$90K in Debt to Coast FI with $1.5M (Here's the Blueprint)

Summary

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BiggerPockets Money Podcast

Episode: $90K in Debt to Coast FI with $1.5M (Here's the Blueprint)
Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Mindy Jensen & Scott Trench
Guest: Erica Young

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Episode Overview

This episode features Erica Young, a financial coach who, together with her husband, went from being $90,000 in debt to achieving Coast FI with over $2.5 million in net worth. Erica shares the exact steps of their journey—including debt payoff, budgeting strategies, investment principles, lifestyle adjustments, and the transition into financial coaching and entrepreneurship. The episode focuses on the importance of consistency, the value of “boring” investing, and the realistic timeline of wealth-building for regular people.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Erica's Debt Background & Rock-Bottom Moment

Timestamps: 01:05–03:56

• Accumulation of Debt: Erica and her husband accumulated $90,000 in debt—a mix of student loans (over half), car loans, and credit card debt.
• Living the ‘American Dream’: They followed traditional paths—college, decent cars, using credit cards—which, without a financial safety net or education, led to their predicament.
• The Wake-Up Call:
  • Child expenses and car issues exposed their lack of savings.
  • “We didn’t have, like, $1,500 to fix the car, but we could go get a loan for another 20 grand. That was pretty crazy.” (Erica, 03:32)

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2. Turning Point & Debt Payoff Strategy

Timestamps: 04:01–06:32

• Finding Dave Ramsey: Listening to Dave Ramsey introduced them to budgeting and the debt snowball.
• Five-Year Payoff: Paid off the entire $90K debt in five years, focusing rigidly on budgeting and attacking debts one by one.
• Visual Aids:
  • “He literally took all of our credit cards and put them all in a bowl of water in the freezer to physically represent not using it again.” (Erica, 04:59)
• Eliminating Small Leaks: Dining out and small expenses were curbed as they realized “death by a thousand cuts” was sabotaging progress.
  • “For us, $10 every day at work was over 2,000, almost $3,000 a year. And we just didn’t have that.” (Erica, 06:17)

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3. Maintaining Momentum & Early Investing

Timestamps: 06:32–09:03

• Always Took the 401(k) Match: Despite following much of Ramsey's advice, Erica and her husband “always got our free money,” investing enough for the employer match even during debt payoff.
  • “That’s 100% return in my book. So, yeah, we definitely took that on and didn't touch it.” (Erica, 06:45)
• No Aggressive Additional Investments Until Debt was Cleared.

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4. Post-Debt: Building Wealth & Discovering FIRE

Timestamps: 09:03–13:10

• Initial Net Worth after Debt: Modest—just “a few ten thousands of dollars.”
• Gradually Upping Investments: Once expenses (like childcare) dropped and Erica started her coaching business, the couple increased their investment contributions until they maxed out pre-tax retirements—this process took about 10 years.
• Late Discovery of FIRE:
  • “We were at Coast FI when we figured it out... It took over 10, 15 years for us to actually find the FIRE community.” (Erica, 08:41)

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5. Entrepreneurial Leap & Financial Safety

Timestamps: 13:10–16:45

• Transition to Coaching: Erica left engineering to coach full-time after moonlighting and testing the waters.
• Emergency Fund: They only had 3 months of expenses saved at the time—Erica now wishes it had been 12 months, as recommended by other entrepreneurs.
• Living on One Income: Careful budgeting made the transition possible.

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6. Prioritizing Fun & Sustainability

Timestamps: 16:16–17:56

• Budgeting for Joy: They prioritized some travel (driving trips, Disney) and free/cheap activities to avoid burnout.
  • “Having fun along the way is how you are sustainable.” (Erica, 16:45)
• Using City Passes & Free Events: Leveraged local resources to keep family life enjoyable on a budget.

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7. Income & Spending During Debt Years

Timestamps: 17:56–20:11

• Income: Started at $65,000 combined, eventually reaching just under $100,000.
• Giving & Budgeting: Maintained charitable giving even during lean years. Lived on about 70% of income, with 3% going to retirement accounts during heavy debt payoff years.

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8. Coast FI Milestone

Timestamps: 20:19–21:35

• Coast FI Calculation:
  • “Our Coast FI was about 1.5 (million). And so we're still going, we're still going strong, and it's been a couple of years.” (Erica, 20:19)
  • This figure is only for retirement assets, excluding their home.
• Ongoing Contributions: Even after reaching Coast FI, they continue to contribute and are working toward higher cash liquidity outside retirement accounts.

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9. Building the Business—Time, Growth & Strategy

Timestamps: 22:09–26:13

• Gradual Transition: Erica spent a year researching and training before entering coaching fully.
• Marketing the Business: Leveraged personal contacts—sent snail mail to everyone she knew—and later partnered with financial advisors and tax professionals.
• Identifying Her Niche: Discovered she did not enjoy bookkeeping, refined her offerings over time.

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10. Role of a Financial Coach vs. CFP

Timestamps: 25:23–26:13

• Financial Coaching: Focuses on basics—budgeting, cash flow, debt payoff, and emotional/mindset support—typically up to “baby step three.”
• CFP: For more advanced investing and planning, clients were referred out.

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11. Investing Philosophy & Portfolio

Timestamps: 26:13–29:03

• “Lazy” Investing:
  • “We are mutual fund. Easy peasy. Let it grow… index investing… simple buying and holding. Don’t touch it, leave it and forget it.” (Erica, 26:31)
• Minimal Real Estate: Brief, negative experience with a rental led them to focus almost entirely on index funds and mutual funds.
• Net Worth Growth:
  • $2.5M current portfolio, $500K of that in home equity.
  • “The first million is hard… the second did not take as long as the first at all.”

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12. Asset Allocation & Preps for Retirement

Timestamps: 32:38–34:14

• Current Portfolio: Still 70%+ in stocks, less than 20% in bonds—primarily in accumulation mode.
• Building Cash: Aiming for “10% of our portfolio”—about two years of expenses—in cash/brokerage.
• Retirement Portfolio: No aggressive shift to bonds yet; experimenting with non-retirement brokerage for liquidity.

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13. Mortgage Payoff vs. Other Goals

Timestamps: 34:30–39:55

• Renovation or Mortgage Payoff? Recently opted to do long-awaited home renovations rather than immediately pay off the mortgage, but plan to pay it off soon.
• Future Goals: Wanting to buy a vacation/rental property, possibly financed with a new mortgage.
• Debate on Mortgage Strategy: Weighing paying off the primary mortgage vs. using available cash for an investment property, especially given current higher interest rates.

“I am totally in camp don’t pay off your mortgage. Scott is totally in camp pay off your mortgage. Both camps are valid.”
— Mindy Jensen (38:02)

• Advice: Speak to lenders about options; consider using low-interest primary mortgage leverage.

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14. Cash Accumulation & Market Timing

Timestamps: 39:55–41:48

• Not Market Timing: Their higher cash position is due to saving for specific goals (reno, future property), not fear of a high-priced stock market.
• Ongoing Investment: No reduction in retirement contributions—still dollar-cost averaging, regardless of market ups and downs.

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15. Closing Thoughts & Notable Quotes

Timestamps: 43:08–44:16

• Hard Work Over 25+ Years:
  • “There's no particularly special or unrelatable or unachievable milestone… just hard work over a 25+ year career, building and building and building, grinding it out, paying down debt, investing consistently.”
    — Scott Trench (43:32)
• Inspiration for Others:
  • “Nothing she did was not repeatable by anybody who is listening who has any level of debt right now.”
    — Mindy Jensen (43:58)

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Notable Quotes

• “Honestly, we did debt well. We just knew how to, like, take it on. That is how our $90,000 came to be.”
  — Erica (01:13)

• “He literally took all of our credit cards and put them all in a bowl of water in the freezer to physically represent not using it again.”
  — Erica (04:59)

• “The first million is hard. Like, I feel like it took us a long time to get there. That second did not take as long as the first at all.”
  — Erica (27:50)

• “Having fun along the way is how you are sustainable.”
  — Erica (16:45)

• “Our Coast FI was about $1.5 million... and that's only for our retirement assets. It doesn't include our home.”
  — Erica (20:19)

• “We are mutual fund. Easy peasy. Let it grow… simple buying and holding. Don’t touch it, Leave it and forget it.”
  — Erica (26:31)

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Where to Find Erica Young

• Podcast: For Better and Worth (about couples and money, available on all platforms and YouTube)
• Website: ericayoung.com
  (Note: Erica is spelled E-R-I-C-K-A)

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Summary — Erica's Blueprint

• Skipped big lifestyle inflation; aggressive debt payoff using budget and “freezing” credit to stop bad habits
• Continued investing at least for a 401(k) match even during debt payoff
• Late discovery of FIRE did not impede progress: long-term consistency mattered more than ‘hacks’
• Embraced affordable living, prioritized fun in a sustainable way
• Gradual shift to max retirement savings as cash flow improved
• Conservative, “boring” index-fund investing with little portfolio tinkering
• Careful planning and communication for future flexibility—including cash holdings and mortgage decisions

Bottom Line: Erica’s journey is a testament to slow, steady, repeatable financial progress—making her story relatable and actionable for anyone, regardless of current circumstances.

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Transcript

[A]

What does it take to go from $90,000 in the Red to Coast PHI with $2.5 million? Erica and her husband did exactly that. And Erica is here to walk us through how they did it. We're talking about their debt payoff, the investment approach that accelerated their wealth and their portfolio today. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me, as always, is my budgeting pro, co host, Scott Trench.

[B]

Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here. And today we're going to talk about a wonderful financial model in Erica and her fantastic journey. We're so excited to welcome Erica Young, a financial coach who's experienced financial rock bottom so that you don't have to. We're going to break down her journey from $90,000 in debt to $2.5 million in net worth and CoastFi and discuss some of the options that she's considering with her own personal portfolio, including whether to pay down her mortgage, buyer rental, or pursue other investment alternatives, like building a cash position. Welcome, Erica, to BiggerPockets Money.

[C]

Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

[B]

Awesome. Well, let's kick things off and start with this, this debt background. How did you rack up $90,000 in debt and what did that feel like?

[C]

Yeah, you know, honestly, I was pursuing the American dream. I think it's really easy to go in debt. It's just hard to get out and. Or I would say you need consistency to get out. And we did what everybody told us to do. My husband and I were both, you know, people who wanted to get a good job, and we thought that was the path to go to college. And that was some of the debt. That was a good portion, more than half of the debt. And then we wanted decent cars. We're from the Motor City, and so you gotta have a nice ride. And that came with a loan and both of us had one. And then we also got, you know, taken to the cleaners when we were in school when everybody was on campus trying to get us to get the credit cards. And we both fell for it to the tune of about three apiece. And max those out. So honestly, we did debt well. Right. Like, we just knew how to, like, take it on. That is how our $90,000 came to be. And like I said, most, you know, half of it was the student loans and we thought we had to. And we didn't have people who could help us financially go through college. But honestly, this is what a lot of people go through when they don't necessarily have the cash to pay for stuff or know how to navigate without debt. Without. We ended up being, you know, just the poster child for all of the different kinds of debt you could have. And we lived there for a hot second.

[A]

At what point did you realize that this wasn't how you wanted your financial life to look?

[C]

I'm an engineer by trade, so my degree is electrical engineering. And I had a good job. My husband had. He started in sales, and so his career grew. But in the very beginning, I realized an engineer shouldn't have this much trouble paying the bills, right? So we got married, and for about a year, we floundered. We got pregnant right away. We had childcare, and the expenses were adding up, and the money just wasn't stretching as far as we wanted it to go. Because when we looked at our student loan debt at the time, this was years ago, and I won't date myself, but it was years ago. And that student loan payment was $451 because we had consolidated it, and we had, you know, childcare, and we had car payments. We had a lot of obligations. And when we added it all up, it was over $1,200 a month in debt payments. And so that was scary. And we had our child. In that first couple of months, our car died, and we had no credit. We had no cash to fix the car. And they'll give you a terrible loan when you don't have great credit. And we did that in order to get another car. So that was kind of our rock bottom moment when we realized we didn't have, like $1,500 to fix the car, but we could go get a loan for another 20 grand. That was pretty crazy.

[B]

What happens next? This wake up call happens. How do you begin resolving the situation?

[C]

Honestly, we found Uncle Dave. My husband had a long trek to work, and he found Dave Ramsey on the radio. And that was our first insight into there could be a way out of this. But I'm also an engineer, so when I heard about, you know, what it looks like to create a budget to get out of debt, I like, okay, I like this. And so I just started number crunching in Excel and figuring out what worked for us. But there had to be the trigger. And it really was finding someone else who, you know, would hit you upside the head and kind of talk to you real sternly. Because there was no one out here, you know, telling us to do something different than to keep the debt besides him. So we went down that path, and it took us about five years to get out of the $90,000 in debt. We used the debt snowball and budgeting was a big part of that puzzle.

[B]

To stay what was your lifestyle like on a day to day basis before and after this mindset shift?

[C]

We didn't have a whole lot of fun at first. I mean, we didn't have a lot of money. Our incomes didn't stretch enough with these payments in order for us to have a whole lot of fun. So there wasn't a bunch of travel, there wasn't a bunch of spending money. Little thing that I did without sharing with my husband was dining out for lunch with friends at work because that was the thing that was accessible. You know, just spending $10 or $15 without his knowledge on a credit card. And when we realized that that was sabotaging our efforts to move forward, he put it on ice. Like he literally took all of our credit cards and put them all in a bowl of water in the freezer to physically represent not using it again.

[A]

I love that suggestion because it's still there. If you get a fifteen hundred dollar car payment or car, you know, repair bill again, you can go over there and thaw them out and go use it. But it's such a block, literally, it's a block of ice, but it's such a block to just swiping and swiping and swiping. And it's not, I don't think it's the big expenses that are the budget killers. It's the little death by a thousand cuts, the $10 here and the $15 there. And it's only a dollar, it's only $10. Well, only $10 every day is a lot of money that adds up every month coming out of your ability to pay off your debt.

[C]

Absolutely. And for us, $10 every day at work was over 2,000, almost $3,000 a year. And we just didn't have that. And so we had to stop the bleeding in addition to do some more aggressive things in order to get free of all of that debt.

[B]

During this period, while you were paying off the debt, was there any accumulation? Did you just literally follow baby step $1,000 emergency buffer and pay off the rest of the debt? Or did you take a 401k match or begin investing in any way while you were attacking the debt?

[C]

Yeah, so that's where Dave and I disagree. We always got our free money. We definitely always got our free money because we could afford to do so. I mean, if we were in such dire straits that we couldn't afford to do that, maybe we would have said no. But no, we wanted that free money. We were young and, you know, with time on our side, that that stuff can grow. And that's 100% return in my book. So, yeah, we definitely took that on and didn't touch it.

[B]

So you took your 401k match and then applied the rest after that to your debt?

[C]

Absolutely. Yep.

[A]

I think Dave Ramsey sometimes gets a bad rap, especially because of these baby steps, because so many people think, well, you know, baby step one, great. If you've got no emergency fund, then, yeah, save up $1,000 for an emergency fund. But there are, you know, is $1,000 enough? Hey, it's better than nothing. So, yeah, start there. When you have a goal of $1,000 and you currently have zero saved up, that can seem unattainable. So having a goal of $10,000 is even more unattainable. And when you have unattainable goals, it's easier, so much easier to be like, ugh, I'm never going to get there. Why bother? So I love Dave Ramsey as a first introduction to this just because he could be a little mean. And I'm not a little mean. I'm like, hey, you know what, Erica? You made mistakes. That's past Erica. I'm talking to present Erica. So let's just. These are just facts now, and let's move on and build from that. But Dave is like, oh. I mean, sometimes he can be like, oh, you're a terrible person for making all these bad mistakes. Like, well, I never had the education, so how am I supposed to feel so bad? But he is a great first introduction to this idea that you can fix your finances. Here are some little ways to do it. So I love that you found Dave. When did you find fire? The concept that you could actually retire or retire early, man, a lot later.

[C]

A whole lot later. I mean, almost to the point where we were at Coast Fire when we figured it out. It was a long journey, to be honest with you. And I honestly wish that we had found it earlier. We realized that this was a community that we were. We call it adjacent to and not and didn't really know it. It took a long time. I'm going to say it took over 10, 15 years for us to actually find the Fire community.

[B]

Let's go through a couple of stages in the journey. You know, it sounds like one year after you graduated college is when you began to really transition. The way you were thinking about paying off debt and aggressively pay it off. It Took you five years and during that time period you mostly just attacked the debt, but took the 401k match or other free money at work. When you paid off the debt five years into your journey, what was your net worth at the time? Was it a few thousand bucks? Tens of thousands of bucks? What do things look like?

[C]

Yeah, it was just a couple, few ten thousands of dollars. I mean it wasn't a whole lot to speak of, but we were consistent because it was around five or six years where we were taking that minimal, the minimal amount to get the match. We didn't make aggressive progress with our financial future until there was the point when our kids didn't need the child care and the business financial coaching business was actually born and we were making some money. And so it took a few years honestly after that to actually get a little bit more aggressive. So we weren't doing more than that minimum for a few years. And then when we really started to get aggressive, we just would add every single year, every single time. We would increase our income over time until we could max out all of our pre tax retirement dollars. And that took a little time. Took. I'm. It took a good 10 years before we were able to max it out fully.

[A]

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[A]

Welcome back to the show.

[B]

So after five years of debt payoff, we're at zero and you just continue to save and. But now instead of paying off the debt, it's going in a tax advantaged order of operations. It sounds like the 401k. You were maxing out the 401k and applying every dollar to that that you could. There wasn't really much after that because there wasn't enough of a surplus to go down the next layer into the stack, into the Roth or those types of things. But as your income grew, you were able to then begin maxing out the Roth and some of these other accounts. Is that the right way to describe it?

[C]

It is, Scott. And I will add one thing that I think is real life for a lot of people is there was a point when we were out of debt and we had these childcare payments and we said, let's really go like, give me the opportunity to go all in and help other people with their finances because I wanted to utilize our journey to help other people get free of their own debt through the use of coaching. And so I left my job. So, you know, I did coaching on the side. I moonlight nights and weekends. And then after a year of doing that, I was like, okay, you know, engineering is not suited honestly to my personality. Enjoy the, the, the creation and the statistics and that kind of thing. But some of that was just not something I could see myself doing long term. And I really wanted to be people facing versus computer facing. And so I left my job. So that was an income dip and that was part of the shift as well is, you know, this is why for a while we were just doing kind of the minimum into our retirement accounts because we needed to regrow income in a new space. And that took a little bit of the time into why we weren't necessarily growing our investment portfolio.

[B]

Got it. And before you switched full time to this entrepreneurial pursuit, did you build up a cash position outside of the retirement accounts?

[C]

For a time, we did, yeah. But it wasn't big enough. Like I tell people all the time, I Wish we had 12 months of expenses. We had just over three months of expenses. We were just out here thinking this would be enough. And thankfully, nothing traumatic happened. And it took about two years in order to really grow the business into some income that we could see at home. But yes, we did have an emergency fund. We didn't necessarily have to use it, thankfully. But I think that that's a smart thing to call into this conversation because you don't want to leave without any money.

[A]

Yeah. Three months is actually on the lower side. From other entrepreneurs that we have talked to, we've heard, you know, 12 months. We've heard 18 months from one particular entrepreneur, which I thought was a little much. When you left your job, did you do the math and make sure that you could live just off of your husband's salary while you were building your business?

[C]

I will tell you, I was the budget queen when I figured out how to create a budget. So we made these dollars stretch and work. And. And honestly, I will say that once a year, we still would drive. We lived in Arizona at the time, and we could drive to Disney and stay in a hotel for a couple of days or go to San Diego or be with family on a vacation. So we didn't deprive ourselves of those types of things again. It was just once, maybe twice a year. And we used cash, so we didn't say no to everything. But when we were at Disney, we didn't eat their food. We had our little sandwiches and our little thing that we got from the grocery store in the car, and then we went back into Disney to have our little fun. You know, we just had to do it differently in order to still enjoy ourselves and not spend a ton of money doing so.

[A]

I love that you incorporated fun into your journey, because I didn't. And my journey, I bet, was a lot different than yours. There were lots of times when we weren't having any fun, and we, you know, we didn't live close enough to drive to Disney, but we didn't go to Disney and we didn't do all of these fun things. We put our nose to the grindstone and we just kept going. I think it's Just so important to incorporate enjoyment into your life so that you can then continue on the path.

[C]

Absolutely. I think that having fun along the way is how you are sustainable. Like, it makes it real. And then we had to. I mean, so I think the other part of this was life is short, and we just wanted to enjoy those younger years and find a way to do it on a budget. You know, one of the biggest things that we did in their childhood was they had like a pass, a city pass in our town. And we did all of the museums, all of the free things we went on, the free days, the free evenings. So we had lots to do that didn't require cash out of our pocket. And that helped us tremendously because we really got a chance, one, to see the city, but also to make sure that, you know, we weren't stuck in the house fiddling our thumbs or just, you know, playing with crayons all the time. Honestly, like, we got out the house.

[A]

It'S so easy to just throw money at things and spend money to do things, but it's equally easy to use your creativity. And the Internet, I mean, we've got the Internet now, and it tells you all the free things you can do in your city and surrounding cities. So it is really easy to get out and do things with your kids without breaking the bank.

[C]

Absolutely.

[A]

Okay, so let's look at some real numbers. You were $90,000 in debt. What was your income at that time?

[C]

When we got married, we were right at around 65,000 between the two of us. I mean, let's. Let's be real. This was a long time ago. And then it grew a little bit. So when the both of us, after around six or seven years, we were right at around a hundred because my husband was in sales, and basically half of his income was from commission dollars. And then he found another job where it was just a bit more stable than that. And so we were able to. That's when we were able to say, all right, Erica, you know, we can let that income go for a while until we build up this business. And so frankly, for a while, we just hovered right beneath 100 grand for a while until the business started to grow. But we started at like 65. We had more debt than we had income. It was scary, especially with. With two kids.

[A]

Yeah. And I think it's really important to note that this was several years ago. When you said 65, 000. I was like, wait, you're a double E? What do you mean, 65, 000? But I remember back when I got married and my income was a walloping 24, 000? So of course you're 40, so.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Who's, who's 40?

[A]

You're 40. Me, in my mind you're 40.

[C]

You know what, I'll take it, I'll take it.

[A]

Just looking at these two numbers, you were $90,000 in debt and you were making 65,000 totally for free, which you cannot. It would take you a year and a half to pay that off.

[C]

Yeah, for sure.

[A]

So paying that off in five years, that's awesome. What were your expenses when you were making the 65,000? Were you spending all 65,000 of it?

[C]

Well, okay, so let's be very clear. We were givers. So we definitely were people who prioritize giving. We were people who, you know, when I learned how to get the budget down, we were spending quite a bit of money on paying down the debt. But we did live on the rest. I mean there was about 3% going into our retirement accounts. And so we lived on a good 70% of that income. And at the time we had no choice. That was what it was requiring in order for us to live as a family of two, then three, and then eventually four within those four years. First four years.

[A]

Okay, let's talk about your coast phi numbers. Have you used the pioneers coastfi calculator?

[C]

Woo hoo. Yes. So we stumbled, we reached, realized that we were at Coast 5 a few years back and we were like yes. So we hadn't calculated until we were right about there. And it took us about two years to kind of complete the number. But we were excited about that. So yeah, so our coast Phi was about 1.5. And so we're still going, we're still going strong and it's been a couple of years, so that number has increased. And that's only for our retirement assets. It doesn't include our home.

[A]

Okay, so your coast fine number is your. That's your fine number that you will have at age 65.

[C]

Well, this was what we needed to hit so that we were there. So we needed to hit the 1.5 in order to hit our number when we're that age. And frankly we don't want to wait till 65. My husband is dead set on it being 59 and a half. So we'll see, we'll see.

[A]

Good. Well, 59 and a half is attainable if you just continue to contribute nominally. And if you're self employed and he's still doing his sales work, that could really Reduce your taxable income by contributing to your 401ks and your IRAs. There's a lot of opportunities for self employed people to like super contribute to their 401ks.

[C]

Yeah, we're doing all of those things even though if we stop now we would be fine and we wouldn't have to contribute another dollar. But we're, we're just continuing to stay diligent because you just never know. And I think the biggest thing that we're doing now that we've learned from fire is to get our cash more solid. Because at any time, what if we decided that this was a time where we're like, you know what, we're done, we're done working and we want to have a more solid cash position or funds that are not necessarily tied to the retirement accounts. And that's the piece that we're working on right now.

[B]

I'd like to go back to when you started your business. It sounds like it took two years for you to get that up and running, which is not uncommon. I want to focus on one, the low cash position and two, what the transition was like from a time perspective. Were you able to focus full time on the business with two young kids or was that diluted in some capacity and because it took two years. Talk us through how much of that time was directly going to revenue creation and how much was going off on tangents which I think are normal for new business.

[C]

That's a really good question. So let me back up even further. When I realized that this was a business that I wanted to do, I spent about a year doing research and talking to people and having some potential, you know, clients just to kind of see if this is, is what I enjoyed and then also getting trained. So I did do some training prior to jumping in with two feet and then when I did, it was a good part time business and I just reinvested that first year. So you know, I, I just put dollars in back in. I could have pulled money out, but I didn't really want to. So I needed a website and I wanted to do some other trainings and I wanted to figure out what was needed. It's a low cost business, let's be very honest. But I didn't want to pull funds for myself unnecessarily because, you know, we could live on that one income and then I would say it was a good part time. I did grow my client base. I did have some people during the day. So I was working with a couple of businesses to see if that's what I wanted to do as well, to help businesses with their cash flow as well. So that was something that I could do during the day and so that wasn't taking up all of my nights and weekends. The beauty of all of that was that I figured out what I didn't want to do because I did not want to do bookkeeping. And I think I had to do some of that because of course that for businesses can go hand in hand with their cash flow planning and forecasting and things like that. And it took. It took not too much time for me to realize that's not what I wanted to do. And so I just had to double down on the business. One of the biggest things that I did that helped me to grow this was back in the day when snail mail was fun. I sent snail mail to everybody that I knew. I captured all of their addresses and I just wanted to let them know, here's what I'm up to. If you or anyone, you know, could utilize the help of a financial coach, send them my way. And that was a big way. I mean, I sent it and I tracked who these people were and their referrals and all of that good stuff. And it was awesome because that, that really helped me. And today I would tell someone, definitely text, email, send this nail mail, continue to, you know, do more than what I did. I did the letter and that helped me get off the ground for sure. But I would do a little bit more because we have more at our disposal as well. But that helped. And then I said, okay, after a couple of years, you know, I've been in this work and I started just reaching out to partners, financial advisors, even, you know, tax people, and just seeing, you know, how can we partner so that you one know that who I am and that you can refer folks my way. And that was a little bit of a boost as well to getting into the full time space space.

[A]

What is a financial coach exactly and how does it differ from a cfp?

[C]

The way that I define financial coaching is a person who is helping sometimes with the mental and emotional and the communication around money. So sometimes it doesn't actually have to do with the numbers themselves, but specifically when it does have to do with the numbers, it's the basics in personal finance, the foundations, the budgeting, the cash flow planning, the reality check of what you're spending. If we're talking about the baby steps, getting you through baby step three, so making sure that you are out of debt and that you have an emergency. My goal is to Hand off a good client to someone who is a financial advisor or planner so that they actually know how to take their next steps, should they choose to go that route or, you know, if they want to look to do that on their own, but they are at a point where they. They can invest a bit more aggressively because they don't have debt in the way.

[B]

Given this awesome career and business that you built, what do you personally invest in and what does that portfolio look like these days?

[C]

Oh, my gosh. I am a very lazy investor. Let's be very clear.

[B]

Rental properties, right?

[C]

You know what? You know what's so funny?

[B]

We.

[C]

We did have a rental property, but I honestly felt like we did it backwards. I do definitely feel like we did it backwards. We got taken in the shorts a little bit on that one and didn't return. So we are mutual fund. Easy peasy. Let it grow. And we do work with an advisor. You know, we're index investing. I mean, it's. It's just simple buying and holding. Don't touch it, Leave it and forget it.

[A]

There you go. I love that answer because so many people make it so common. Complicated. It doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to be in all the things. You don't have to. I'm going to throw crypto under the bus again. If you don't understand crypto or don't want to be in crypto, you don't have to. If you want to be a lazy investor. And I'm using air quotes because I don't believe that's lazy at all. I believe that's smart. Your investing should not be exciting because exciting means risk. Exciting means my portfolio is up a hundred thousand dollars today, and then tomorrow my portfolio is down $150,000 today. Like, like those. Those highs are great, but those lows are really, really, really hurtful, especially if you don't have the risk tolerance to ride the roller coaster. So lazy. Investing for the win.

[C]

Yeah, I'll take it. And I'll. I'll say. Maybe we can alter it and say it's a little boring over here. Like that.

[A]

There we go. There we go. We're gonna do a rebrand. It's a boring way to invest.

[C]

It is. It's not sexy, but it works. It works. I mean, the. And I'm gonna be very frank because y' all do numbers on this show. I know you do. And so, like, the first million is hard. Like, I feel like it took us a long time to get there. I remember when we were close and we were like, okay, it's, it's gonna be, I don't know, we were thinking another year or two or something like that. Our overall portfolio is 2.5, 500,000 of that is our home. So that second did not take as long as the first at all, like because we were being way more aggressive. So we're more aggressive with how much we put in to our boring investments that buy and hold so that we can have habit over time. And I think because we're also closer than most might think to making the decision if we want to like step away from working. That colors it a little bit different for us too because, you know, my husband might tell you he's less than 10 years away and I, you know, honestly, I'm not working if he ain't working. You know, I might, I might write a book and do a couple speaking events here and there. But I am not going to be working super hard if my honey is trying to travel the world. We're going, we're traveling the world. But I think it can get more boring when you are closer to making a decision to want to tap into those funds.

[B]

This is our final break and we'll be back with more after this.

[A]

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[B]

Thanks for sticking with us. One of the things that I think a lot of investors listening to Biggerpockets money do is if they don't have rental properties, they're typically 100% in passively managed index funds allocated to broad stock market indexes. However, we've been talking a lot on the Money show this year about the transition from that accumulation portfolio to a retirement portfolio. We've talked about 6040 stock bond portfolios and we've talked about the risk parity portfolio, which might have allocations to five different asset classes. For example, which one of those are you in right now? And if you plan to transition, if you're still in a accumulation portfolio. Portfolio. Do you have any thoughts about what a retirement portfolio might look like for you or how you might transition?

[C]

Yeah, we are definitely in the accumulation. We are still making sure that we're, we have very little bonds, less than 20% and we do still spread it around the different, different, you know, asset classes. We're pretty balanced, I would say. So it's still over 70% stocks. I think we're going to stay there for a little bit longer. We're playing around. I shouldn't say playing around, but I, you know, when we're talking about cash, I don't necessarily mean cash in, say, even a high yield account. We're talking about a brokerage account with, you know, index investing. And so in that regard, we're still going to be, we're still in market. Right. So we're not quite getting conservative with our dollars yet, but we do have a mix of mutual funds that we invest in.

[B]

You mentioned that earlier. Are you building up that a year of cash? Is that what I heard earlier?

[C]

We're building up to 10% of our portfolio. So it's going to be more than a year of cash. It'll likely be two.

[B]

And then last question on the portfolio. Many people, but not all choose to, I would say it's a mixed bag, frankly, choose to pay off the home mortgage in anticipation of retirement earlier. Otherwise, what is your plan on the home mortgage fund?

[C]

It's so funny you asked that question, Scott. We were in this decision this year. Do we pay the mortgage off or do we do a renovation? We have been in our home for 13 years and we had the cash to pay the house off. And we were trying to decide because we had waited for about three years almost for these bathroom renovations. It was just the bathrooms and nothing else. And we decided to do the renovation. And so we are within months of paying the house off. And we, we just, honestly, part of our decision was because we didn't want to have our goods cost more a year from now if we were to wait to do the renovation. And so we said, let's not let the tariffs, you know, catch up to us on this one. Let's get all the stuff and do it now. And we're really glad that we did. We love what we have done and so we will be paying that house off. The other thing is, I Do think we're going to get back into real estate? Because I am definitely interested. One of our next goals is to have a rental property that we can utilize for ourselves but also for others. We do want, like just a vacation home. And so my grandfather had a cabin in Upper Michigan. And so we're just thinking about outside the box on what it could look like to reclaim something like that. So that's, that's one of our next steps in the next couple years.

[B]

I have a billion questions. I'm fascinated by all this. One, is the mortgage payoff and this potential rental going to come from just cash accumulation that you're going to make and earn and save over the next couple years, or do you plan to potentially sell off a portion of the stock portfolio, investment portfolio to fund those?

[C]

That's a good question. We use cash for the renovation. We're done. We're not planning on doing anything significant in the coming, next, coming years. It might just be some carpet, but that, that won't derail anything. And then for the rental property. No, I don't know. I don't think we're pulling anything out. We are likely going to take on a mortgage, a small mortgage for that. We'll have some cash for a down payment and make sure that we're not taking on any additional fees because we don't want that. But yeah, we're probably going to take on a mortgage for that. And that's where my hub. See, this is when we disagree and we are still working it out. So we haven't made a decision because hubby doesn't want to take on a mortgage. And I don't mind. And I want, you know, something nice. So we'll see. We'll see how that turns out.

[A]

Okay. I have a question. I think you said you have the cash to pay off your current home, but you have not yet paid off the home. Is that correct?

[C]

That is correct. But we don't want to dip that far into our cash. So the house will be paid off in a couple months. Yeah.

[A]

So my thought is you probably have a lower interest rate primary mortgage loan on the current house. Rather than paying that off, I would take the, the, the same amount of money and throw that at the rental because you won't get 2, 3, 4% loan for the rental property right now.

[C]

That's true. That's true. Thank you, Mindy. That's a good idea.

[B]

Rental is going to be tax deductible and the home interest is often not tax deductible, which is something to work through on those, depending on how you file taxes.

[C]

That's a good point. I love it. I love it. Yeah.

[A]

Lots of different ways to look at where your money could be going. I am totally in camp. Don't pay off your mortgage. Scott is totally in camp. Pay off your mortgage. So there's Both camps are valid.

[B]

Yeah. I paid off my mortgage or I bought my house in cash, more specifically, because interest rates were higher at that point in time. But with my rentals, with a low interest rate mortgages, I do not pay those off.

[C]

Yeah, that's a good point though, because one thing we hadn't thought about, because it didn't on our mortgage, I mean, yes, it's a lower interest rate right now, but, gosh, when I just looked at interest rates recently for someone else, I was like, this is a mess. And I. You're right. I probably wouldn't want to take that on. So. Something to think about for sure.

[A]

So if you've got that money in the account that you haven't thrown at your. At your mortgage yet, maybe, you know, run those numbers and see. Okay, I'll continue making my nominal home mortgage payment while I then throw this money at something else. Because it doesn't make sense to throw money at a 3% loan and then take out a 8% loan.

[C]

You're right. Yeah. Yeah, we're definitely not doing that. Yeah.

[A]

There's also second home mortgages, and those have a slightly higher interest rate than your primary mortgage, but it's lower than an investment mortgage. So talk to lenders, especially before you find a property. Just talk to lenders and see what options are available for a house like this. Because right now, lenders aren't that busy. They got lots of time to talk to you and talk to mortgage brokers, talk to just different options. Credit unions are awesome. I've got a great, great credit union lender in Colorado, but he's only licensed in Colorado. And I can call him up because I'm a real estate agent. I. I refer people to him all the time. I can call him up and I mean, he'll do this for anybody. But I call him up, I'm like, hey, let's talk about this. Such. Such thing. He's like, oh, and by the way, did you know about this? Did you know about this? No. Oh, those are new products or that's a new thing that my company is doing. So there's just. There's lots of options available, but you won't know until you ask a lender. And I'm not a lender. I just know enough to be dangerous. Dangerous.

[C]

I love it.

[B]

I got a question here, and I don't know how to phrase this, so I'll just ask it fairly directly here. But you're accumulating a lot of cash. So clearly things are going fairly well from the career front and low expenses that's enabling you to both or you know, simultaneously or in some capacity, in some sequence, build up enough cash to build multiple years or at least, at least a year of cash position, pay off your home and accumulate a down payment on a nice vacation home home. I imagine that is coming at the expense of at least some aggressive investments in stocks to continue to pile on. Is that at all influenced by the market right now and stocks being at very high price to sales multiples, price to earnings multiples, those types of things, or is that just a different course of priorities in life and where you want to spend the next incremental dollar?

[C]

Well, I'll tell you this, it isn't all happening at what, once, Right. So we've been saving for this reno or saving the cash. Yes, for a couple of years. It's taken us a couple of years to get to the place where this was something that we can do. And then the other part of it is likely the rental property is going to take a couple more years from now. It's not like that's happening in 2026. Even so we're having conversations around how we're going to get that done. And so that's why I appreciate this conversation with you all because you've given me food for three thought and we have not reduced how aggressive we are in saving for retirement. That won't change. And we definitely believe in dollar cost averaging. So quite frankly, you know, things are looking fine right now. I know earlier this year we everybody was taking a hit, but it didn't deter us because we were still, still buying and still, you know, sometimes you get them on sale. And so yeah, our strategy again is pretty stable boring and it works over time because it defin has paid off so far.

[B]

Well, thank you for sharing so much about your story and your current situation and what's next. It's been really fascinating to get to know that and learn that. Where can people find out more about you, Erica?

[C]

Well, one way that they can find out about myself is on for Better and Worth. For Better and Worth is the podcast my husband and I have where we talk about the intersection of couples and money and just having those conversations that people have a hard time Having, having. And so you can find that on all of the platforms as well as on YouTube professionally. For the work that I do on a day to day basis, you can find me on ericayoung.com and that is where I do all the things concerning financial health, wellness and working with financial institutions to ensure that their teams can employ financial coaches in a great way. So that's where I'm at.

[A]

Erica Young is spelled E R I C K A Y O U N G. That's correct.

[C]

We're a little extra over here, so I need some extra letters.

[A]

She's the best of both worlds.

[C]

There we go.

[B]

Thank you for an extra detailed and specific and transparent episode today. You're really, I think, going to inspire a lot of people. That's a really tough position to dig out of and then blow past to a really elite net worth and tons of options. So super excited to see what the next few years bring for you and let us know what happens on the rental properties front if you decide to that.

[C]

Thank you. So glad to be here.

[A]

Thank you, Erica. And we'll talk to you soon.

[C]

Okay, thanks.

[A]

All right, Scott, that was Erica and that was a super fun story. I love that she shared her numbers. I don't love that she was in debt, but I love that she was able to pull herself out and now go, go from 90,000 in debt to positive 2.5 million. That's an awesome story. What did you think?

[B]

One of the best, most relatable, most inspiring, best examples of a money story ever on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Thank you so much to Erica for sharing all of that detail. It was fantastic. Makes a ton of sense. There's no particularly special or unrelatable or unachievable milestone on that. It's just hard work over a 25 plus year career, building and building and building, grinding it out, paying down debt, investing consistently. Loved it.

[A]

Yeah. Nothing she did was not repeatable by anybody who is listening who has any level of debt right now. Right now. I love that she shared those numbers. That's always super helpful for our guests to share their numbers so our listeners could be like, oh yeah, she did it. I could do it too. All right, Scott, should we get out of here?

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Minnie Jensen saying stay keen, jelly bean.