial story here. And it's incredibly impressive and incredibly powerful. We're also going to get into it much later in the

episode in detail, but we're going to be talking about how Nesema paid off $1 million in debt. That debt consisted of a mortgage, student loans, car payments, and expenses all resulting from her divorce. Nesema is the founder of financially intentional. She is a labor and delivery nurse and the author of the book, Smart Money. We are so excited to be joined by you today. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Thank you for having me. Let's get some background here to set the stage. Could you tell us where your journey with money begins and set the stage for helping us kind of figure out the big catalysts in your journey? I mean, I guess my formal money story starts kind of in 2015, being a single mom, kind of owning this McMansion with just me

and my baby and like earning a lot of money for a long time but feeling really, really poor. And just like, well, what does it take to really feel wealthy and really feeling like, man, like the only people I really see that are wealthy are people who are born into it, people that don't look like me, or people that are scammers. Where is my place in this story and trying to navigate that? So yeah, I started on this journey of learning about finances, which I thought was going to be like this PhD level intensive kind of thing to understand my finances. And it set me on a path to creating this brand and building wealth for myself and my daughters. And, you know, it's been an incredible journey.

Let's zoom in on that 2015 start here. How did you arrive in this position as a single mom? Help us understand what mixed mansion looks like and what your income and expense profile look like at that point. Yeah, so it was a 4,000 square foot, five bedrooms, five and a half bath house in Northern California. So the house at that time, you know, we were coming off of kind of like the housing market decline. So it wasn't super expensive by California standards, but probably by every other standards. So it was about a $630,000 house. At that time, I was making about $200,000 a year as a labor and delivery nurse.

I remember I had an FHA loan, so I think my mortgage was like $4,000 with hella high PMI, or MIP that I remember at that time. But I also had $200,000 in student loans where my minimum payments were $1,900 a month. And just like you're normal every day, you know, debt. Like I took some money from my 403B to put down money on my house. And so paying that back, you know, normal stuff. Did you say you had a $200,000 income as labor and delivery nurse? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's like something that people need to wrap their heads around with the Bay Area, right?

Because people think, oh, you know, this, like that job probably is $110,000 and many other metros around the country. But everything's more expensive, income and salaries and taxes and all those other things in California broadly in the Bay Area specifically. We've seen how that plays out in some of the datasets that we've been working with here. Where is that going, right? You have $200,000 coming in. how much feels left over at the end of the month, you know, given the $200,000 in student loans, the $600,000 mortgage with $4,000 payment, where does that go? You know, I did not know initially.

I just knew that every month I did not have any savings. I just felt really, really broke. And I think where a lot of people are is that we simply do not really sit down and understand the real numbers of what's coming in and going out every month. And so that was like one of my biggest lessons, right? It was like, I thought I wasn't wealthy because I didn't know how to invest because like this investing had to be like this crazy thing like on trading places where you're like on the floor of the stock market and you got to know how much pork bellies are and all this kind of stuff.

So I thought that's what it was. But it was really me not understanding what was going on with my money and not being in the driver's seat of that. And so like I could not tell you. honestly, where my money was going. And it wasn't, like I said, it was on normal things. It was on housing. It was on the cars. It was on, you know, the things I was supposed to have because, you know, I was well off. And I do want to make a caveat. So $200,000 in the Bay Area as labor and delivery nurse is not abnormal. But at that time, I was working two jobs. So I had like a part-time

job as well as like a full-time job, which I was working like five days a week still. But I just want to preface that so people will be like, oh my God, like, is that how much nurses make? Yes, you can make that much, but it just depends on how much you work. I imagine that is five days a week and more than 40 hours, because some of those shifts can be longer. It's like a little over 40 hours. I'll do like 212s and at 2 8s or something like that, so it's like 50 hours maybe. And so what was the catalyst here? So that's the, we set the stage, here's the position that we're in, what changes and begins to shape your trajectory going forward? Really, it was just like I, like, Most moms are like, if I don't do better for myself, I got to do better for this baby I have.

If something were to happen to me, I need to know that my daughter would be cool. And so I started off and just like, okay, well, I got two master's degrees. I'm not dumb. Like, I know how to study things. So I'm going to put the same level of intentionality into learning about my finances and learning about as I've, you know, used for my other degrees. And so I have an hour commute to work. every minute of that is going to be spent listening to podcasts and audio books and reading

and doing all of the things to change my circle of influence to now normalize those messages around wealth. Yeah, I just started learning and implementing along the way. What were some of the changes that you made? Really learning how to budget and paying myself first and understanding finally what that meant. Like I've heard it my whole life, but like what does that mean an application, like making sure that I had a goal. And initially my goal was just, you know what, I'm probably behind because I got hell of dead. Like, so let me focus on paying off that debt and setting a number and being like, hey, if I want to be debt free by this time, this is how much money I need to be putting towards my debt. And like I said, I started at like

having zero savings, nothing put aside to being at a point where I was consistently putting like $4,000 a month. towards my debt just because I flip that relationship with my money where I prioritize my debt and then everything else just fell in line. What were some of the things that you had to give up in order to put that $4,000 towards your debt every month? Honestly, nothing. It was really just a shift and people think like I worked more or I cut down. I didn't. My lifestyle in itself did not change. I just had to get intentional. And it was also a very like challenging time in my life where I couldn't work more. I had gotten married. Then my marriage turned like really, really abusive and like I could not like

work because I had to stay home with my daughter. Like I couldn't work extra. So a lot of people were just like, you just work more and paid off your debt. I did not. I just was really, really intentional about every single dollar that came in. How long did it take you to ramp from nothing to that $4,000? And how long did it take you to pay off the debt? So it was only a couple of months. Once I, I finally figured out budgeting, and I started using zero-based budgeting, where I was giving every single one of my dollars in assignment. But, yeah, once I got like really intentional, it took a couple of months to ramp up to getting good with that system. And then after that, and under three years, I was able to pay off nearly a million dollars in debt.

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And I was starting kind of fresh. Part of me starting over was when I had that $58,000 left, kind of wiping everything out by selling my house, which was, you know, I said like in the $600,000 range at that time. So on top of everything, it was close to a million dollars that I had paid off in just under three years. That's amazing. So the three mechanisms to understand them are selling the house that brings $600,000 into the situation. We have $4,000 a month, which is $150,000-over a three-year period. And we have cleaning up some other messiness, you know, that had come along with the divorce. And the opportunity to clean that up however it manifested, resulted in those three things generating a million dollars in proceeds to pay down debt. Is that the right way to frame what we're understanding here? Yeah, I guess.

That's amazing. That's an incredible amount of progress. How much did the content you were consuming, that podcast in your ear, the books you were consuming, count here in helping you build towards making at least the $4,000 a month in savings, but also that major house and capital reallocation move with paying off the house and using the proceeds to pay off debt? It's normalized, like putting your finances in order. It normalized the concept that, you know, paying off massive amounts of debt is possible. And then it just changed like, again, my circle of influence. Like what I saw other people doing, it just made it even more attainable to me because that had never been my experience. I've never been around someone who could even feel

confident about talking about money, let alone talking about paying off massive amounts of debt or becoming millionaires or any of those kind of things. And so it just changed the landscape of what was possible in my life. So this started in like 2015. So about 2018, 2019, you have paid off all this debt. And what would you estimate your net worth to be after you've paid off all the debt? It was actually, I paid it off in November 2017. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it's about two years and like eight months or something like that. I can't remember. At that point, I would say, you know, I still had investments in the background and I did profit a little bit. So I think for the first time I was kind of in the green. No, I do remember what my network was because I was starting to track it. It was under $100,000. But it was around there. Yeah. Give us the picture of your life the month after December 2018 after you've made all these moves. So I sold my house. I moved into like a two-bedroom apartment. I went from like the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area back to Oakland in the city and a two-bedroom apartment and stayed there for about a year. I condensed a lot, but it was all good. And what happens to your savings rate, right? Because previously we had $4,000 a month and the mortgage payment, it sounds like you're putting another fourth. It didn't even sound like you're accounting that mortgage payment towards the debt reduction that you're putting in a $4,000.

a month. Plus, you don't have student loans anymore. What happens to the spread between your income and expenses? It immediately shifted. It was like, is interesting. So I kind of went from like this day Ramsey aggressive, like debt payoff camp to more of like the fire, like aggressively invest. And so I was like gung-ho. I had a 403B. I had a 457, Roth IRA. All those things were maxed immediately. And then I started saving for my daughter's college fund. So, just super like bumped up my savings rate. Fantastic. So I'm struggling to do that math in my head here. About how much a year are you accumulating at this point almost immediately?

So it's almost like $50,000 a year going directly just into investments. That's fantastic. And I assume that we also, you also are able to build out a nice strong cash position as well and like just fortification of the financial position in that period. Yep, definitely. I want to know what your rent went to. after you paid off the $4,000 a month mortgage payment, because I have friends who live in the Bay Area, and it is not inexpensive. No, it's not. Interesting time, no, it wasn't expensive. I think I went to like $2,400 a month. It wasn't bad. There was these deals, like all these deals. You know, when you live in like these bigger apartment complexes, they always have like these rent reduction, kind of like reduced rent for like a year or something like that if you sign a year lease. And so, yeah, it wasn't bad at all. I just remember like my portion because I've gotten into a new relationship by then. Yeah, my portion was like $1,000 a month.

You said you lived there for a year. What happens next? Let's fast forward to 2019 or 2020. Let's talk about that because then there was a lot of transitions. So that move kind of took me to moving four times in five years because my partner had different jobs. So we moved out of state. We moved to Reno for a little while. I was doing a little geo arbitrage where I was living in Reno, but working in the Bay Area. So I went from working five to six days a week to six days a month for a year, then moved back, and, you know, then rent it here for another year and then bought the house that I'm currently in in 2020. So between 2017 and 2020, I had moved four times, which is a big blow to your finances. It can be. I want to reframe that a little bit because I think that

moving is just a huge pain in the rear. And it's like a big disruption to your life and then the mail and all that stuff. But I moved a similar amount. for almost 10 years, you know, in a row while house hacking or doing that kind of stuff. And the moves you made were clearly part of a new financial plan, a new way you were thinking about managing your money. It seemed like at first, no, okay, you're laughing. At first it was, but after that, it was not. Okay, fair enough. These were all family decisions that weren't based on finances. It was based on,

initially it was for a job. And then it was like, listen, like, we're out here on our own. I need more support. We need to move back home. And then it was like, okay, this is a good time to buy, which I'm happy that I did. But landed me into getting a home with a 2.5% mortgage, you know, which was great. But it was very expensive. It was not strategic financially. It was just because just life and family and having kids and navigating support and all of those kind of things. In 2017 through 2019, 2020 is what I'm hearing as we move four times. Are you still able to save during that period and accumulate wealth during this period and keep the investments in the 403B and the other retirement accounts going? I was able to still save. I was able to still

max those accounts out, even though I was working significantly less for a year's time frame. But that's what I prioritized over everything. So yeah, my net worth was still growing. I was still aggressively investing. But, you know, it still was very, it was very costly overall. And then tell us about the home purchase where you live now and with the low interest. What fueled that decision and what did you do there? It was interesting why we actually moved back here. So we actually moved back to the city where I had originally sold my home. And we were looking in Oakland and Bay, like Oakland real estate is older houses. So it was like you would pay a million dollars for a house to basically tear it down and build it back up. And I had owned five houses by the time I was 25. And so I was, I was. wasn't new to real estate and I wasn't new to construction and all those kind of things. And I kind of, you know, went through that housing market crash. So I was very leery of big real estate projects. And so where I live now, there's more, it's more of a family environment. It's more new homes,

you know, bigger land. And so, you know, newer construction that has very favorable terms. And it was during COVID. I'm a nurse. They had all these discounts going on. And so I was able to get into a home with a relatively low down payment with the relatively good interest rate, even though I did almost have to sue my mortgage company because they tried to give me, I mean, the initial builder in their mortgage company because they tried to cheat me out of a good rate. But that's a whole another store for another day. So how much was the home? And how much you put down and what was the interest on it? The home was $630,000 again. But it was a little bit smaller. So now my house is about 2,500 square foot. I did 10% down. I ended up getting a 2.5, oh, 2.85, I'm sorry, interest rate.

But initially, the mortgage company, so, you know, when you get a new construction, this is a new construction. So when you get a new construction, the builder has a preferred lender, and this is Pulte. I'm going to put them on as. It's Pulte Builders, Pulte Mortgage, right? And so with the pristine credit score, with everything that I had going on with all of my assets, they gave me a sub. prime offer, which was like 8.5%. And I, you know, I'm like, I'm not new to this. I'm true to this. Like, you messed with the wrong person. And so I just went to my friend who's a mortgage broker and she immediately was able to give me that rate. And I got some incentives back from the builder because, you know, they give you extra incentives for going through their mortgage, like discounts on upgrades and all those kind of things. And because they didn't offer me the best rate, I negotiated that

they were still going to get me those things regardless or I was going to back out of the deal because it was truly ridiculous. It was definitely discriminatory. This is terrible that happened. There's no reason at all. It should have been a six, seven percent rate at that time. Today, that would be like one bling twice at it, right? But in this case, yeah, that's clearly absurd. So you got this very low interest rate mortgage on the house. What was the payment when you started after you closed on this thing? I want to say it's like $2,300. Okay. So it's about the same or even less than the first place you were renting. I'm sorry. No, no, no. I'm sorry. It was like $3,000 with everything, with interest and everything, yeah. Okay, with taxes insurance. Yeah. Okay, so $3,000. And then things are

going well. The house is purchased. This was a real pain in the rear and they were treating you terribly in the closing process in here. But we emerge with the end result of a good mortgage rate in this house, right, or a reasonable one. You got the $3,000 payment. What happens next in your financial journey from here? You have to think like a lot of the story, like this 2020 and I'm a nurse, right? So it's not, it's not all. It's a hard time. Like overall, I've done four moves and this amount of time. I didn't buy this house alone. But after a month and a half of being in this house, I became a single parent again and had to do it all of my own. So my portion of what I had to pay shifted drastically. But, you know, still on this journey. In that time, I wrote a book. It was a lot of stressors. You know, that list of, like, all the things that, you know, life events that lead

to major stress, I probably had about 10 of those things on that list going on simultaneously. The thing is, is like when people look at, like, stories like mine and see, like, oh, she paid off a million dollars in debt, then, you know, she became a millionaire. Seven years later, they think it's like this linear process. it's like a freaking roller coaster and things are going on in the background and life is happening and it's just not all straightforward and it's not the math doesn't always math and things don't always line up. But at the end of the day, one lesson that I learned is that that that intentionality of getting me out of that debt and building a safety net around me has provided

so much security that can never be taken away from me. Mindy and I, or me in particular, I tend drill down. Where did the money story start? What was next? And you're telling me, gratefully so, you're missing some key details with all this. Could you help us fill in those blanks? Because it seems like there is a lot. Like, how do I unpack that four years of moves? I was like, okay, we moved four times about a house. Let's move on to the money story. You're telling me, no, no, there's a lot there. That's really critical here. Yeah, there's a lot. Maybe help me reframe and tell us what that story looked like for you. So other people, you know, who are going through the same things can relate a little bit and

understand the power of the foundational finances that we've gotten to, but what was swirling around above that in your life during this period? The things that has helped me build is, number one, the financial security to leave an abusive relationship, even if I had to pay to get out of it. That's number one. Even after that, I was in a financial position where I was still like the breadwinner in the relationship and then trying to help my partner navigate, you know, his financial issues and helping him build and all of that kind of stuff. But, you know, giving up a lot for a relationship while I was pregnant, moving to a different state, having to drive, you know, three and a half hours to work while pregnant, having a preterm baby, going through postpartum

depression, you know, needing to move back home to get family support. You know, it was just a whole lot of things going on in the background of me. Not only was I just like doing this financial journey, I was also building this platform because once I was like a couple months into my journey, I realized that more people needed to understand the importance of getting their finances together and that it didn't have to be hard. And so that's how I started financially intentional to share with my group of girlfriends, like what I was doing to document my journey. So building a business, you know, going through relationships and life challenges and all of these. kind of things, but putting the systems in place that run in the background of your life so that

when the shit hits the fan, everything doesn't fall apart. And, you know, I just think that with all of this stuff that's happening, all of the moves that are going on, that's the thing that stay consistent and that's the thing that has protected me all these years. What was like the time when it was like, this is the absolute rock bottom hardest part of this period of my life? I don't think there was like one rock bottom. I think there was just like a feeling of dang, you can have everything set up perfectly, but things still can go wrong. You think you can plan, you can do all of these things, but it happens. But the thing is, like I said, I have never had to start from zero. Even if I had to bounce back for a little while, I could bounce back easier. And I wasn't left destitute. And my kids have never wanted or needed for anything. Was there a moment in this period when you thought to yourself, wow, I am so glad I put in place those systems because if I hadn't, I'd be screwed. Was there a moment like that? I think about that every day. Yeah, getting those systems in place, getting your baseline finances in order is one giant thing that you don't have to think about anymore. Imagine if you were in these same situations, but you still had the $200,000 in student loans and you still had the $4,000. monthly payment for the house, the original house that you were in, you would have had so much more pressure. You would move to a different state and we're driving, you know, three hours and instead

of working five days a week, you were working six days a month. What if you still had to work five days a week while also taking care of all these other things that are going on? Like setting up these systems in place is so, so, so important. Yeah. That capital allocation decision that you made to pay off the debt and not keep it all on the books, aside from this most, recent mortgage on the house leading up to this point. I think that was critical. And I think a lot of people will sit there and, you know, they're doing the math in their heads because it's a personal finance podcast. What if she'd kept the house and the appreciation on the first one would have been this? What if she'd invest the money instead of paying off the debt? Well, the problem with that

counterfactual is that it presumes that it's going to be a linear path the rest of the way, right? Which you just said, this is not how it played out. For some people, it will play out that way. And there's a financial spread to be gained from investing versus paying down the debt. And that is a bet that I think a lot of people make and take for granted because reality often does not work out that same way. And you can certainly imagine situations in the volatility context where if you had invested instead, and those moments had come in at bad times, that that could have put you in a really, really tricky financial position that would have piled on top of all the other stuff that was going on in your life. Am I getting closer to how things played out and how the strategy of your decisions benefited you in a turbulent period?

Definitely. Definitely. Okay, so I'm gathering it's around 2021, 2022 in our story. You've broken up from this next relationship here. It's a tough time. But we've got a house. We've got a low-interest rate mortgage. You've been investing steadily for at least six or seven years. Imagine a several hundred thousand dollar net worth somewhere in that ballpark and beginning to compound.

Where does the story take us next? It's really just controlling the cost where I could. you know, living in San Francisco barrier, everyone's like, well, you're still, you know, you can make $200,000 and still be poor. And I think that is true, depending on what your life decisions are. And, you know, we talk about the latte factor, but I really lean into making sure my two biggest costs, my housing and transportation costs are low. And so I always have a room in my house that I rent out to, like, a labor and delivery nurse. And that's like a thousand dollars off my mortgage. House hacking. Yes, house hacking, for real. Like trying to,

control expenses. If I'm not using my car, that car is going on tourro, like, things like that. Just steady making decisions to optimize my finances and making sure that they're going in the direction that I need to go and focusing on investing. So still, like, focusing on maxing out that 403, maxing out that 457, maxing out that Roth IRA, like, every year consistently. Like, that was the goal. What is your take on the decision about whether to, pay off this current low interest rate mortgage or invest. How do you think about that decision? I would never pay this mortgage off to invest. It doesn't make financial sense for me. For me, I just feel like this mortgage is a hedge against inflation and I don't perceive paying

it off. But like, for example, I mean, I know this is like bigger pockets, like real estate and all those kind of things. But if I was to like get back into like real estate like I used to be, it would be more focused on, you know, buying like really cheap properties and renting them out, like $20,000, $30,000 properties I can buy in cash. Other than that, like, I don't believe in, like, you know, having a house mortgage-free. But also, I don't, you know, like, real estate is in my game. Like I said, I did that whole thing. Like, I had a whole other life, like, in real estate that I never fully recovered from in early 2000. So the 2000. 8, 2009. Like, it was not fun. Could we hear a little bit about, can we actually touch on that for a few

minutes? Because we started our journey, you know, post the divorce in 2015, but I'd love to, I'd love to hear about this, you know, the, what sounds like a roller coaster that resulted in starting from scratch effectively in 2015, 2016. Oh, yeah, I definitely started from scratch. Like, if anything people could take away from this, I am like a bounce back queen, okay? I have gone through so many different iterations of my life. I graduated from, I went to USC, University of Southern in California in 2005 with my master's degree. So during that time, you know, it was like the real estate boom is very interesting. I don't know if you guys know, Patrice Washington. Yes. Her last name used to be Cunningham. So we were really good friends in college and her and her husband,

like had a mortgage business. And I did hair in college and I worked at. My shop was attached to a real estate company. So the only thing I knew about investing was buying real estate. And so by the time I was 25, working with the lady that owned the real estate company and Bertie and working with Patrice, I had five houses all throughout the country. I had two in LA, two in North Carolina and one in Atlanta. And, you know, it was a time of like subprime mortgages and like all these illegal mortgages and all these kind of things. But it was just like, you know, well, this is what the norm is to get into these mortgages and, you know, then we got into the point where people weren't paying their rent and or I had a builder that just wouldn't finish the house on time, but I still had a mortgage

on it. It was just a whole lot of things. And then the housing market crashed in 2008. And I had to go through two short sales, two foreclosures and ultimately had to file bankruptcy in 2010. Oh my gosh. Yes. The path to that bankruptcy in 2010, tell me about what, happened in the months or years preceding that. How did it feel? What was the activity set that you were doing? What was within your control? And was there a little bit of helplessness feeling of watching that come? No, it was just a lot of things. So I had a condo that was my first purchase. The condo was falling apart. I had all kind of assessments and all these fees for the HOA. That was on my primary residence. I mean, I didn't even have, if you didn't take a shower between like eight and

15, you wasn't going to get hot water. Like it was crazy like that. So that was, one and then I bought another duplex in LA. People paid rent when they wanted to or didn't pay rent. I had a drug dealer. I used to live there. They used to pay me in a bus of like bald up fives whenever he felt like it and, you know, getting people in and out of that or dealing with Section 8. That was like something that basically like for all these properties, there was always a reason why I wasn't getting rent consistently. And it wasn't because it wasn't properly vetted and all those kind of things up front. It was. was just that when people say, oh, that's the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario would

always happen to me. The place that I had in Atlanta was a new build, but the builder never finished it, even though the property closed, it couldn't be lived in. So I had to physically have somebody go to the builder's house and in them in order to finish my house. Like everything that could have happened wrong, happened wrong, on top of the fact that I was getting these mortgages that, you know, were interest only for a certain period of time or have balloon payments, and then I had to refinance, and then they wouldn't refinance. And then it was just like everything bad that could have happened, happened. And my only recourse was to either short sale or foreclose. And whatever one was the better option during that time is what I had to do, except for I kept

my primary residence, which was the condo until 2015. Wow. I mean, what a world. That time. was for real estate investing. You know, and people who didn't go through it then are like, oh, this couldn't have happened. This absolutely happened. People stopped paying rent and then didn't leave. It was a very, very difficult time. And then your house, what did you pay, like, $100,000 for it? And now it's worth $30,000.

You're like, what am I going to do? Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. You can't refinance it because it's not worth anything. It was like, it was the worst time. And so what I say, I haven't recovered from like, no. real estate. It's a real deep trauma there. What happened from 2022 to the present? And how does that inform what you're doing today with your money? I think the biggest thing is that the systems that I put in place in 2015 and 2017 when I made that big shift to like start investing are tried and true

and steady. And they work in the background in my life when everything else is falling apart and I don't have to think about it. And it's like I've gotten to the point right now financially that I can probably have, and I'm not trying to put this out there, but like some really major things happened to me. Like I've been off of work for months. I was just in a car. I just got hit, rear ended a couple of months ago. And I was off for like three months. And it could have been like a huge financial setback, but it wasn't. Still, my net worth continues to grow and grow and grow and grow just because I made a couple of what are called basic boring investment decisions and had the system in place that runs just in the background of my life.

And so that's what's consistent. And it's like, you know, barring like big major global tragedies, like there's probably nothing that can take me out at this point because I have built so much financial resilience in my portfolio. And what I've built just from staying steady and doing all the boring stuff, not flashing, not waiting until I got paid more, not waiting, you know, but just doing the things, those things every day, the aggregation of marginal gains, a small thing, staying boring and hell is simple. It sure is boring to have money and security. Listen, yeah.

Remember 2015, 2016, 2017? That was a little more exciting in your life, right? Boring's better. Boring is way better. So what does your financial position look like today? So right now, I'm sitting at about $1.3 million in assets. Over a million dollars of that is just invested in all my regular boring stock market index fund accounts that does include the accounts that my daughters have. I have three girls. They each have a brokerage account, a 529, and a Roth, a custodial Roth IRA, and, you know, my house and all my other things that are assets. But that's where we're at. Fantastic. Any debt besides the mortgage? I do have debt. And you know where the debt is from? from running a business, this accidental business that I built. But other than that, just education

and resources around that. But, you know, what a wild ride. So the journey really starts in, it sounds like 2005, results in bankruptcy in 2010, divorce and reset in 2015. 2017. 2017. Sorry, yes. And then wild roller coaster for the last nine years to end is a millionaire well on track to be way, way ahead financially going forward. What amazing lessons learned and then principles that you've applied to just keep that snowball going through all the ups and downs that have been going on around it. Thank you for sharing this with us. Any other last pieces of advice or things you'd want to share with people listening to this? I'm just proud that I get to go on this journey and that my daughters get to see that and like that I have changed the trajectory

of their lives because of the decisions that I've made and how they get to opt out of a lot of the BS that I had to go through because I made a couple of intentional decisions. Oh, she's financially intentional, Scott. If you've been putting off life insurance, I get it. The old process was miserable. Phone calls with an agent, a nurse coming to your house for a blood draw, then waiting weeks to find out what you'd pay for. That friction is exactly why so many people who should have coverage don't. Here's what I believe. Most BP money listeners need. term life and the right move is to build a ladder a few term policies of different lengths stacked together to your coverage steps down as your mortgage shrinks and your kids get

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Well, Monarch is trying to change that. Open it up and in a couple of minutes you know exactly where you stand with your spending, your goals, your net worth, your investments, everything all in one place. And it goes wherever you go. Quick check in on your phone between meetings or check the bigger picture on your laptop on Sunday night. Everything sinks, everything refreshes whenever you want. Use the code pockets at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with the code pockets. So, Nesima, I don't remember if we ever shared how old you are right now.

45. 45. Okay. Yes. Do you intend to retire early or pursue early retirement? I was definitely on the retire early track. The thing is, is that I really love being a nurse. I love being a labor and delivering nurse. I don't like the politics of it.

Sometimes 99% of the time it's okay. But during those times, I feel like I've built in the security to be able to opt out of some of that stuff. But now I have like a dream schedule. I literally work three days. one week. I work two days another week. If I wanted to have two weeks off, I'd only have to take off one day. And so I can see myself doing that for as long as I want to. But I also can, like, take two years off and just travel the world with my kids if I want to and then come back

and be a nurse. Like, the thing that this journey has provided for me, and I love the fire movement, but what is provided is that work optionality and the possibility of doing so many things and it can change in a heartbeat and me being able to have the finances in place to support that. Yeah, we did an episode about careers for people pursuing financial independence or people who are coast-fi and want to have a lot more flexibility in their schedule. and nurse was near the top of the list for the reasons you said. You work three days this week. You work two days the next week.

You could literally have two solid weeks off taking off one day. If I needed two solid weeks off, I would have to take off two solid weeks. Having this flexibility is so powerful. And you're in labor and delivery. You get to see babies all the time. It never gets old seeing a baby born. And I've been doing it for over 16 years. One last thing.

You are driving from Reno to the Bay Area? That was just for a year. I did that drive. Okay. So we don't have to commute anymore either with that. Well, my commute is still an hour. But that's different. Where can you go in the Bay Area and not have to drive an hour? Many people drive an hour every day. You do that a few times a week. A hundred percent. Some people don't understand that. I'm just like, that's just our drive, like, period. My thing is I still work nights. That's another thing that a lot of people are like, oh, my God, I can never, but it works for me. I work nights, so I don't deal with traffic. I don't like traffic.

I don't like a lot of noise. I don't like a lot of stimulation. I don't like a lot of visitors. It works incredible for me. I have so much autonomy in my job. Like, working nights is the bomb. That's when all the babies are born anyway. Tell me about it.

I work nights on a full moon. Oh, my God. And an hour-long commute also is, like, just about the length of a bigger pockets money podcast plus like three songs of the chain smokers, right? So there you go. That's actually how I learned. I use that commute time to do my learning, to have quiet time, because usually it's kids

screaming in my car, you know, but I love that hour. Where can people find out more about you? So I'm at financially intentional everywhere, financially intentional.com. I have hundreds of episodes on financial intentional podcast, but I mostly live on Instagram at financially intentional. Awesome. Well, definitely encourage people to go check that out and give you a follow. Thank you for sharing this amazing story with us.

And congratulations on well over a million dollars in personal net worth. now and what seems like a roller coaster that's on the downhill and moving in the right direction, speeding up, accelerating. So thank you for sharing this with us. It was a really powerful story and look forward to seeing where things go for you the next couple of years. Thank you. All right, Nesema, I really appreciate you sharing your story. And we will talk to you soon. Yes, see you in a couple days. Yeah, see in a couple days. We're all going to the same conference and we will see her tomorrow. All right, bye. All right, Scott, that was Nisema McElroy from financially intentional and that was a really interesting story. I was going to say fun and I want to

be like, yay, for all those trials and tribulations she went through. But like she taught herself her financial situation wasn't going to be what she wanted it to be. So she self-educated, put down the foundation that now supports everything she wants to do. I love hearing stories where people had a setback and they didn't let that define them. They're like, nope, this is not going to be me. continue moving forward. And continue moving forward is another great title for Naseema, because she just continues moving forward. Yeah, Mindy, do you think, and this is kind of a leading question, but I'll ask anyways, do you think that in the context of relationship and marriage and kids and those types of things that divorce, family stress, those kinds of things as a group

and a tendency will tend to cluster around good economic times or bad economic times? What's the number one thing that people fight about, Scott, couples? What's the number one thing that couples fight about? It's money. So I would imagine that if we were in a court, the prosecutor would say, objection leading the witness. However, I will say, yeah, Scott, those are going to cluster around the bad types. Yeah, and I think that that's a new, like, not new, but just reinforcing, a big nugget in reinforcing the frameworks that I'm trying to build around money as we do these podcasts. And I think that paying off your mortgage, keeping debt on the books, investing instead, there's a real case for that in personal finance. And like she said, you wouldn't pay off at 2.8% mortgage on your primary in most conditions. Maybe at the very end of your journey and you're just trying to button up some things in your financial position. But few people would do that. But along the way, towards that, in between, in this gray zone of debt, 4 to 7%, if you will, where it's kind of hard. Do I pay to off or do I invest instead? That's a real argument for paying off debt earlier in the journey because you never know what the ups and

your life are going to be like over the next decade or two or three or four, and when the hard times are going to come. And that arbitrage only works if you survive those decades financially without that turbulence to pull it apart and force you to liquidate those investments at the most inopportune times. You actually have to ride it out for a long period of time to get that arbitrage. And for the last decade or so, people have been getting that arbitrage because the market has provided it. But that may not always be the case. And it may more importantly not be the case for you as an individual or your household specifically. So I think that was a really powerful lesson from this

that I'm not going to forget as it pertains to these decisions in the real world of messy personal finance. Yeah, I love that, Scott. I love that we've been doing this show for eight years since 2018 and you still have lessons that you learn with every episode. Yeah, like trying to fit somebody's story into the box, she was perfectly right to say, Scott, what you're missing here is the maelstrom

that was going on in my personal life during this time, time period. That was very powerful. And I think it's a finance lesson. I like how she's like, and I wrote a book during this time. I'm like, oh my goodness, I have written a book when I wasn't doing anything else. And that's a super stressful thing. And I had a co-author in you. That was a fun one, by the way. First-time home buyer. I forget what it's about, though. If you want to check it out, you can probably find out when you read it. That's a terrible way to sell our book, Scott. It's called First Time Homebuyer. If you're a first-time home buyer, this is the book for you. We talk about not only the process of buying the house,

but also what you should think about when you are looking at buying a house. I give it to all of my first-time homebuyer clients. We'll be remiss as well if we're going to plug first-time homebuyer, not to plug smart money, the personal finance plan to crush debt by Nesema here. So go check that out on Amazon, where her books are sold. That's a great one. That's the one she wrote. And if your story is anything relationally similar to hers,

you may get a lot of value out of her plan. Absolutely. And who better to write about crushing debt that's somebody who crushed a ton of debt. All right, Scott, should we get out of here? All right, before we get out of here, we know that you have a lot of trouble finding quality, flat fee or advice only without assets under management. Planners, for example, who actually understand financial independence. We're building a network of these people over at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 5Pro. That's biggerpocketsmoney.com slash FI. Pro.

Go check that out. We've got a couple of flat fee and advice only financial planners that we've partnered with over there. We obviously will receive compensation if you use some of those planners, but we think that they're a great fit for the FI community. So go check it out, biggerpocketsmoney.com slash FI. Pro. All right, that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Indy Jensen saying got a jet baggett.