This Nurse is Crushing Her Money Goals - Episode 34 (Classic Episode)
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.
Crush Your Money Goals by Bernadette Joy
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Naseema McElroy: All right, nurses on fire. I am super juiced to have Bernadette Joy here of Crush Your Money Goals. Hey Bernadette, how are you? Hi, thank you
[00:00:10] Bernadette Joy: so much for having me.
[00:00:12] Naseema McElroy: Of course, of course. So Bernadette please share with us like what your money story is and then we talk about how you can help our audience crush their money goals.
[00:00:22] Bernadette Joy: Yeah. 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 adjacent. You cannot be Filipino American without knowing at least a handful of nurses. 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, and went down the path of the other socially acceptable profession in my family, which was finance. And so. I graduated from Boston University with a dual degree in psychology and business.
I went into like many millennials into the corporate world of okay 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 the story is, getting the American dream, get the nice job, get the nice house 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 health care, other than him, we're the only ones who are it. His dad is a nurse, his mom is a physical therapist, his brother is a physical therapist. And we decided 10 years ago when we got married that we did not want our marriage to look like either of our parents in the sense that money was a ruling factor.
And so we started out with. Like we didn't let anyone help help us in our family with the wedding, the, the mortgage, like we both went to school and scholarships, like we both wanted to be really independent. But I had what I call my quarter life crisis, a couple years into our marriage realizing that I did not want to stay in the career that I was in, which was in tech and And went back to school and got a master's degree.
And I think a lot of your audience can relate to the, the beauty that is student loan debt and found myself in 72, 000 of 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.
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 of debt, including our home. And now we are this year. 21 are set to cross over our first million dollars of net worth, which if you told me five years ago, if that was going to be a thing, I would have thought you were crazy.
So that's pretty much me.
[00:03:19] Naseema McElroy: Wow. Okay. So you just high glaze over that? Okay. So you went from having these houses, having these mortgages, going back to school, getting 72, 000 in student loan debt to now getting. You're into the double comma club, the seven figure net worth. And I mean, like, how did you do it?
I mean, what was the process? I heard a couple of mindset shifts in there. Like I heard, we want it to be independent. 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. Talk to me about the process behind it and the mindset shifts that you had to go through along the way to get to where you are.
[00:04:00] Bernadette Joy: Yeah, yeah. So conveniently the way this all goes when I look back into 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 the thing tell me, how you invested in, how you budget early and 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 is 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 into what I made as income and what my money situation looked like. And until I started on uncoupling the two and realizing that self worth is not directly tied to my income and But I still, you can still grow both. But it's not in the same way. And looking for self worth in your net worth is.
Is not the way to go. And it was what I realized. 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 art and crush dance 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, 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. Dig deep as to what that real thing is that you can then put the money plan in place. So a lot of 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 like, how do I feel less anxiety, less stress around money, and also uncouple my self worth from, what I make as an income and then reverse engineering my life? What am I really after here? And at the day, what my husband and I. And we want to retire early, not for the sake of vanity sake or anything like, but because 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 fuel that. And then, the question has been in reversion engineering, your life is what would be enough? And if you talk to most people and say 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 to use, how do you have a positive relationship with money? And what is all the garbage that you have to get through? And how do you reverse engineer the life that you want?
Not the money goal.
[00:07:45] Naseema McElroy: So what would you guys's life look like if money was no issue?
[00:07:50] Bernadette Joy: Interestingly, it's pretty close to what it is now because we've worked to get to this point. The test that we had this year. So 2020, my husband and I were like, you know what?
We've always had a goal of living in the mountains. I grew up in New York City. I want like a quiet, peaceful life kind of thing. And, but I was like, 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 off where 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 not huge. I realized I don't really like spending a lot of time doing home maintenance and stuff like that.
I was and I remember sitting on my couch. I was reading a book. Yeah. And it was about like the philosophy of money, it was 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 learning how to learn this new board game.
My husband has 150 board games. He's like a board game addict. Wow. That's the real thing. And it was like. perfect for me. It was perfect in the sense of okay, we didn't have to work today because 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 and it made me realize it doesn't require that much. It doesn't require that much for us to feel like it's enough. And I said, if this is, and I told my husband that day, I remember saying, I'm 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 strong opinion about the lack of diversity in wealth, specifically when it comes to women and BIPOC communities.
And I'm honestly tired of a conversation of like diversifying our portfolios when our portfolios are still a bunch of companies owned by white men. That's just my take on it. My personal opinion. Again, that's like not everybody's thing. But 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.
[00:10:37] Naseema McElroy: That is so dope. 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, most people don't know what an accredited investor is. And I'll put a link because I don't want to say this 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, your why, 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?
[00:11:20] Bernadette Joy: Yeah the rest of the acronym, the U stands for using your resources efficiently. And when I talk about efficiently, I'm talking, and resources, I'm talking about time and energy.
And what I'm, what I teach people how to do, and what I had to figure out myself, is that if you are 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 the 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 we talk about basic things of okay. I get a lot of people who say 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 in to replace time and energy that 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 up 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 nothing going to happen out of it, or if this could have been an email that is getting canceled. Simple thing. Right. So how do you protect your time and energy so that you can in fact save money?
That goes hand in hand. The S part. Is counterintuitive to a lot of what we hear in the debt free community, which is spend on what you love and spend on what matters to you and be ruthless everywhere else. And so for my husband and I could you not right before I got on this call, I was eating sushi and I eat sushi at least once.
That's one of our things. We eat sushi once a week because I ain't trying to make that at home by myself and I like good sushi. So I do not like, I do not like the rhetoric in kind of traditional personal finance that pooh poohs on, things that you love if it really fills you.
And 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 I like, I don't buy Chick fil a anymore, for example I just don't buy fast food anymore because I, I want to enjoy quality food.
I mean, I'm not going to be apologetic about it, 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, of So 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 that train because we didn't know what we were doing. We're like, let's, let's have three jobs each and Try to bring in as much like extra income do Uber do all that kind of stuff and we realize 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're able to pay off debt quickly was because we built streams of income in real estate. And so that was one of the, 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.
[00:14:43] Naseema McElroy: I love the, 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 suckers. No, it's not. Oh, me too, girl. I love to sleep.
And I think sleep is a very important part of being healthy, but hustle. How are you going to make your money work for you? Not you grinding it out until you're like bone tired. And yeah, I love that you said that because, and I, and 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, like work, work, work. You have to work, work, work, work, work hard, hard, hard, work hard. 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 why I want to switch that paradigm around. And then just speaking of your parents, like how, and your family, like, how did they take your trend, your money mindset, transitioning, and I'm like seeing you come from, being in debt and just living the life that they, that people think you're supposed to live to where you are now.
[00:16:11] Bernadette Joy: That's a really good question. And I think. It's been hard. I'm going to be honest. Like 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 like figure this out, you're like, I want everyone I love to know this too. And I want I don't understand like where, why we're all doing it this way.
Like you want, you're thinking you want the, like 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 and some of that cultural thing is I mean, my, my father's 80. two years old. He ain't changing very much at this point, right?
He's still, and his first, I'm gonna be honest, his perception of what I do for a living is he like, he thinks I just like post on Instagram and he doesn't under he doesn't think I have a real job, right? Because he, he equates again, like showing up to a place, sitting down under the desk, like working for someone else.
That is the only way that you make money. And my father, I'm going to, my father was a CFO at one point and, and what has been kind of eyeopening 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.
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. from my father. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's this also, there's this perception of Oh, well you, like again, like you had it easy.
Like your dad was a CFO and like you lived in a middle class neighborhood in New York city and all that stuff. I'm like, Oh, oh, like you don't know about my eight siblings and the fact that like all of us had to go through college and that like part of the reason that I had to be, independent is because I did not, I didn't have any expectation of getting anything from my family, so I had to figure out how to do this stuff on my own.
And what I think is, has been the biggest takeaway for me is that once I stopped talking about it.
And I just, we just did it like action, speak louder than words.
[00:18:19] Naseema McElroy: I can show you better than I can tell you. That's it right there. And that's the whole thing. And that's actually why I started my platform to begin with. Cause I was just like, everybody needs to know this. Everybody needs to know the freedoms of getting your finances in order.
It affects your whole life. It changed your whole trajectory, not only just yours, but your families. And it's so impactful. And you're like, So motivated. And then everybody else is just I'm really not interested or, someone so says this and I'm gonna listen to them. So I, I a hundred percent bill you.
And so I, yeah, that's the same kind of journey I've had to go on. I had to just stop telling people and just kind of doing my thing. And then when you see me in Forbes, you could say, what's up, you can ask, like then you can ask. I'm not going to be worried about, bringing you along, but if you ask me questions, then I'll answer them.
And 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 you have to work for somebody like, for my, my grandfather, my father's generation, it's you got to get a stable job, government job, preferably collect that pension, and then just retire nurse for nurses too.
That's the thing, like we're fed, get into this job, work, work, work until whatever age, collect your pension and retire it for nurses. It's 75, and so it, it 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, like your crush like what each of those walk us through the acronym.
[00:20:08] Bernadette Joy: Yeah. So crush, so cultivating a positive mindset towards money. That's C R is reverse engineering your life. U is using your resources efficiently. S is spending on what, on what matters to you.
And then H is hustle, hustle, hustle, AKA multiple streams of income. Love it. Love
[00:20:28] Naseema McElroy: it. Love it. All right. So let's talk about how people can work with you if they want to. What kind of things do you offer? What kind of services do you offer for us nurses who are out here trying to be on fire?
[00:20:42] Bernadette Joy: Love it.
So one of the things that I will say up front is that if you're looking for the person who's just gonna show you how to budget and all that stuff, like I do offer, I do offer like basic level courses, right? That's like for people who are just like testing the waters, right? So if you go to my website, you'll see like when my next like basic level course, those are like 20, 24 bucks, it's like let me just try it out where, where my real 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 MO behind that is 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.
[00:22:00] Naseema McElroy: Awesome. So I know like you're Right there, like living your best life and you're already pretty much like fire, but what's next for you? What's coming up for you? What's the thing that's exciting you in your personal life?
[00:22:15] Bernadette Joy: 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 again, I, I will be a hundred percent honest. Sometimes I get caught up right in that hustle piece of especially. So for example, I had a national tv segment yesterday and people are like, oh my god, like you're killing it, like you're like gonna reach all these people, all that stuff.
And I had to really take a step back and think 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 like, who, 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 the circles around them of women like you and the people who are listening to this podcast who think that there's something more to life than what most of us have been taught to believe.
So my next thing is actually combination of 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. 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 going to take a year off and do all the things that we said that we were going to do in our retirement.
And we're going to do it now, like travel, see our family in the Philippines, find a kangaroo like all these things on my list of oh make pasta with a grandma in Italy. Like we, our goal is for that to happen next year. So that's what we're working towards right
[00:23:52] Naseema McElroy: now, 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, that's what I want. I need that right there. That's it right there.
[00:24:13] Bernadette Joy: We're going to get that together.
Like I'm right.
[00:24:16] Naseema McElroy: Yeah. I'm there. I'm there. I just have little kids. And so it's, that's a little bit difficult to navigate, but it'll happen. And I'm just a huge advocate of doing it now, take a year off. Like you can, what's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to go back to your job.
You know what I'm saying? Just take a year off and just live. And so girl, I'm right there with you. Shoot. I might be there in October. Just like celebrating your husband's 40th too. It was actually the year I turned, this is the 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. But anyway, yeah. Can I
[00:24:56] Bernadette Joy: 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, 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, last year and a half now, right?
Or coming up on a year and a half where let's get you there. Cause you deserve it. That's all I'm going to say.
[00:25:30] Naseema McElroy: I love it. I love it. I love it. But anyway, it has been a pure joy. Miss Bernadette joy talking to you. And it's so interesting how similar our stories are and just our past. And looking forward to connecting with you more and connecting my listeners with you.
So you guys, if you want to work with Ms. Bernadette joy, you would go to her website at crush your money goals. com where she has a wide array 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.
[00:26:10] Bernadette Joy: Thank you so much for having me. I had a blast.
[00:26:13] Naseema McElroy: Of course.
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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