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

Summary

BiggerPockets Money Podcast Summary Episode: From $300K in Debt to Millionaire at 39 (Financial Freedom in 8 Years!)
Release Date: January 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this inspiring episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, hosts Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench delve into the remarkable financial journey of Bernadette Joy, who transformed her life from being $300,000 in debt to achieving millionaire status by the age of 39. Bernadette's story is a testament to resilience, strategic planning, and the pursuit of financial freedom.

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Bernadette’s Financial Journey

Starting Point: $300K in Debt
Bernadette's financial turmoil began in 2016, when despite following traditional financial advice—maintaining a stable job, pursuing higher education, and owning multiple properties—she found herself entangled in $300,000 of debt. This debt included $72,000 in student loans, mortgages on her primary and an investment property, and assorted credit card and car payments. At that time, her net worth was barely positive, largely offset by accruing student loan interest.

Quote Highlight:
Bernadette reflects on her situation:
“I did all those things and I found myself in that $300,000 of debt without a clear plan on how I was going to pay that all off... my mental health really took a toll during those years.”
(01:05)

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Debt Repayment Strategy

Draining Savings to Tackle Debt
Realizing the severity of her debt, Bernadette made the bold decision to significantly drain her savings, keeping only one month's worth ($3-4,000) as a cushion. This move deviated from conventional advice of maintaining 3-6 months of savings but was pivotal in accelerating her debt repayment.

Snowball Method with a Twist
Bernadette employed the debt snowball method, prioritizing smaller loans first to build momentum. She meticulously broke down her student loans, targeting the smallest balances initially to gain quick wins and boost her confidence.

Innovative Budgeting: Survive, Revive, Strive
To manage her finances effectively, Bernadette adapted the zero-based budget approach into three distinct categories:

• Survive: Covered essential expenses like health, transportation, food, housing, and utilities.
• Revive: Allocated funds for maintaining her quality of life, including enjoyable activities like board games and hosting potlucks.
• Strive: Dedicated resources to growing her net worth, primarily focusing on debt repayment.

Quote Highlight:
Bernadette explains her budgeting strategy:
“I called it survive, revive, and strive... Strive is anything that's going to help me grow my net worth. So paying down my debt primarily was where I was focused at the time.”
(06:00)

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Adjusting and Balancing Life

Maintaining a Social Life Amid Financial Struggles
While adhering to a strict budget was essential, Bernadette recognized the importance of balance. She chose to attend significant life events, like her friends' weddings, without overspending, ensuring she didn't completely sacrifice her social life for financial stability.

Mental Health Considerations
Bernadette acknowledged that financial stress exacerbated her anxiety. By creating a sustainable budget that included the Revive bucket, she maintained essential joys in her life, which played a crucial role in managing her mental well-being.

Quote Highlight:
On balancing budgeting with personal happiness:
“Having this revive bucket... had at least a couple things in there that really I enjoy.”
(08:10)

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Side Hustles and Income Generation

Launching a Resume Review Business
Leveraging her expertise as a recruiter, Bernadette started a side hustle offering resume reviews. Initially charging $19 per review, she quickly realized the value of her service and increased her rates to $89, eventually earning up to $400 per review. This venture not only provided additional income but also laid the foundation for her current financial education company.

Innovative Business Ventures: Dress Rental Service
To create a more sustainable income stream, Bernadette launched a local dress rental business. Starting with dresses from her own closet and expanding through community contributions, she managed to run this business with minimal initial investment, storing inventory in her spare bedroom and keeping operations debt-free.

Quote Highlight:
Bernadette discusses her resume side hustle:
“I started charging people $19 to review their resume... I raised them up from $19 to $89.”
(18:00)

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Achieving Financial Freedom

Debt-Free Milestone and Wealth Accumulation
Over eight years, Bernadette and her husband eliminated all debts and accumulated a net worth of $1.859 million. A significant portion of this wealth is held in cash ($900,000), enabling her to explore angel investing, particularly in women-owned businesses.

Maximizing Retirement Accounts
Both Bernadette and her husband maxed out their 401(k)s and IRAs, benefiting from employer matching and profit-sharing contributions. This strategic approach not only secured their retirement but also contributed significantly to their overall net worth.

Investing Philosophy: Conservative Yet Aggressive
Maintaining a large cash reserve allows Bernadette to take calculated risks with angel investments without jeopardizing her financial stability. This balance between conservatism in asset accumulation and aggressiveness in investment is key to her continued financial growth.

Quote Highlight:
Bernadette on her net worth and investment strategy:
“I have this $900,000 in cash... is sitting and waiting to be an investor into these other businesses.”
(34:48)

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Insights and Takeaways

Resilience and Adaptability
Bernadette's journey underscores the importance of resilience and the ability to adapt financial strategies based on evolving circumstances. Her willingness to deviate from traditional advice when necessary played a crucial role in her success.

Balancing Financial Goals with Personal Well-being
Maintaining a balance between financial goals and personal happiness is essential. Bernadette's approach of incorporating the Revive bucket in her budget highlights the significance of not compromising one's quality of life while striving for financial independence.

Value of Side Hustles and Entrepreneurship
Diversifying income through side hustles and eventually transitioning to entrepreneurship provided Bernadette with additional revenue streams, accelerating her debt repayment and wealth accumulation.

Continuous Learning and Adjustment
Bernadette's journey illustrates the importance of continuous learning and adjusting strategies based on feedback and changing circumstances. Her evolution from resume reviews to a full-fledged business demonstrates adaptability.

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Conclusion

Bernadette Joy's financial transformation from $300,000 in debt to a millionaire status within eight years exemplifies strategic planning, disciplined budgeting, and entrepreneurial spirit. Her story offers valuable lessons for anyone seeking financial freedom, highlighting the balance between rigorous financial management and maintaining personal well-being. Bernadette's ongoing journey as an angel investor and business owner continues to inspire listeners to take control of their financial destinies.

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Notable Quotes

1. On Financial Struggles and Mental Health
   “I did all those things and I found myself in that $300,000 of debt without a clear plan on how I was going to pay that all off... my mental health really took a toll during those years.”
   (01:05)

2. On Budgeting Strategy
   “I called it survive, revive, and strive... Strive is anything that's going to help me grow my net worth. So paying down my debt primarily was where I was focused at the time.”
   (06:00)

3. On Side Hustles
   “I started charging people $19 to review their resume... I raised them up from $19 to $89.”
   (18:00)

4. On Investment Strategy
   “I have this $900,000 in cash... is sitting and waiting to be an investor into these other businesses.”
   (34:48)

5. On Financial Peace of Mind
   “Debt is a short term solution, not a long term lifestyle.”
   (14:21)

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For More Information:
To learn more about Bernadette Joy’s strategies and her financial education company, visit crushyourmoneygoals.com and follow her on Instagram and YouTube @BernadetteJoyDebt.

Transcript

[Mindy Jensen]

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

[Scott Trench]

Thanks, Mindy. Amped to be here. BiggerPockets has a goal of creating 1 million millionaires. You're in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. And that's why we've got a millionaire mentor here on the show today on BiggerPockets Money. Bernadette Joy, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. We are so excited to talk to you today.

[Bernadette Joy]

Thank you so much. I am such a fan of y'all. So I very excited to be here.

[Mindy Jensen]

Woo hoo. Well then you know how we start every episode, Bernadette, where does your journey with money begin?

[Bernadette Joy]

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

[Mindy Jensen]

Ooh. So following traditional advice, what traditional advice were you following that you discovered didn't make you happy or financially free?

[Bernadette Joy]

So the biggest thing that my family taught me, and I'm the eighth of nine kids, so my father had seven kids from his first marriage and two kids from a second marriage. And so I was the eighth of the nine. And the story, as there is probably in many other families, is to work really hard. That's the ticket, right? That you go get a good job, you work for A stable company, you put in money into your 401k and you buy a nice home and then you should be good. Except I did all those things and I found myself in that $300,000 of debt without a clear plan on how I was going to pay that all off, without a career that I was really excited about. And most importantly, my mental health really took a toll during those years because I was not only working a day job, I was working multiple side hustles. I was going back to school to get my mba. I made the mistake of doing all the things probably at the same time versus one at a time. And that traditional advice of working hard, getting a good education, and trying to make as much money as possible was not working for me and not for my mental health. Absolutely.

[Scott Trench]

Can you walk me through what the $300,000 of debt was in?

[Bernadette Joy]

Yeah. So it was $72,000 worth of student loans. It was a mortgage on my primary home, but also I had a second mortgage on a investment property that I really had no business being in because I had no desire to be a landlord while I was also going to school and also doing all of these other things. And then it was some of the usual bills of credit cards and car payments, the things that you would normally see on an average American's household.

[Scott Trench]

Got it. Okay. And did you have $300,000 worth of debt? But did you, were you in $300,000 of debt? Was your net worth negative $300,000 at this point, or was it positive because you had assets against that?

[Bernadette Joy]

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

[Scott Trench]

Okay, got it. So you had debt, but you didn't necessarily. This isn't necessarily a financial disaster from this position, but you felt like it was a financial disaster. So what did you do about it and how did you resolve the issue?

[Bernadette Joy]

Well, I'm so glad you made that Distinction. Because I think what a financial disaster really feels like is for someone, if they can go to sleep at night.

[Scott Trench]

That is a much better definition of a financial disaster than what I had coming in here. I can't sleep at night. Love that and appreciate that. But what, what mechanically did you do to resolve the debt situation after this self education?

[Bernadette Joy]

So the first thing that I did was really scary, which was I significantly drained my savings. I had this fear of having a certain amount of savings, about 10 to 20k of savings, because a couple years earlier than that, I had a significant health emergency that cost me $10,000 out of POC. And so ever since then, I was like, okay, I need to at least have as much money as my health deductible is. And so the scariest thing for me to do at first was to look at my total net worth. And first I learned what even net worth was and figured out, okay, I have this debt, but I do have some savings. I do have some other things. Can I use that to put towards my debt? And so I went down to one month's worth of savings, which was about at the time like three to $4,000. And I threw the rest of that money towards debt, which once again went against a lot of the advice that was said to have three to six months worth of savings. But I thought to myself, well, I have other things that I want to do to be able to get out of this faster. And it's a little bit risky for me now, but I want to at least have one month's worth so I can at least have 30 days to figure out my next move should my income situation really turn sideways. And I threw that money towards the debt. So two of my student loans, smaller ones, when I looked at the snowball to decide, okay, how should I go about these student loans? I decided to tackle it based off of the smaller amounts. First I took the $72,000 and I broke it up into the different loans that they were at. And I said, let me just try to knock out these two $5,000 loans first. That's where I first started. And then once I was really out of money and I was like, okay, I guess I got to go figure out how to make more money is I got in a budget. And I'm very much a proponent of the zero based budget, as many money experts are. But the way that I did my zero based budget was that I actually broke it out into three buckets. I called it sur, revive and strive. And what I found was that a Lot of people really hate budgeting and I hated budgeting the first six months that I did it too, because it was so monotonous. It was all about tracking. It was all about making sure that you crossed every little penny off. And I'm more of a kind of bigger picture kind of thinker. And so I used my zero based budget and I hacked the way that other experts taught it to say, okay, I just really care about. Three categories survive, which is your five basic expenses, your health, your transportation, your food, your housing and your utilities. And then the other two buckets, which is revive and strive. Strive is anything that's going to help me grow my net worth. So paying down my debt primarily was where I was focused on at the time. I decided to pause in every other goal and just focus on paying down debt at that time. And then what was very different from what I was hearing was having this revive bucket of here are things I still want to do to make my life worth living while I'm going through this kind of terrible time period and have at least a couple things in there that really I enjoy. And at the time it was board games and it was hosting potlucks with my friends.

[Scott Trench]

I love the focus on the basics here and the emphasis on this is boring and monotonous. And that's the work. It's called accounting or budgeting or whatever you want to call it. And nobody likes doing this, but it is absolutely essential first step for most people in the wealth building journey, and one that most people never get to. So they never begin moving in the right direction and getting out of these traps. It just takes 6, 18, 24 months. Typically, what Dave Ramsey usually says, like the gazelle, the sprint, like a gazelle kind of concept here. And it sounds like you were doing a version of that after following what he had, what he talks about there.

[Bernadette Joy]

Yeah, and I think where I also started to stray from that advice though too was, you know, he's very much about like rice and beans. And there's nothing wrong with that. I actually really like rice and beans. But I wanted to at the time, I was still in that period where, you know, a lot of my friends were getting married and my friends were starting to have young kids and stuff too. And so, you know, for me to say, okay, I'm just not going to go on any vacations for the next year, when two of my best friends were getting married that same year, I was like, I'm not going to not go to my best friend's weddings.

[Mindy Jensen]

Right.

[Bernadette Joy]

And so I had to figure out a way to balance that advice that I was getting to say, you know, cut everything out and figure out, well, what would make sense for me to feel like I can keep doing this. And I think a really big piece that also was mechanically very important for me is that once I did start tracking my net worth, and at the time it was mint, which, you know, rip to mint, but I started renaming all of my accounts to things that actually really matter to me. So instead of saying checking account or Savings account or 401k, it became, you know, checking account became my cash flow cushion, my savings account became you're going to be okay. My 401k account said don't worry about this now. Because I actually paused my 401k while I was paying down my debt and I literally named it don't worry about this now. And so every time I looked at my net worth, it was also mechanically a reminder to me of what I was focused on.

[Mindy Jensen]

Scott and I will continue this conversation with Bernadette Joy and how she got out of $300,000 in debt in a minute. But first I want to tell you about Momentum 2025 BiggerPocket's virtual investing summit.

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[Mindy Jensen]

I love that. That's not something that I have ever heard before. And I think that these mental shifts are really the difference between somebody who is going to be able to make it and somebody who is going to say, well, I guess I'm just going to be in debt forever. You said balance, which I think is really, really important. So many people are, you know, once they find themselves in the. I don't want to say massive debt. I've definitely talked to people with more debt than you, but I've also talked to people with less debt than you. $300,000 is not small potatoes. But once they find themselves in this position, there's the, what is the, the saying if you find yourself in a hole, step one is to stop digging. Not everybody stops digging. Some people are like, well, I guess this is just my life now. I'm gonna keep digging. You're not going to get out of debt if you keep buying more things and, and accumulating more debt. And I, but I like the way that you have balance because you're not going to not go to your best friend's wedding. Great. That doesn't mean you have to fly there first class and stay in the penthouse suite of whatever hotel they're at. It doesn't mean that you, you know, pay for her dress and, and do all these like big, big, big things you could still attend. So you're not missing it without breaking the bank because you're planning ahead.

[Bernadette Joy]

Very lucky that I Think I had the foresight to say this is a temporary thing. And I say this quite often. And I said this to myself. I said, debt is a short term solution, not a long term lifestyle. That's actually what I wrote on my refrigerator at the time. Debt is a short term solution. At the time, I couldn't afford to pay these student loans and I decided to take out debt for it. It doesn't mean I have to hold them, hold them for the next 20 years like many of my friends did. And so one day it will be done, but it's not going to be the rest of my life.

[Mindy Jensen]

I love that. I love that so much. And, you know, like you said, you don't have to attend all of the things. Having, having a friend who has the destination wedding and the destination bachelorette party and the destination bridal shower and the destination this and the destination that. You can spend thousands of dollars attending one event or one, like, series of events. And what are you getting out of this versus paying off the debt? And I see people getting, getting wedding invites and like, oh, well, I guess I'm gonna go to Cancun this month. You don't have to. You can, you can decide not to, especially if it's like a friend of a friend of a friend. You don't have to go to any wedding invite just because you get it. But you made it a priority to go to these. Hey, I can't go to everything. First of all, if it's a friend, you should not, they should not feel like, oh, Bernadette's poor. Like that. My real friends don't look at me and say, oh, Mindy's poor. At like, whatever time of my life, they, they understand or they're not real friends.

[Bernadette Joy]

That's right. And I think, you know, being in what I, what we phrase as, like, what feels like financial disaster is it has a funny way of allowing you to really decipher who your quote unquote, real friends are. You know, the people who really support and want to see you thrive are not going make fun or not going to make you feel bad about where you're at. They're going to say, okay, like, you know, where can we meet you in the middle? And for me specifically, what I think is really fun is those, you know, those same friends, they have followed my journey over the last eight years, and they are now telling me that they're teaching their kids what I was talking to them about during the last eight years. So it might feel really crappy while you're in it. But I have, you know, I can look back now. And that's why I said that my journey started in 2016, is that that was really the tipping point for me to realize that I want my life to look differently, not just my finances.

[Mindy Jensen]

Oh, I love that. I want my life to look differently, not just my finances. So getting yourself out of debt, is that where the side hustles came into play?

[Bernadette Joy]

Yes. So once we ran out of savings and once I budgeted as much as I could, then we decided, and when I say wait, it was really my husband, myself and my husband just had to go along with it, is that I had a very aggressive goal of paying off the $72,000 of student loans in two years. Mechanically, what I thought to myself was okay. And stereotypically, I'm a quite. I'm quite good at math as an Asian. So $72,000 divided by two years was $36,000. $36,000 a year was more than what I was making in a salary at the time.

[Scott Trench]

What were you doing for work at the time?

[Bernadette Joy]

I was a. I was a recruiter for a third party recruiting company. So if you know how that works, you'd get a draw. And so my salary at the time was 30k. But if you don't make your commissions, you have to pay it back. So they just give you this money and hope that you make it back. So really I was getting these paychecks, but they weren't technically like solid salary. If. So note to self, anyone who ever wants to become a third party recruiter, it's basically sales.

[Scott Trench]

Yeah, well, that's a good caveat there because it sounds like the, you know, it sounds like that's particularly challenging profession for the way you view money in particular as well and the way, especially at the time here where there wasn't a guarantee of a paycheck and there was a commission based. Did reality translate to you not making sales or did reality translate to you doing much better than that $30,000 draw?

[Bernadette Joy]

So when I first started doing that job, it was really, really challenging for me because I had come from doing, you know, more traditional. You get paid a salary every week. And when I decided to do my mba, I took this so that it would have some more flexibility. But of course, the caveat with having more flexibility is that you have potentially more risk and not getting that steady paycheck. So in the first year that I was doing that, while I was at my MBA program, my old boss will tell you I was pretty terrible at it. Because I thought operating like a regular salaried person would get me sales, and that's just not how that worked. And so I. It took me about a year and a half to get my feet underneath me, and. And I finally started breaking even on my draw. So when it comes to the side hustles, to your. To your point was one of the side hustles I realized that I could create out of this experience was that I was really good at writing resumes, and I was really good at reviewing resumes because I was a recruiter. So I started charging people to. Not in my day job. That would have been a conflict of interest in my. In. In my personal life. I always had people who knew I had done HR in the past, and so they would always ask me, oh, can you read my resume, or can you help me with job interviewing tips? And I turned that into a side hustle, which, funny enough, became the predecessor to what is now my financial education company. And in the beginning, I was charging people $19 to review their resume and not realizing, obviously, that was very undercharged. And luckily for me, I had a client, probably my 20th or so resume that I had reviewed. I had a client who said to me, you have severely undercharged me. You need to. You need to raise your rates. And so I raised them up from $19 to $89. And event time, I got out of my debt. I was charging $400 to do a resume review.

[Mindy Jensen]

Good for you. Good for you for listening and for raising your rates. Yeah, when you said $19, I'm like, oh, that's nothing. Even $89 is nothing.

[Bernadette Joy]

And, you know, at the time, and I love that question, Scott, where it's just like, well, did that catch up with reality was I was still grappling with the idea of, you know, okay, I have all this debt to pay, and I could go. My husband was also doing side hustles. He was driving, you know, the usual things. Driving. Fun thing that we did do. We were extras on TV shows. And so that was fun. That was totally minimum wage. But it was just so that my husband could get closer to Claire Danes because he had a huge crush on her back then. If you. If you know Claire Danes is. Then, you know how old you are. And so, you know, those were, you know, 15 to $20 per hour. So I was thinking in my brain, oh, it takes me 19. $19 is a fair rate, because it takes me less than an hour to review a resume because I'm really good at it. And that's When I started realizing, oh, actually, it's not compared to the time that you spend on something. It's compared to the value, obviously, that you provide someone on how much you should charge.

[Scott Trench]

All right, so we've got a budget. We get our job as a recruiter. We've got side hustles here. Tell us. We started attacking. We kind of left off the journey about removing the debt with attacking the smallest balance loans first. Can you finish the story and let us know how this translated over the next couple years to I. I. I assume, resolving the situation with the debt?

[Bernadette Joy]

Sure, sure. So going back to $72,000, my goal was $36,000 a year. So I kept reversing back into, well, what would feel reasonable to me. So $36,000 a year by. Divided by 12 months is $3,000 per month. Okay, that's still a lot of money. Let's keep reversing back. $3,000 divided by four weeks is $750 a week. That seems still. Still seems like a lot. So seven days a week, I need to figure out something to do that's at least a hundred dollars a day to either save or make. And honestly, I would love to tell you that there was a very clear system around this, but every day I would just wake up and say, okay, Bernadette, what can you do for a hundred bucks today? Is it one resume? Is it selling some of these clothes? Is it AJ Going and doing Uber? Is it trying to close that deal that I was, you know, wasting time on, on my recruiting job? And so every day, my goal was just to figure out a hundred dollars. And what I found was that the first couple of months, it was easier because I had lots of stuff to sell in my house. I did the garage sale. I was selling things on Facebook, Marketplace. I was trying to get more gigs with the. With the. The resume review. But I loved your question earlier of, like, when did the reality set in? Having that goal of $100 per day got me a lot more focused on, for example, in my day job to say, all right, send the email now instead of later to close that. That recruiting deal, or reach out to 10 more leads today, because one of them could be $100. Right. So that $100 a day over the next couple of months was really where I had some momentum. But then I hit what most people, I think, feel when they're doing a debt snowball is you hit this plateau, you get some of these other debts out of the way. And then I started hitting the. The student loan Amounts that were like 20K, 10 and 20K. And I'm like, oh my gosh, these are not going to go away anytime soon. And that's where my husband and I decided, you know, well, what else can we do that could be a more sustainable quote, unquote, side hustle at the time that would actually bring some other income. And so that's when I started in my MBA program having this idea of a business that would help me have more sustainable income versus just doing all these other side businesses. And it was a business that was based out of what we talked about, Mindy, about how you can spend like a thousand dollars just going to all these different weddings. I started a dress rental business, kind of like rent the Runway back then locally here in Charlotte, where I could take women's clothes, dresses, specifically special occasion clothes, and I would hold them in inventory and I would rent them out to other people, kind of like blockbuster, you know, like, I would have this inventory and. And then people would be able to rent them out for me. And I turned that into a business that I ran for three years. And that also helped me pay down my debt significantly. That was income that I didn't have before.

[Mindy Jensen]

What kind of income does renting out these dresses generate? And like, how much did you put into this business in the first place? Like, did you buy the first few dresses or were you just getting dresses from other people?

[Bernadette Joy]

Shamefully, the first hundred dresses were from my own closet. They're all in a similar size, so I could only help so many people. But what I did actually back then was I put it out to my social media and I said, does anyone have any dresses just laying around right now? Can I borrow them from you? And then I will give them back to you whenever you need them. So I actually didn't have very much seed investment that was required for this business, other than I had to buy a lot of black hangers and I had to pay for dry cleaning. But I actually ran it out of my house for the first year that I was doing it. And it was in my spare bedroom where I would store all these dresses. And this is. I mean, this is crazy now if you think about this, because it's pre Covid, but, you know, random people would kind of like come to my house and say, I need a dress for a wedding, or I need a dress for this 50th anniversary wedding. And I would, you know, give them some example, some options for dresses. And then it turned. It slowly turned into a retail business. But I started out with. I've started all of my businesses with no debt, no cap like no, no loans. I've always ceded it with as little capital as I could possibly do.

[Scott Trench]

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[Mindy Jensen]

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[Bernadette Joy]

In the beginning I would categorize myself as financially anxious. Now I'm forever financially anxious. Which is why I think, you know, financial independence and this idea of, you know, the fire movement really appealed to me because I was like, oh, is that a way to get out of my anxiety? I've actually been a clinically diagnosed as with anxiety in the past. So not only would I say was I financially anxious in the beginning, I think the finances was actually exasperating my anxiety that was actually really there.

[Mindy Jensen]

Do you feel less anxious now that you don't have the debt or is it like, does it continue?

[Bernadette Joy]

I definitely feel way less anxious. I would say back then my anxiety from a scale of 1 to 10 was probably a 15. I would say now my anxiety level around finances is like around a five. I don't, I would not be able to say, oh, I don't, I don't worry about money ever. But I think it's a lot more manageable. And I know that in the moment that when I do have anxiety around finances, that I have this eight years of experience that allows me to come up with better plans than I did before.

[Scott Trench]

How does your financial portfolio translate to your reduced anxiety? Could you tell us what you invest in and how much cash you have specifically, at least relative to your spending?

[Bernadette Joy]

Yeah. So full transparency, my current net worth. I'm 39 years old. My husband and I have a joint net worth of 1.859 as when I looked at it this morning. And about half of it is in cash right now and the other half of it is spread among our retirement accounts. So both of us have 401ks and both of us have IRAs, both traditional and Roth off from our past rollovers and stuff. And the reason that I actually am holding on to what I would say is a significant portion of cash is because my goal as I turn 40 in February is to become an angel investor specifically for women owned businesses. So I am holding onto that cash with. I have an accelerator program right now that I am, that I am hosting to see if any of those businesses are ones that I would put that money into.

[Mindy Jensen]

Okay, I'm glad you clarified that. The reason for the half in cash? Because that prompted a question that you have now answered. Thank you. You said your net worth is 1.859 million. Is there any net worth that would cause your anxiety levels about money to drop to zero? The.

[Bernadette Joy]

Theoretically, it's the. The number has been 2.5, but I said that when I was at 1.2. So I say that in the sense of there is this challenge that I don't think a lot of people talk about in financial independence, and this is me just being fully transparent, is that there's always this idea of, like, once you hit the goal post, like, you will be fine and you will feel great and your life will change, and then you meet the goalpost and then you're like, oh, no, I still feel the same. So there is work to be done, both. And this is why I talk about the work that needs to be done both on just the financial numbers of it, but actually having the. The skill sets around the emotional challenges that come with personal finances. And there's still a lot of work I have to do. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I'm the eighth of nine kids that. That hasn't changed with me becoming a millionaire. And so in the past couple of years, for example, like, my father passed away unexpectedly, My mom had a kidney transplant, and kidney disease runs in my family. And so when I think about where would I feel really comfortable? I don't think my anxiety level, to be honest, will ever be a zero. Because I'm always still thinking about, well, what can I do to prevent some of these things that I know are coming down the path? I eat Health challenges or the economy or dips in the stock market, which inevitably will happen at some point.

[Scott Trench]

Bernadette, when did you begin? Can you remind us of the year that you had $300,000 in debt? How long ago was that?

[Bernadette Joy]

2016. Eight years ago.

[Scott Trench]

Okay, so in eight years you went from a basically zero, maybe $100,000 in net worth with $300,000 in debt to a debt free $1.8 million position. How did you come to pass that you have $900,000 in cash over those eight years?

[Bernadette Joy]

So remember when I said earlier that in 2016 we had the two mortgages? So we focused on after we paid off the $72,000 of student loans through all that muscle is we decided to pay off that first mortgage. So that became a rental property that we rented out for a couple of. For, I think, three years after 2016, so 2019. And then we decided to sell that property. And we used the proceeds of that property to pay off our primary home at the time. And as you guys have so astutely diagnosed, I'm an anxious person. And so at 34 years old, to have a paid off home, going into a 2020 pandemic allowed me the ability to take a lot more risks than I think people were able to take in 2020. So in 2020, I decided to close that dress business. 2019 actually is when I went to my first Fincon. And at that Fincon is where I learned that, wow, there's ways that you can make money, including making content and all of that. And so I decided to close the dress rental business because it was a business that required me to work nights and weekends and I wanted to share more of. Of what I was learning in personal finance. And so in 2020, I launched what is now Crush youh Money goals. And that $900,000 in cash has been the summation of my husband. And I sold all of our real estate positions. So we actually rent now, which is another topic people find fascinating is that we are millionaires who rent. And then we also have basically not taken much out of my business. The. My business has. Is about to cross over a million dollars of revenue in 2025. And we have run that business completely debt free.

[Scott Trench]

Okay, so, so the answer. The answer at the highest level is we made a couple of tweaks here, but we generated what we generated so much income in the last eight years that after tax, you were able to max out these four. You were able to max out these four okays, and then after tax, generate $900,000 in liquidity and pay off your home for that, which is an extraordinary offensive play in the game of finance finance here. So congratulations on that. And you're going to parlay that into using that experience in business into investing in what, on a risk adjusted basis, could be a higher yielding investment than your traditional S&P 500 index fund. Because you are an entrepreneur and are going to build a network and proactively curate this angel investing fund.

[Bernadette Joy]

I see why you get paid the big bucks. Scott. That was a very succinct summary of everything.

[Scott Trench]

I love it. I just think it's fascinating to hear different stories here. And everyone has such a different. Different set of circumstances around why they make the money decisions they do. And yours make perfect sense in the context of your situation and how you view money. And I just find it endlessly fascinating to learn about different viewpoints on this. I have no doubt that you will continue to be extremely successful over the next couple of years with this and probably hit on a couple of big winners with this approach.

[Bernadette Joy]

Well, that's the hope, and I really appreciate that you made that distinction too. Of because I'm an entrepreneur now, that the reason that I have this, like, large cash position is because it's sitting and waiting to be an investor into these other businesses. But you know, you, without me even saying it, you said that my husband and I, over the last couple of years, we have maxed out both of our 401ks, both of our IRAs. I also, because the 401k is sponsored by my own company, I also do my own matching and my own profit sharing on that. So I'm able to put more into my 401k that a typical employee. And so a good portion of that money that we have sitting investments is just from the traditional investing that we've done over the years. But I finally got the courage in the last year to say, wait, if I was able to build a successful business myself and I have an interest in seeing representation that I do not see in the stock market, then am I willing to take that risk? And I think because I am debt free, specifically, again, with my anxiety, that gives me the opportunity where I don't know that I would have done that had I still been carrying this debt all this time.

[Scott Trench]

So a couple more observations I want to make here. Mindy and I did an episode discussing the net worth of average Americans. And in that episode I observed and that that wealth number is likely vastly understated. Americans vastly understate their wealth. Wealth. I want to call that out as an example in this situation as well. We've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs and you are very similar in terms of how you manage your money to lots of classical entrepreneurs here in that you have a large cash position. I would be willing to bet that over the next couple of years you will not invest more than 60% of that cash position in angel companies. You'll continue to maintain a large cash position. Tell me if I'm wrong, as those things come on.

[Bernadette Joy]

That's correct. That's 100% correct, I believe.

[Scott Trench]

Is your home included in your net worth that you share with us?

[Bernadette Joy]

No, because I'm renting.

[Scott Trench]

And is your business included in that $1.859 million net worth number?

[Bernadette Joy]

I was waiting for you to ask me that question. It is not, because I have not done a proper valuation on my business yet. So that is something that we're working on. In 2025.

[Scott Trench]

Okay, so you have this incredibly ultra conservative financial approach which allows you to then be very aggressive with these angel investments that could potentially take off. And again, I just think it's just a wonderful, classic different view of how people view their financial situation. I would imagine your net worth is maybe two to five times as big as this number if you have a million dollars in revenue and a profitable business, depending on how essential you are to that business, which is probably very essential in your particular profession. But that's another major chunk of the story here that is not reflected in there. And I think that that's. I think that that's how most people in your situation would view their financial situation.

[Bernadette Joy]

That's absolutely right. I. I love that observation. And that's something that I. Like I said, I still have a lot of room to grow, even though I consider myself to be very savvy in personal finances. And one of the things that I am working on right now is that I've said this to people before. I've worked for seven other companies and the only time I was at a company that had a female CEO of color was when it was my company. So for me to now say, oh, I have a company that could be potentially valued at this amount of money is still, it's still. It hasn't fully sunk in yet. And so the nice thing is for anyone who's an entrepreneur, this is why you have a board and this is why you have a really good CPA and tax people on your side to say, hey, you are in fact operating as a CEO here. We need to do some of this due diligence. So thank you for reminding me that.

[Scott Trench]

And last question, do you have any other assets that would. That other people might consider part of their net worth that are meaningful, like a cars or assets that your business owns or anything like that that you don't include in this number as well?

[Bernadette Joy]

Well, I think it is part of the company valuation, but we haven't done it yet is we have several trademarks and copyrights that we have not really done a value on. And because I had some significant things come out like a book and the podcast and stuff with these trademarks, it's probably gone up a lot more since we last looked at it. So that's something that we really want to look at and then the. Not necessarily something that other people don't have. But, you know, my husband and I, and this is classic, you know, entrepreneur kind of thing, we drive a $25,000 Hyundai Sonata, and it's not fancy or anything like that, but it's paid off in full and it gets us to and fro. And we are still very proud of the fact that we, we have one car instead of two. And if y'all know Charlotte, North Carolina, it's not, not an easy place to go around with public transportation. So the fact that we've gotten away with having one car for the last seven years is pretty remarkable to us.

[Scott Trench]

Okay, so this begs the question, what does $2.5 million in net worth mean to you? Like, what would you, what does that success look like in the context of this conversation?

[Bernadette Joy]

So my husband and I just had this conversation, so it's fresh in my mind. My husband, if you can't tell if you ever meet AJ y'all, he is the exact opposite of me. He is the least anxious person in the world. Nothing bothers this man. There was a sit down conversation we had three weeks ago where I said to him, the reason that I am doing all these things and constantly fiddling around with the way that we structure the business and where we're putting our investments in is I want to get to this number. And he asked me the exact same question. Well, what does 2.5 really mean to you? I don't understand. We seem to be pretty fine right now. And part of it, if I'm being totally honest, is it's the calculation of, okay, that was my fire number. 2.5 would get us to where if that's sitting in the investments, then we would be okay to potentially not have to work any anymore. And that's really what I'm looking for, is that second half that I don't have to work anymore. And theoretically I, you know, and I, I tell people that right now I do have enough saved up for retirement if I were to take a step back. But the reason I still work, and this is what people ask me all the time, is like, well, why are you still working? So, And I'm like, because I really love K pop music. And for anyone who is also a fellow K pop Stan, K pop music is very expensive to have as a hobby. So 2.5 would get me to have all the things that I need, plus go to at least a couple K pop concerts a year.

[Scott Trench]

Okay? So going to concerts is expensive. I was like, I've heard Gangnam Style.

[Bernadette Joy]

We sketch you up on your K pop references, my friend. That's a 15 year old song.

[Scott Trench]

Okay, well, awesome. So thank you for sharing this awesome story here. Can you tell us about why what the latest and greatest is with your business and where people can find out more about you.

[Bernadette Joy]

Awesome. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation. You guys asked the best questions. You can find me at crushyourmoneygoals.com that's the trademark that I had mentioned earlier. And we just came out with our first book.

[Mindy Jensen]

I have it.

[Bernadette Joy]

Oh, look, Mindy has it. It's the 25 Smart Habits. I'm so glad I got to actually give you the advanced copy in person, because, like I said, I've been a fan of y'all for a long time. And so the book is out now. And specifically, I wrote this book as the 25 Smart Habits that I wish I had known eight years ago that are simple and that people can actually implement. This is not the book that tells you what you need to know. This is the book that tells you what you need to do. And so we are just spending the next year on doing a lot of workshops for people who want to get their money habits right.

[Mindy Jensen]

All right, Bernadette, this was super, super fun. Where can people find you again online?

[Bernadette Joy]

Sure. We are at Crush youh Moneygoals. We have a free guide if you want to check out some of the resources that we talk about. And then I also am primarily on instagram and on YouTube @Bernadette Joy spelled with the word debt.

[Mindy Jensen]

D, E, B, T. Yeah, I love the way that you spell Bernadette Joy and on your socials. That's awesome. All right, Bernadette, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time today, and we will talk to you soon.

[Scott Trench]

Thank you so much.

[Bernadette Joy]

Thank you so much. All right. Right.

[Mindy Jensen]

That was Bernadette Joy, and that was a fantastic story. I love how. Well, I don't love that she was in $300,000 worth of debt, but I loved that she decided to get herself out of it and then made a specific plan to do so. Scott, what did you think of her debt payoff journey and her subsequent story after that?

[Scott Trench]

I thought it was a great example. Her. Her Persona, Bernadette, that kind of really reminds me of a lot of the entrepreneurs, like I mentioned in the show that I've talked about money with or come to know over the years in that she's so ultra conservative. She wasn't $300,000 in debt. She hit $100,000 net worth. If we were a Finance Friday, we'd say, you have $100,000 net worth. Let's figure out how to do all these things. But the debt was so confining to her mentally that it changed the way she had to approach her financial situation. She, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, in some ways took huge risks with her commission only job as a recruiter and then going into business for herself and mitigated those risks with $900,000 in cash accumulation over the last eight years and 100% payoff of all debts while maxing out a 401. Her position will continue to be that conservative. Conservative forever, which will allow her to then make some investments in very high risk investments like angel investments in angel companies or complete startups with no revenue whatsoever. I just think that's a really interesting dynamic and that's how a small percentage, but a very notable percentage of the population manages their money. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's just a completely different worldview. It's funny how it does. It doesn't seem as conservative, I think, to most people listening. I think she thinks her position is a lot more risky or a lot more indebtedness than most people who work a regular job. W2 have a steady paycheck would feel about a similar set of circumstances to where she started from.

[Mindy Jensen]

Yes, but without that W2 safety net, having a larger cash position is. Is the way that she is able to take her financial anxiety from a 15 to a 5. Um, I thought it was very interesting that she fully realizes that her anxiety is never going to be at a zero. And I think that's important to come to the realization yourself if you have financial anxiety. Ask yourself the same question I asked Bernadette. What number, what position? What does your portfolio have to look like for your anxiety level to be zero? And if it's never going to be zero, that's your story and you should not try to change that because anxiety is such a difficult obstacle to tackle. But as low as you can get that number and keep revisiting that so that you continue to stay on top of it. I think that's going to be such a successful position to be in when you are somebody who does have that financial anxiety.

[Scott Trench]

I am skeptical that Bernadette's anxiety will ever get to zero around money, based on what we heard today. But I do think she will continue to improve as she reaches her financial goals, continues to amass cash, makes a couple of more successful investments, and grows her business. And it sounds like the $900,000 in cash really helps her husband sleep well at night at the very least. So that's great. Well, should we get out of here?

[Mindy Jensen]

Maybe, Mindy, we should. Scott. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Of course you are Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying bye bye, Octopi.