Self-Care, Saving & Smashing Debt with Bernadette Joy

In this episode of Disrupt Your Money, we sit down with personal finance powerhouse Bernadette Joy to blow up the myth that paying off debt means sacrificing joy, self-care, and everything that makes life actually feel good. As a first-gen Filipina-American and eighth of nine kids, Bernadette went from $300,000 in debt to building a seven-figure net worth.

Through real talk, lived experience, and a decade of experiments with habits and routines, Bernadette breaks down why negotiating, raising your rates, and letting go of perfectionist budgeting are all part of a liberatory money plan, not “selfish” moves.

You’ll walk away with practical tools like Screenless Sundays, the 80/20 “rule of world peas,” and Bernadette’s “strive, revive, survive” framework so you can pay off debt, grow wealth, and protect your joy at the same time.

⏱️ In This Episode:

00:00 Introduction: Self-Care, Saving & Smashing Debt
01:42 Bernadette’s story: first-gen Filipina-American, 8th of 9 kids & $300K in debt
06:24 Turning negotiation into a habit
09:31 Separating your self-worth from your prices and paycheck
13:12 Why she wrote Crush Your Money Goals and how habits (not hustle) changed everything
18:54 Screenless Sundays: unplugging from doomscrolling as a money and mental health strategy
20:44 Using the 80/20 “rule of world peas”
27:29 The strive, revive, survive method
32:08 Plot twists, money stories, and what Bernadette wants every reader to feel after her book

🔗 Mentioned in This Episode:

👉 Crush Your Money Goals: 25 Smart Money Habits to Save, Invest, and Fast Track Your Financial Freedom by Bernadette Joy
👉 Crush Your Money Goals® – Bernadette’s money education company

👉 Wealth is Resistance Action Kit → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/kit

💬 Connect with Us:
🌐 Website → https://equitablemoneyproject.com
📸 Instagram → https://instagram.com/equitablemoneyproject
🎧 Podcast → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/podcast

🚀 Your Next Step:
Ready to make your money match your values? Download our free Wealth is Resistance Action Kit → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/kit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Well, hey there, I'm Meg Wheeler, CPA, entrepreneur, and political activist, and you're listening to Disrupt Your Money, the podcast that's pursuing liberation through financial education. Let's face it, our economy and financial institutions weren't built to support the majority of us. So if we're going to achieve financial equity and justice for all, we've got to build our own. So let's do it, my friends. Let's get ready to disrupt your money. Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Disrupt Your Money. And I am so excited for our guest today. I think our first guest of this season, maybe second, but one of my absolute favorites. I met this incredible person in person at a conference recently at FinCon, but have been following her for a while and really love all of the uh incredible pieces of wisdom that this person puts out in the world. So Bernadette, thank you so much for being here. Friends, this is Bernadette Joy. Bernadette is an incredible personal finance author, investor, just all around good person helping us understand our money better and build wealth. So, Bernadette, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Thank you so much for having me. And I'm glad we're getting to follow up from our in-person and continuing the conversation. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Oh my gosh. All right. I have so many questions for you, but just to set the stage for everyone, give the background of how you ended up here. Because I know it's a good story and I want people to hear this. How did you get into this work? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

So I am first generation Filipino American, eighth of my dad's nine kids, uh, did the usual go go go to a good college, get a bunch of degrees, get a good job, and then found myself in$300,000 of debt now almost 10 years ago. And I said to myself one day, I'm like, is this life, is this, is this all there is to this? Uh and so I started Googling how to pay off debt, how to pay off student loans, and uh a lot of the advice 10 years ago was um, you know, eat rice and beans and uh like don't enjoy your life. And I uh I'm sure we'll talk more about it, is just like I have a lot of interests outside of money. I love K-pop, I love K dramas, I love art. I uh my face is all red because I just came back from my swimming lessons. And and so I was like, there has to be a way to be able to be like both financially responsible and still enjoy your life. And so over the last 10 years, I have kind of curated this set of habits and these routines that I've done um for now over a decade that pulled me out of$300,000 of debt into uh hopefully in the next couple of months, my husband and I will hit our$2 million um net worth mark. And oh my gosh. Yeah. And uh next week I'm turning 40 and going to start practicing early retirement. And so I'm excited to share all of my lived experience as well as the lessons I've learned from now coaching hundreds of other people uh on how you might be able to work on your own financial freedom plan.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Okay, so first of all, I love this is gonna sound weird, but I love that you were in$300,000 of debt because that is a big number and that you are now$2 million in the black,$2 million of net worth. That is such a huge spread. And I mean, talk about motivation and hope for someone who's sitting there with maybe it's not even$300,000, maybe it's$10,000 or$50,000, whatever feels heavy for them. And it could be credit card debt, it could be student loans, medical debt, whatnot. But to know that there is hope, right? That you can get now, I'm guessing you're not gonna tell us it's because you won the lottery or you went into finance and make millions of dollars a year, you said it. It's it's habits. You built these great habits. So one of my questions for you is because I think oftentimes a lot of folks will set, will start doing this work and they feel like it's never getting better. Yeah. So over the 10 years, talk to me a little bit about like, did you see progress and improvement right away? Or what did that look like with building those habits?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Well, that's such a great question. Uh so in the beginning, I actually posted about this the other day. So it's it's interesting because I'm having this juxtaposition that, and this is not, this is not all meant to be political, but like I uh we get political, don't you worry. Right. Well, okay, great. So, you know, I started this journey in 2016, right? And so that was during the 2016 elections, uh, when I paid off my first$72,000 of student loans. Like it was November of 2016 that I paid off my all of my$72,000 of student loans. And um though and and I started in April of that year. So like that was a very condensed time to pay$72,000 of student loans. And I um it was it was a lot of like kind of snowball wins at the beginning. So, like, you know, I did what what I found online, just like do the debt snowball. And that really resonated with me because I have a psychology major and I also just quit things. I'm not at all disciplined, and so I was just like, okay, little wins. Like I could, I could go with that. But I definitely started to hit a plateau around the like 40k mark, right? So out of the$72,000, the first 35 to 40k was like quote unquote easier because you know, there's a lot of things that we could do in the beginning. Like, there's a lot of things that we knew we could cut. Like we did all the things that people say, you know, we went down from two cars to one car, we like renegotiated all our insurances, like we had we had my husband's brother move in with us for a couple months and pay us rent. Like, there's like all these things that could have done that. But then once you've like cut all the expenses, then you have no choice but then to start growing your income because that you can only cut so far. And that's where I really realized that a lot of personal finance like really does not help with like this again, the specific steps and how you do that. It's always like cut, cut, or like make more money. But like, how do you do both of those in a way that's balanced and that actually won't run you into the ground? And I was looking back and uh in 2016 I was making 30K, truly. Like I like I had a 30K base salary. I was working as a contract recruiter at the time. And this past year, you know, the my business uh grows 300k. And so it's it's it would be easy for me to say, oh yeah, like, you know, I was just able to eat beans and rice, and and that's like what helped. But there was this also this combination of turning habits of some of the things that I talk about in the book of negotiating more, like that became a habit. That's probably like the number one habit that uh again we know intuitively, but no one actually tells us, especially women, on like how do you effectively negotiate? Um, and and what I think is really interesting for me, and going back to your question of just like, well, where did you get stuck? My trajectory was was like what everyone, everyone now who knows me now thinks it was like this. Yeah, but it was actually like a staircase. It was like up plateau, up plateau. Sometimes I went really, really down. It kind of looked like the stock market, to be honest. It's how my trajectory looked like.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah. So I'm curious. Oh my gosh, so many things. Um, what did you do? I'm glad you described that staircase and and even with some dips down, because I think that that is how most people's journeys are, right? I think it's very unlikely that you're just kind of going straight up. So, what did you do in those times when you hit those plateaus? You couldn't cut anything else. You knew you still wanted to have joy in your life, no pun invented. What did you do? How did you work through those moments?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, yeah. So I was making 30K at the time. My husband was making about like 85K at the time. So household like a hundred-ish. So, like, you know, just not like not at the bottom, like not at the top. And once we had like done all the obvious things, uh, then we started looking at kind of like the side hustle culture. And we did what people said to do at first. And so we were like running, we truly were running ourselves ragged. Like it was actually kind of a crazy time. Like AJ was doing Uber, and I was like uh doing resume reviews, and then we were like extras on TV, like we just did all like sorts of random things. When I look back on it, I actually look at it pretty fondly because there's a lot of things that we tried that we probably never would have done before. And one of those things, the resume reviews, was the basis for what is now Crush Your Money Goals. I know. Right. And so what initially was meant to be just like a side hustle to just get us out of debt, I started learning all these skills around consulting and like career coaching and um content creation and stuff that eventually evolved into what now just crossed over like a million dollars in revenue. But what what what what I like literally had to do in the moment at that time was just figure out how to start. And specifically, it was undercharging. And that sounds so counterintuitive to what a lot of people talk about was that if I waited until I knew the perfect price and I knew exactly like how to run that business, then I probably never would have started. So when I first started doing um consultations, it was for like$19. Which in hindsight was like right. I don't even know how like I don't even know why I decided to pick that number, but that got me my first few reps of like doing that type of work, and then I slow and then I raised it at$29, and then it was$49, and then it was$79. And then I was very lucky that one day a client came to me and she and he said to me, He's like, You are severely undercharging for this and you need to raise your rates. And then I took more leaps.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Well, I love that you shared that, and I want to tie that back to another point that you said, which was one of the best habits you formed during this 10-year journey was negotiating. So talk to me a little bit about that personally for you. I mean, really the the asking slash demanding more money, but also how you're seeing this affect so many of the people in your community and how folks can start to get comfortable with this. Because I think as you pointed out, especially for women, this is something that we do struggle with because of all of the systemic barriers up against us and because of the messages we've been taught for so long. So I'd I just love to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yes. So this and this is where it goes hands in hand with like the personal finance side of it. Truthfully, for me personally, I did not feel comfortable negotiating until at least I was in what I felt like was a more financially stable situation, such that I was in a position to walk away if I absolutely had to from these from these deals. Right. So um I mentioned that I had paid off$72,000 of student loans in November of 2016 and honestly feeling myself back then. I was like, wow, like I can't believe I did that because I thought it was gonna take me 10 years to pay that off. And it only took me, you know, less than a year. So what else am I capable of? Um, but also, so like I get a little bit of boost of confidence from that. And so like actually having your finances in order and knowing where all your money is, and also knowing if you were to make more money that you know where it's gonna go gives you the confidence and actually like kind of forces your hand to ask for the money because you were like, I already have plans for this money, so just give it to me, right? But what I think really changed the trajectory for me in terms of like really starting to ask ask for more money and not have all these like swirling feelings about it was um at the point that I really had enough reps in what I was doing, and I was truly confident in what I was able to provide to folks. And so I have like I I've I've had a gripe a lot lately with kind of like the influencer world, uh with the fact that like, you know, especially for women, it's a lot of like, oh, know your worth and like ask your worth and charge your worth and all this other stuff. And I actually don't agree. I actually don't agree with that because it's what we do for a living is actually, in my opinion, separate from what what we're worth as human beings. And so once I was able to separate the fact that like what I do for money is actually a completely separate like bucket versus who I am as a human being, then and I also built the reps to say, I have now had, you know, a hundred clients under my belt. So I feel very confident that what I'm offering to you is this is not about my worth. This is about the value of the service I'm providing, is exactly is what you're paying for that. Give me the boost of not only confidence, but I had like the data to back up why people should pay.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Well, and I think that's such an important point because too often you're right. Women especially do equate their value, their worth with what they're getting paid, what their business is worth, what their paycheck is. And that is such a crippling mindset because it really, and I actually see this a lot in stay-at-home parents or stay-at-home spouses who really think they have no value because they're not getting the physical paycheck. And and frankly, that's why our society has worked so well for certain people for so long, because that mindset has been there. And when we separate the the money, the numbers from the value of us, it it's I think it's a game changer. It's what we talk about in in Equitable Money Project all the time is your numbers are just a data point. They don't mean anything beyond just telling you some data. So I love, I love that you touched on that. Um, I want to turn to the book because this is actually I you were talking about the book when I met you in person. I was so excited to grab this book, Crush Your Money Goals, uh, 25 Smart Money Habits to Save, Invest, and Fact, Fast Track Your Financial Freedom. What made you want to write the book? Where did this come from and why now? Why was this the moment for this?

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yes. So I would love to tell you that I was like, oh, I've always wanted to be an author and it was a dream of mine. It actually was not. Uh I had zero desire to be an author. Um, I actually been was approached for doing books in the past, and I was like, nope, that sounds like a lot of work, and that that doesn't feel like it's for me. But uh thanks to FinCon, where where you and I met, uh a publisher, one of the big publishers, reached out to me and they saw my talk on the website at FinCon and they said, we think you'd be a really great candidate to write a book. They already had a book in mind to write about money habits. And this is again where the negotiation piece comes in. Is uh initially they said we we're looking for someone to write a book about a hundred habits. And I was like, who is going to read a hundred habits? And I was like, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah. And and I so I said to them, I said, Well, I have this framework. It's called Crush Your Money Goals. It's what I've been teaching my clients for now five years and the predecessor to that another three years with the podcast. And so I have all of this stuff that I've collected pretty much over the last decade that I can, you know, turn into this book that I think is going to be very useful for people, but I'm not writing 100 habits. It's gonna be 25, five per section, which is the C R U S H. And and what I loved about this project, which I totally underestimated, is that it actually wasn't that hard for me to write because I've been collecting this data all this time. So if if anyone wants to pick up the book, you'll see that there's a lot of other case studies in here. There is a lot of references to um other like studies that I've I've researched and everything like that. And so when people found out that I had essentially written this book in like four or five months, which is a very short time period, I was like, actually, I've been writing this book for 10 years. I just didn't think it was going to be a book, right? So why now though? And I love that you asked that question is and I'm I mull about this this morning while I was in my swimming class, which is, you know, I love the work that you're doing, right? Around equity. And, you know, equity and a lot of the things that we're working really hard for is it feels like we're moving backwards right now. That's honestly how I feel. And and so I actually think it's a little bit of divine timing that this book came out this year because I have been approached by so many women in particular and um entrepreneurs of color, actually, who have reached out to me and said, you know, they're really on that down right now. They're like, I I used to work in HR for 10 years. So a lot of my peers are like, you know, the work that I've been doing for the last 10 years feels like it just got erased, like in in just a couple of weeks. And so I I think there's a little bit of divine timing that the the book is coming out this year in particular, and it decided for the foreseeable future. My target audience are those people who feel like they have been working really, really hard, have been doing all the things that they said that we were told that we're supposed to do, and they feel like they're not only stuck, but now it feels like there's so much, there's so much against us. And so I'm really hoping that people will look at this book as a way to say there are things within my control. I cannot control the government, I cannot control interest rates, I cannot control inflation, but I can't control how I spend my money, I can't control who I spend my time with, and I can control how I feel about finances in general. And that's what we talk about in this.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, I I love that so much because um, as I think you know, I'm also involved in politics and and I'm an activist. And so many people have reached out to me after the election in in the months since we have a new administration and said, I'm freaking out, the world is crumbling, we're going backwards, what do I do? And almost 99% of the time, my answer is get your money stuff in order. Because at the end of the day, money gives us power, it gives us freedom, it gives us flexibility, and it gives us choice. And I think especially for women, for people of color, for anyone who might need to access a resource or to have an exit plan, money is how we're going to get there. And what is so hard for people when I have these conversations is they feel like when it comes to their money, they're starting at zero or even negative, many of us in debt, right? And so it feels so overwhelming. And that's why I wanted to share or have you share your story about the 300,000 to say there is a possibility here. But what I love about your book is that you break it down into easy-ish, you know, approachable steps that people can actually take. And I'm glad you didn't do 100, because as you said 100, I got anxiety or rather thought of 100 things to do. Um and I think that's such a great message for folks that you know it's it's taking these small steps that is it's again, it's one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. So I'd love to know without giving too much away, because we want everyone to buy your book, and we'll put a link to that, of course, in the show notes. But what is your I two-part question. So I want to know what your favorite money habit is in the book. But I also want to know if it's different, what money habit would, if somebody's gonna start from zero, what is the first money habit they should do?

unknown 18:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

So uh the one that's coming up for me right now, just given the concepts that we just talked about of freaking out about what's going on around us, uh, I actually got into a bit of a debate about this with my publisher about the screenless Sundays habit that I talk about in the book. And essentially it's it's exactly what it sounds like. Make it a habit every Sunday to shut down all of a screen. So little screen, medium screen, big screen, just shut it all down for the day, right? And um and actually focus on, take that time on Sundays to reset. So whether it's like meal prepping or like, you know, doing your budget or exercise, whatever it is that you're gonna do to one, like unplug yourself from all of this like chaotic type of stuff. But what we found and and what I found in my research and talking to so many people is that so much of our money is influenced by what we think other people are doing. And that is literally like the little, you know, thingamajig in our in our pocket that's telling us your life is not good enough, your life is not good enough, the world is chaotic, there you might as well give up. And I have been doing this consistently for like over two years now with the screenless Sundays, where I literally lock my phone in my car and I do not answer and my and my family and my friends know that if you're if you need me, you're gonna have to call AJ or whatever. And I and I, you know, I'm a con you know, like a huge part of my my job is to be a content creator. So that was very hard for me. But right the reason that I think that's that's like very timely right now is as you said, like I was so I was in the Democrat, I was working for the Democratic campaign here in North Carolina, like during the elections, and it was I could I could physically feel the the weight of what I was consuming in terms of content every day. So one day of like not consuming all that is gonna actually do a ton for your brain. And then I forgot the second part of your question.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Uh well, so it was what was what's your favorite one? So that was that. And then if someone's gonna start from zero, what is the like easiest best habit to start with if they just want to get a little momentum going?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yes. So uh, and I'm again sp specifically talking to women right now, uh, is uh I talk about it, it's not something that I made up, it's the 80-20 rule. I like to call it in the book, I call it the the world, the rule of world peas because I figured out that Pareto, who invented the 80-20 rule, he uh he uh theorized this because uh 20% of the peas in his garden back in like the 1800s were producing 80% of the results. Right. And so how I tr how I uh ask people to look at that as a habit is that I see too many people, particularly women who are just trying to do too many things at once when it comes to their finances. All the women who I coach are like, okay, so my goals are I want to pay off all my debt and have my emergency fund and invest and send my kids to college and have bubble baths and you know, like have a side hustle, right? And I'm just like, Yeah, you can have all those things, but not at once. And so what's the 20% of what you just said that's gonna produce the 80% of your uh like result? And so having that mindset to say, I need to focus on the 20%, not the 80%. And also, even if you um let's say in your budget, the other way I flip this logic is everyone is everyone that I've ever coached, they go for like 100% accuracy in their budget, and then when it doesn't go right, they just like give it up. I want everyone to be a B student. Like actually 80% is good enough. And that actually, I've gotten so much feedback from folks that say let me saying that to them, especially them knowing I'm a debt-free millionaire and this is actually how I did it, gives them a lot of relief to realize they're allowed to make mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Well, and I I love that messaging because let's be honest, there are people in this space who send out this message of, you know, you can't spend any money, you have to do this perfectly, you can't have debt, you're, you know, all of these rules. And even in the Equitable Money Project, we don't call them budgets, we call them money plans. And we talk about them as roadmaps. They're one way to get to your destination, they're not the only way. And and we very much consider them a moving resource that you're constantly adjusting as things change. And that's that's normal. We expect that. If your numbers are the same at the end of the year as they were at the beginning, I shocked. I think you cheated. That's not gonna happen. Um, so I love I love that messaging. And I think, I think you're you've really hit the nail on the head there with dialing into people's shame and and and need for permission about this stuff. Because I think the the money stuff and especially debt brings with it so much baggage. We run a program called Smart Steps to Zero Debt Um Pay Down. And every single person who has come into that program comes in with this boatload of shame around the debt they have, even if, and this is pretty much the case in almost every situation, the debt is exists not because they did anything wrong. That's right. That's right. You know? So I love that you you talk about that. And I think that's that's such an important piece. And I'm curious, did you did you deal with that in your journey? And how did you I mean, we have you to give us that permission, but how did you get yourself over that?

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Uh so I used social media back then in a very different way than I did now, which was I knew, I actually, I actually leaned into that shame in a weird way. Uh, where I I felt very my father actually, he said to me he hated the fact that I was posting about my debt on social media because he in his mind it made him look bad that he couldn't pay for my college or whatever, right? And so what happened, how this all even started was in 2016, I had I posted on the internet one day on Instagram, and I said, I have$72,000 of student loans. So y'all like, do not ask me to go to brunch, do not ask me to do whatever. Like, I just I just I'm really focused on this thing right now. And uh, and so I always had these post-its on my refrigerator. And anytime, even I made a$2 payment towards my student loans, I was like, Yay, I get to write a new post-it. It's gonna be a little bit lower today. And so I kept showing all my Instagram was was the pictures of the post-its. And I knew that if I was posting it online and social media, that there would be some people who are gonna be like, What why is she posting this? I in my family were like, why is she doing it? Yeah. But what was interesting was that I had even more people sliding into my DMs back then and being like, How are you doing this? And also, I have so much debt. And it was shocking to me that the people who are messaging me were the ones who I thought were more successful than me. Who, like, you know, if you look at their Instagram feeds, it's like they're always like on vacation and doing all this other stuff. So it really clicked with me to like back then that I realized that all of us are carrying shame somewhere. And just like you said, there is this misum conception that people who have debt are just like irresponsible. But I'm like, I was in debt because I got a master's degree. Like I work with many people who are in debt because you know, they they pay their credit cards off every single month until they lost their job, or one medical expense just like blew them out of the water. And so I'm really fortunate that I have gotten over the last five years, gotten to interact and coach so many different types of people from like all across the world to recognize that that shame wasn't at wasn't actually anything that we manufactured within ourselves. It was shame that was manufactured by what we thought we should be doing. And back then, uh I like I said before, I leaned into that shame where I was just like, I actually knew that if I posted on social media, it would force my hand to keep to keep going. Yeah. And so I love that. Yeah. I would love to tell you that I was like, oh yeah, I'm just like so bad. I'm such a badass. And I'm like, no, I was like, if I'm gonna post this stuff online, I'm gonna force myself to actually say do what I said I was gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

You need the risk of public shaming to keep you accountable. Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much. That feels real. So I think along with this shame too, and you talked about this a little bit at the beginning, is this idea that you you shouldn't do anything until you've fixed the problem, until the debt goes away. You shouldn't go on a trip, you shouldn't get the four-dollar latte, which is probably now an eight-dollar latte, you shouldn't, you know, do any of the things, take the bubble baths or whatever it is. How did you how did you and how do you recommend people balance joy with financial goals or with financial responsibility? Like, how do you find that happy medium, you know, so that you're still making progress, but you're not robbing yourself of life?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I actually have a little bit of a hot take on it where it's just like I talked about this with my group this past week, where in everyone's uh budgets or money plans, I break it down into just three categories strive, revive, and survive. And strive is anything that grows your net worth. Survive is the usual stuff that we budget for, your housing and your food and all that stuff. And then there's this category of revive of all this stuff that you don't need, but like makes life worth living. And I actually force all my clients that they have to put something in there. So it's it's it's very counterintuitive to a lot of folks where they're like expecting me to say, Oh, if you're paying down debt right now, that you're gonna have to just cut out everything. And I actually say, No, you have to put something in revive because I learned the hard way that you know cutting all those things out was just miserable and I wasn't gonna stick to the plan. However, I've since also evolved that to actually really have people scrutinize what is really in that revive category because and again, especially like in kind of like the women's like personal growth space right now, like we've been we've been sold this very like consumerism kind of self-care. And it's not it's not really actually nourishing us. And so, you know, I've actually challenged a lot of my clients to say, okay, if you spent money on like all the bubble baths and the massage and stuff, great. But what you've been telling me, I had this this real conversation with someone. I was like, what you've been telling me for the last two months is that you're really lonely. So like actually, yeah, right. So like actually the bubble bath and like the massage where you're not talking to anyone isn't reviving you right now. Like maybe you should be putting that money towards going seeing your girlfriends that you haven't seen in a while, or to like join a community thing or whatever. And so what I what I learned over the last two years specifically, and now that we're out of the pandemic, is a lot of people's revive category needs to be refreshed. And most people's revive category isn't actually reviving them. They think it is, but it's really just short-term gratification.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I I love that point so much. And I I'm like example number one. I feel like I, for so long, um, eating out was always our category. We always go way over, you know, whatever our budget was or whatnot. And I realized over this last year, the reason I loved eating out was because it gave me a break from, you know, I'm I'm married, but my husband has a very busy job. So and I work from home, and so I'm the primary parent, I'm the primary house manager and all of that. And eating out was a way to get a break, like a mini vacation for my life. And you know what I realized? I and actually because I was eating out, I gained weight, and then I was less happy with myself. And it was actually Working against me. And what I realized was I can go out for one cocktail and have the same feeling. So now my hundred dollar bill has gone down to 20. And I still feel, you know, equ more fulfilled. And I'm not getting fatter, which I appreciate. And it's it's good all around. And I love so I love that you say that, like to rethink the things you're doing, because I think so much of what we do is because we see what other people do or because we're told this is self-care. And in reality, it's not actually feeding ourselves. So I love that.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

And you know, I will say as a former like shop a holic. So I grew up in New York City. I was always into fashion. Uh and uh and you know, I've been on this book tour since December. So it was like, yeah, the per this and my birthday is like next week. Normal Bernadette would have been like, I am getting a hundred different outfits because I'm doing all of these interviews and all this other stuff. I haven't bought anything new since I don't know, like the summer last year. It turns out all the have the all the clothes I have are just fine. And and what I what I realized was that now when I really deep dived into what was going to revive me this time around, I swapped. And that's what I talk about in the book. I don't talk about sacrifices, I talk about swapping. I swap what was my you know budget for clothes and stuff, and I s and I traded it in for right now, which was swimming lessons, improv classes, and um and yoga. And I love that. Yeah, and so those things right now, like those are giving me so much more like actual joy and nourishment than you know, me having bought more clothes, which was my normal thing, was one of my revive categories. So revive category is also allowed to evolve when you evolve.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

I love that. I used to be a shoppaholic when I was younger. I used to love malls. I won't even go, you cannot pay me a million dollars to walk in a mall now. So yes, you absolutely changed. All right, as we come to wrap things up, I'd love to know. So for everybody who reads your book, which is everybody, because everybody's gonna grab it after we've we've done this, what is the what is the one takeaway you want them to, or one thing you want them to feel out of reading your book and and just starting to get a glimpse of of this important work?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

You know what I think is is um I I'm gonna somewhat paraphrase this uh review I got recently from the library journal. Apparently there's a journal for all the libraries. And the library journal, in so many words, basically said, uh, when we looked at the cover of the book, we thought it was just gonna be another one of those influencer, you know, like boss babe, whatever type of books or whatever. And and then, and then the person whoever wrote the review, they said we were pleasantly surprised to find out that when we actually read the book, it was incredibly organized and it was uh actually very useful. And and I was like, wow, okay, like that was a real review there. And you know, they said that you know, Bernadette is like something along the lines of like she's a power, she's a powerful voice, like in this kind of like next generation. And I actually want to want people to kind of feel that way about yourselves. Like all of us right now, we're judging ourselves like literally the by the cover of our own, like what is our story today? We're saying this is the cover of our story today, and it looks like this, but actually if we open it up and we open up and we realize there's so many more layers and there are so many more things that is actually again within our control. So I'm hoping that everyone who's listening to this, uh, even if you don't grab the book, right, to say, okay, today my money story is this. And the cover of the book says this. But actually, if we open the book, what does it really say? And you're allowed to change whatever's inside there, and your money story can change. And so I'm hoping that uh everyone who's listening to this is say, you know what, like this was my story up until today, but now I'm ready for the plot twist.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

I love that. The plot as a writer and a reader, I love the plot twist. So um tell everyone who's listening where they can find you, learn more about you, grab the book, all of the things.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Yes, well, this was so fun. I'm so grateful you had me here. I am at Bernadette Joy on primarily LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. If you want to grab the book, you can head to you know wherever you buy books. I also would really love if you grabbed the audiobook because I narrated that myself and I had to negotiate to be the one who narrated that. Uh and if you want to learn more about just what I do and all the different programs, you can head to CrusherMoneyGoals.com and I have a free guide this year. Uh, so if you are not ready to invest any sort of money, you can go to CrusherMoneyGirls.com slash free guide. And I have 30 different starting points that you can, you know, just kick off your journey today.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

I love that. And we'll put all of that in the show notes. Bernadette, thank you so much for taking the time. I am so delighted that our community is going to get to hear your important message. I love the book. I did I'll have to I read the book, the physical book, but I'm gonna go listen to the audiobook because I'm a big fan when authors read their own books. Uh so thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.