This Nurse is Crushing Her Money Goals- Ep. 85
She takes personal finance personally. Overwhelmed and ignored by traditional advice as a young woman of color, she taught herself not just to talk the talk. She walks the walk, having paid off over $300,000 of debt in three years and is on track to retire in her forties.
Dubbed her "magic recipe" by Good Morning America, she also shares her trademarked five-step Crush Your Money Goals® method as a contributor for CNBC, TIME, and multiple TV and podcast shows.
While she has over a decade of Fortune 100 experience, two bachelors, a masters degree and numerous certifications, she's known more for her refreshing energy, engaging style and relatable messaging.
When she’s not teaching, find her singing karaoke, delving into DIY projects, and eating way too much chocolate with her husband AJ.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy: [00:00:00] All right, Nurses on Fire. I am super juiced to have Bernadette Joy here o f Crush Your Money Goals. Hey Bernadette, how are you?
Bernadette Joy: [00:00:09] Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Naseema McElroy: [00:00:12] Of course, of course. So Bernadette, please share with us like what your money story is, and then we'll talk about how you can help our audience crush their money goals.
Yeah, so you can't see me, but I think it's an important part to note that I am Filipino American and why I was so jazzed about coming on your podcast is that as you described it, I'm nurse adjacen t . You cannot be Filipino American without knowing at least a handful of nurses. And so, and funny enough, I actually.
Went to college thinking I was going to go to medical school. And then first semester of college realized like, no, I don't, I don't want to do that. and went down the path of the other socially acceptable profession in my family, which was finance. And so. I I graduated from Boston university with a dual degree in psychology and business.
I went into like many millennials into the corporate world of like, okay, well, the goal here is to make a lot of money period. There was not a lot of conversation about saving money and building wealth in my family. And I think a lot of people from first-generation immigrant families can relate to this of like the story is, you know, getting the American dream, like get the nice job, get the nice house you know, show off the cool car, all of that stuff.
And so I was on that path in my early twenties, and then I happened to marry another. Filipino guy, whose family is all in healthcare. Other than him, we are the only real life you'll get. Once you learn it. His dad is a nurse. His mom is a physical therapist. His brother's a physical therapist.
And we decided 10 years ago when we got married that we did not. Want our marriage to look like either our parents in the sense that money was a ruling factor. And so we started out with getting there, like we didn't let anyone help help us in our family with like the wedding, the. You know, the mortgage, like we both went to school in scholarships.
Like we both wanted to be really independent. But I had what I call my quarter-life crisis a couple of years into our marriage, realizing that I did not want to stay in the career that I was in, which was in tech and went back to school and got a master's degree. And I think a lot of your audience can relate to the beauty that is student loan debts and found myself in $72,000 in student loan debt and had no plan on how to pay it off. And in addition to that had two mortgages, not just one but two, because I don't know. I thought I was going to be. Like the next HGTV star and thought that was a good idea.
Bernadette Joy: [00:02:50] So $300,000 of debt no plan on getting out of it was feeling pretty hopeless. And that is where my money story started of paying off all $300,000, a hundred thousand dollars of debt, including our home. And now we are this year 2021 are set to crossover, our first million dollars of net worth, which if you told me five years ago, that was going to be a thing I would have thought you were crazy. That's pretty much me.
Naseema McElroy: [00:03:16] Wow. Okay. So you just glaze over that . So you went from having these houses, having these mortgages, going back to school, getting $72,000 in student loan debt to now getting into the double comma club, the seven figure net worth. And I mean like, how did you do it?
I mean, like, what was the process? Like? heard a couple of mindset shifts in there. Like I heard we want it to be independent and we want us to do our thing. And then I heard, Oh, but I'm going to go back to school and take out all this student loan debt, like talk to me about like the process behind it and the mindset shifts that you had to go through along the way to get to where you are.
Bernadette Joy: [00:03:57] Yeah. Yeah. So conveniently the way this all goes, when I look back in hindsight as to how that all happened, it serendipitously spells out the word CRUSH, and that's how I remember it to share it with other people. And a lot of people when they reach out to me asking me how I did that, they want like the thing, like tell me, you know, how you invested in how you budget or all those things.
And the thing that has to come first in the C in CRUSH, what it stands for is cultivating a positive mindset towards money. And that to me is like it's 80% of the battle and that's the thing that's ongoing. And the challenge that I have had. To really work on through a combination of therapy and, learning about, money and really readjusting my course is that I had so much of my self-worth wrapped in to what I made as income and what my money situation look like. And until I started on uncoupling the two and realizing that self-worth is not directly tied to my income. But you can still grow both. But it's not in the same way.
And, and looking for self-worth in your net worth is, it's not the way to go in, but it was what I realized. And so, and here's the crazy thing, right? Is that once I uncoupled the two, then they both started growing. Like once I was like, okay, let me get over that. Just because I'm not making a lot of money or that I always need to be making more money, that doesn't necessarily make me a better person.
And really working on myself as a person and then myself when it comes to money separately that really changed the game for me. So that piece is the biggest part. And then the thing that I talk about I've been talking a lot more about recently and I think the pandemic has kind of laid bare.
A lot of this is the R in CRUSH is for reverse engineer your life. And the question I often ask people, and this is the question I have to ask myself was if money were no issue, what would my life look like? And most people like don't know how to answer that question because a lot of us just assume money is always going to be an issue, or I always have to worry about money.
And so I like to play the game with people of asking, you know, if money were no issue, what would you be doing instead? And that picture is very different for people. And it's not until you really. You know, dig deep best to what that real thing is that you can then put the money plan in place. So a lot of what I, what I've had to unravel over the last couple of years is okay, how do I not feel so crappy when it comes to me?
Like, how do I feel, less anxiety, less stress around money, and also uncouple my self self-worth from, you know, what I make as an income and then reverse engineering my life, like really after here and at the end of the day, what my husband and I. Talked about is that we want to retire early, not for the sake of like, you know, vanity sake or anything, but because like, we want to do things that really matter to us and we don't want it to always be money-driven and counterintuitively it requires money to do that, right. So we have to have the money to feel that. and then, you know, the question has been in reverse engineering, your life is what would be enough? And if you talk to most people and say like, what is the dollar amount that's really going to be enough for you? Not a lot of people know what that answer is. And so those are the two biggest pieces is starting to unravel those questions of really working on how do you, how do you have a positive relationship with money? And like, what is all the garbage that you have to get through? And how do you reverse engineer the life that you want, that the money go?
Naseema McElroy: [00:07:48] So what would you guys his life look like if money was no issue?
Bernadette Joy: [00:07:52] Interestingly, it's pretty close to what it is now because we've worked to get to this point. So the tests that we had this year, so 2020, my husband and I were like, you know what? We've always had a goal of like living in the mountains.
I'm I grew up in New York city. I want like a quiet, peaceful life kind of thing. And, but I was like, damn, do I really want that? Or am I just saying that? Cause I just don't even, I can't even imagine what that looks like. So we decided to test it out. So we bought a home in the mountains last year to test it out, to see if that was something we really want to do. And in the last part of December we had a couple of weeks offwhere we were like, the fire was going on every day. It's like a small place. It's a two bedroom, two bathroom condo. It's like not huge. I realized I don't really like spending a lot of time doing home maintenance and stuff like that.
And I remember. Sitting on my couch, I was reading a book. And, and it was about like the philosophy of money. it was like more like woo, woo kind of stuff. And then my husband was in like the corner of our dining room like playing a board game or like learning how to.
How to learn this new board game. My husband has 154 games. He's like a board game game addict. And it was like perfect for me. It was perfect in the sense of like, okay, we didn't have to work today. Cause we took the time off. We are enjoying our individual interests.
Like we don't have to do everything together and we're in the place that we want to be. And it made me realize it doesn't require that much. It doesn't require that much for us to. I feel like it's enough. And I said, if this is, and I told my husband that day, I remember saying like, if this is how the rest of our life looked like, I'd be cool with that.
Now everything else is just gravy on top of it. Right? So then the gravy for me is, and this is why we're working on a million dollars of net worth. The gravy is the reason I'm so focused on building a million dollars of net worth is because at that point we will become accredited investors. And at that point we will be able to diversify our investments in people, meaning I have a very, very strong opinion about the lack of diversity in wealth specifically when it comes to women and BIPOC communities. And I'm honestly tired of the conversation of like diversifying our portfolios. When our portfolios are still a bunch of companies owned by white men. Like, that's just my take on it.
My personal opinion. Again, that's like not everybody's thing, but you know, for myself as a woman of color and not seeing a lot of representation, I want to be at the point of wealth that I can invest in , other women and other communities that have been overlooked. And that's the real reverse engineering of why the double comma, as you said, is important to us.
Naseema McElroy: [00:10:34] That is so dope. Like, I really like that, you know your number, but your number is just not this number. This number means that you're able to invest in businesses that you want to invest in. I mean like most people don't know what an accredited investor is and I'll put a link because I don't want to say the time to explain it here, but it gives you a lot.
It opens up a lot of doors and how you're able to invest and I think that that's incredible, that that is part of your goal. And you're like there, so walk us through though. Okay. So you got the mindset down, you know, your, why, you know, your number, like how did you get there? How did you dig your way out of that debt to build a seven figure net worth.
Bernadette Joy: [00:11:17] Yeah. So the rest of the acronym, the U stands for using your resources efficiently. And when I talk about efficiently, I'm talking about resources, I'm talking about time and energy and what I teach people, how to do. And what I had to figure out myself is that if you're constantly in the mode of trading time and energy, for dollars like that kind of.
You're not going to build wealth that way. You're just not right. So to start off with, how do I streamline all of them? Things, not just money-wise right. That is sucking up time and energy, because that is where money starts falling through the cracks. Right. That's where, like, you know, we talk about basic things of like, okay, you know, I get a lot of people who say like, I can't stop spending on Amazon or I keep eating out and all of this stuff.
And I'm like, it's not the eating out. It's not the spending on Amazon. That's. Making you broke. It's the fact that you are continuing to use money to replace time and energy that you're, you're continually giving away. Right. So a lot of what I talk about with people is how do we focus on reducing anything that is sucking your time and energy that doesn't serve you. So just as an example, like I'm in the place in my life where if I see a meeting on my calendar and I'm like, I feel like I can get like happened out of it, or this could have been an email that is getting canceled. Right. Simple thing. Right. So how do you protect your time and energy so that you can in fact save money?
Like that goes hand in hand the S part. Is counterintuitive to a lot of what we hear in the debt-free community with just spend on what you love and spend on what matters to you and be ruthless everywhere else. And so for my husband and I like kid you not, right before I got on this call, I was eating sushi like I eat sushi at least once. Like, that's one of our things we eat too. She wants to be, cause I had to, to make that at home by myself and I like good sushi. So I do not like the in kind of traditional personal finance that poo-poos on, you know, things that you love, if it really fills you.
And so, but the question is what do you actually really love and what are you willing to sacrifice to make that thing work instead? So do I spend my money on like, I like I don't buy Chick-fil-A anymore. For example, like I just like don't buy fast food anymore because I wanna enjoy quality food.
I mean, I'm not going to be apologetic about that. So figuring out where you want to spend your money on and what matters most to you and then cutting everywhere else. And then the last part hustle, hustle hustle, which I know you're a fan of like, Hustle hustle, hustle, not in the sense of, again, working more hours, it's having multiple ways to make money.
So the $300,000 of debt, wasn't like, I'm going to be honest. We started out on the train cause we didn't know what we were doing. We're like, let's, let's have three jobs each. And like, you know, try to bring in as much like extra income do like Uber or do all that kind of stuff. And we realized like that's not sustainable and it kind of sucks. So instead, how do we figure out multiple streams of income? One of the biggest reasons we were able to pay off debt quickly was because we built. Streams of income and real estate. And so that was one of the reasons that we were able to pay debt off as quickly as we did in three years is because we realized like once we stopped again, trading our time for dollars and think about ways that we can scale up our time and get more dollars for each hour. That's what expedited the process.
Naseema McElroy: [00:14:59] Yup. I love that. I love the hustle. And the thing is, is that what people's perception of hustle is? It's kind of. Wonky. Right? Because it's like work, work, work, grind, grind grind until you can't like sleep is for the sleep is for suckas. No, no. Oh, me too, girl. I love to sleep.
And I think sleep is a very important part of being healthy, but hustle is. How are you going to make your money work for you? Not you grinding it out until you're like bone tired. And so, yeah, I love that. You said that because, I love that hustle and like initially I was going to be like, so what do you mean by that?
Because I think that that's something that's sold to us. I mean, it's sold to your parents. It was sold to mine work, work, where you have to work, work, work, work, work hard, hard, hard, work, hard in, and that's how you make it. Working hard. Doesn't have to be hard and strenuous and long hours and working hard can be finding ways to make your money work hard for you.
And that's how I want it. I want to switch that paradigm around. And then just speaking of your parents, like how in your, in your family, like how that they take your money mindset transitioning, and like seeing you come from, you know, being in debt just living the life that you know, that people think you're supposed to live to where you are now.
Bernadette Joy: [00:16:30] You know, that's a really good question. And I think it's been hard. I'm going to be honest. It hasn't been easy in the sense of like when, and I'm sure you, maybe you can relate to this is that once you figure this out, I want everyone, I love to , know this too. And I don't understand, we're why we were all doing it this way.
Like you want, you're thinking you want the best for your family and what I had to kind of realize and take a step back on is not everyone necessarily wants to be on that journey with you. And like, and some of that cultural thing is like, I mean, my father is 82 years old, . He ain't changing very much at this whole point, right.
He's still in his first hit. I'm going to be honest, his perception of what I do for a living and see, like he thinks, I just post an Instagram. And he doesn't, like, he doesn't think I have a real job. Right. So, because he equates again, like showing up to a place, sitting down at a desk, working for someone else, that is the only way that you make money.
And my father was a CFO at one point. And what has been kind of eye-opening for me in this whole journey. And a lot of people don't know this about my story is that my father was a CFO. And a lot of people assume that I grew up with a certain amount of money because of the title that he had.
He ended up not having much money to his name. So it went to show you that she went to show me that just because you do it for a living doesn't mean you're good at it personally. And I'm the eighth of nine kids. Oh from my father. Yeah. Yeah. And there's this perception of like, Oh, well, again, like you had it easy, like your dad was a CFO and like, you lived in like a middle class neighborhood in New York city and all that stuff.
I'm like, Oh, Oh, like you don't know about my age, my eight siblings and the fact that like all of us had to go through college. And that, the reason that I had to be, you know, independent is because edit and have any expectation of getting anything from my family, you know? So I had to figure out how to do this stuff on my own.
And what I think has been the biggest takeaway for me is that once I stopped talking about it, With my family and also my husband's family. And we just did it. Like actions speak louder than words.
Naseema McElroy: [00:18:32] You better than I can tell you, that's it right there. So, and that's the whole thing. Like, and that's actually why I started my platform to begin with, because I was just like, everybody needs to know this.
Everybody needs to know the freedoms of like getting your finances in order. It affects your whole life. It changed your whole trajectory. Not only just yours, but your families. And like, it's so impactful and you're like so motivated and then everybody else is just I'm really not interested or, you know, well, you know, so-and-so says this and I'm gonna listen to them.
And so I, a hundred percent feel you. And so I, yeah, that's the same kind of journey I've had to go on. I have to like, just stop telling people and just kind of doing my thing. And then when you see me in forums, you can say, what's up, you can ask, like then you can ask me, but I'm not, I can't, I'm not going to be worried about.
You know, bringing you along, but if you ask me questions, then I'll answer them. And so, yeah, it's, it's interesting that we've had similar journeys and yeah, your dad, it's funny that your dad thinks you're just playing around on Instagram. It's a whole new world and people don't understand. There are so many ways to make money.
There's endless ways to make money. But people are so drilled into like, you have to work for somebody like, you know, for my. My grandfather and my father's generation is like, you got to get a stable job, government job, preferably collect that pension, you know, and then just retire for nurses to like, that's the thing like we're fed, like get into this job, you know, work, work, work until whatever age, collect your pension and retire it for nurses.
Like. 75, you know? And so it's, doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't have to be like that. And you can see in a short amount of time, you can go from six figures in debt to a seven figure net worth, but you just have to change their mindset. Like you said, 80% of it is changing your mindset. So walk us through again your crush acronym.
Bernadette Joy: [00:20:27] Yeah, so crush. So cultivating a positive mindset towards money. That's C R is reverse engineering. Your life. You is using your resources efficiently as is spending on what matters to you. And then H is hustle, hustle, hustle, AK multiple streams of income.
Naseema McElroy: [00:20:46] Love it. Love it, love it. All right. So let's talk about how people can work with you. What kind of services do you offer for us nurses who are out here trying to be on fire?
Bernadette Joy: [00:20:58] I love it. So one of the things that I will say upfront is that if you're looking for the person who's just gonna. Like show you how to budget and all that stuff. I do offer like basic level courses, right? That's like for people who are just testing the waters, right. So if you go to my website, you'll see like when my next basic level course, and those are like $20/24 bucks. It's like, Yeah, let me just try it out. Where I get really jazzed up is for exactly, you said people who are on fire and who are looking towards getting to fire.
And I have two programs going on right now. One is a two week mastermind where we kind of go deep level into organizing all your finances, streamlining all of it, so that then you can focus on. Like the real stuff in life. So it's for people who want to be their household CFO and the whole ML behind that is like, you're not going to be the secretary anymore.
If you think that just like tracking your expenses is going to get to seven figures of net worth that ain't happening. We're talking about strategically planning your finances and acting like a CFO, not like the secretary. And and then I have a 90 day program that's coming up. That is for people who are. Really interested in building seven figures of net worth. And all of that can be found on my website at crushyourmoneygoals.com.
Naseema McElroy: [00:22:14] Awesome. So I know like you're right there, like living your best life and you're already pretty much like FIRE, but like what's next for you? What's coming up for you.
Like, what's the thing that's exciting to you and your personal life.
Bernadette Joy: [00:22:30] You know, I'm glad that you asked that question because I'm still sitting in what that is and. I had this conversation with someone yesterday of like, again, will be a hundred percent on it. Sometimes I get caught up right in that hustle piece of like, especially.
So for example, I had a national TV segment yesterday and people were like, Oh my God, like, you're killing it. Like, you're like gonna reach all these people, but we'll all that stuff. And I had to really take a step back and think like, yes, those pieces are nice, but. Where I get again, I get the most kick out of what I do is building deep relationships with people who are on the same mindset journey.
And really what's next for me is to build this circle around me and help those people build those circles around them, of women like you and the people that are listening to this podcast who. I think that there's something more to life than what most of us have been taught to believe. So my next thing is actually a combination of like continuing to put more content out there that will attract those people.
I'm in the process of writing my first book, which is pretty exciting and also scary as hell to do. And my husband and I, our goal for his 40th birthday, which is coming around the corner in October this year is we're going to next year. We're just gonna take a year off and do all the things that we said that we were going to do in our retirement.
And like, we're going to do it now. Like travel, see our family in the Philippines, like find a kangaroo, like all these things on my list of like, Oh, like, you know, make pasta with like a grandma on Italy. like we, our goal is for that to happen next year. So that's what we're working towards
right now.
Naseema McElroy: [00:24:11] Man, I mean, just chills. I just, I love that. You're not waiting. You're not waiting to do those things. You are making them happen right now. That is so inspiring. That is so like motivating for me even I'm just like, dang, like. That's what I want. I need that right there. That's it right there.
We're going to get that together. Like I am right now. I mean, I'm there, I'm there. I just have little kids. And so if you know, that's a little bit difficult to navigate, but. It'll happen. And I'm just a huge advocate of like doing it. Now take a year off. What's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to go back to your job.
Like, just take a year off and just like live. And so girl, I'm right there with you shooting. I might be there in October, just like. Celebrating your husband's 40th too is actually the year I turned, this is a year I turned 40 as well. So I'm just like, yeah, I'm just like, shoot, like I'm there. I'm with you.
Bernadette Joy: [00:25:15] put a plug in for, especially because we're talking to nurses here is that compassion fatigue is real. If, if there was ever a time to take some time off. Well, like it would be now. And so if there is any way that, we can help you, the listeners, take that time that you deserve after all of the ish that you've had to deal with in the last year and a half now, right?
Like are coming up on a year and a half, like where like, Let's let's get you there cause you deserve it. That's all I'm going to say.
Naseema McElroy: [00:25:49] I love it. I love it. I love it. It has been a pure joy, Ms. Bernadette joy talking to you, and it's so interesting how similar our stories are and just our paths.
And I'm looking forward to connecting with you moreand connecting my listeners with you. So you guys, if you want to work with Ms. Bernadette Joy, you would go to our website at crush, your money goals.com, where she has a wide range of classes that you can take. And then hopefully be in that circle of amazing people that she's cultivating, because I know that she's taking people to the next level.
So thank you so much for today. This has really been fun.
Bernadette Joy: [00:26:28] Thank you so much for having me. I had a blast.
Hey there I’m Naseema
My dream is for everyone to know that financial independence is attainable with a little intentionality. Learn how I can help you finally break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.
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