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I’ll take an Uber Eats order with a side of guilt, please. Actually, hold that because according to millionaire mentor Bernadette Joy y’all should stop feeling bad about ordering food if you’re simply conserving energy. Honey, we’re booked and busy so if your money habits are in service of your wealth, health or mental wellbeing, what’s the problem?! BernaDEBT is a nationally recognized finance expert who personally paid off over 300 thousand dollars in three years. As the author and founder of CRUSH Your Money Goals, Bernadette Joy is here to give us tips on how to get out of the holes we dig ourselves into. Grab a shovel because the work starts now!

This series was created in partnership with Flourish Ventures, an early-stage global investment firm backing mission-driven entrepreneurs and industry influencers working toward a fair financial system for all. Learn more at flourishventures.com.

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Transcripts

SPEAKERS

Bernadette Joy, X Mayo

X Mayo  01:20

Welcome back to The Dough, a podcast where we give you the secret to financial freedom, no matter how much money you owe, and you can take that to the bank. You know what? I take that back. Maybe hold off on going to the bank, because I know they’re already sick of you. Okay, we’ll circle back. Okay raise your hand if you’re tired of drowning in debt. You can’t see me, but I got two hands in the motherfucking air right now, and I know I’m not the only one, because Recent data shows that more millennials are falling into debt. How the hell did we get here? Look, I’m not here to shame you, because we get enough of that from our parents who claim we just need to work harder or be the best at our job to get ahead, and that rhetoric is just so tired, because the system may set up that way, gaining control of our finances can feel way out of reach for some of us, but it’s not impossible. And would it make you feel better if I told you I knew someone who successfully paid off $300,000 worth of debt in a mere three years. Girl, yes, she exists. Bernadette Joy is a nationally recognized financial educator and author of the book Crush Your Money Goals and honey, she’s doing exactly that she went from owing over $70,000 in student debt paying back mortgages, plural, okay, and being burnt out in the corporate world to running her own six figure business as a debt free millionaire, and now she’s using her skills to help other women and people of color live more than they work. Damn, don’t that sound peaceful? Bernadette, welcome to The Dough.

 

Bernadette Joy  02:59

Thank you.

 

X Mayo  02:59

Yes, okay, so Bernadette, before we get into it, we always ask our guests about their recent purchases. So I would like to know what you spent your money on this week, but specifically something that you spent your money on that brought you joy or was different from what you usually spend it on.

 

Bernadette Joy  03:16

This is the perfect time to be asking me, because I just turned 40, and my birthday was last week. There was a lot of spending.

 

X Mayo  03:23

That’s right.

 

Bernadette Joy  03:24

Yes, and but specifically, I just came back from New York City and went to go watch this show, maybe happy ending. I’m a huge Broadway fan, because it was the only place that I saw Filipino Representation. And so have you heard of the show?

 

X Mayo  03:38

No, but when you said, I have to add it to my list, because when you said Broadway, I’m like, I’m already going to see Othello, Glengarry Ross death becomes her. There’s another woman. Nick Jonas, that was a revival or resurrection of a previous show. So I’m so excited to add that to my list. Like, I go to New York every year to see shows and eat good.

 

Bernadette Joy  03:59

Yay. I grew up in Queens, New York, so Broadway was always my thing.

 

X Mayo  04:05

Yes, oh my god, I love that. We have a real New Yorker love that. So wait, what was something specifically that you bought? I mean, you turned 40, what a milestone. You look fucking amazing. And 40 is so young to have accomplished all that you have. So what was like a purchase that brought you so much joy?

 

Bernadette Joy  04:19

So I bought the tickets to that Broadway show that was number one. I don’t know if you can see in my background all of this stuff. I I had a birthday party, and it was Hello Kitty themed. So we’ve had a lot of Hello Kitty stuff, like a lot of Hello Kitty stuff. And so there’s the remnants of that. And and then specifically, my husband and I, this is gonna sound like, I don’t know, it feels like a humble brag saying this, but we decided to buy our first home in cash.

 

X Mayo  04:47

Ah, no, that’s right.

 

Bernadette Joy  04:49

Yeah, we just put an offer. It’s not bought yet, but we just put our first cash offer on a home. And I did it after my 40th birthday, and I felt very good about that.

 

X Mayo  04:58

Now that is a grown woman for you. Oh, that’s the true diva. That’s the true diva. Bernadette. That is exciting.

 

Bernadette Joy  05:06

Thank you.

 

X Mayo  05:06

That is wonderful. Oh, my God, I love all the I pray that you get the house. And if it’s something, knock on wood falls through, it’s something greater even happening. But the fact that you were even able to do that, I mean, what a fucking accomplishment. And we’re gonna get into it, because I would love to talk about your dead story, because we’re starting off with, like, such a highlight within your life and your career. But it wasn’t always that way, right? We hear the words, you know, often, like, work hard, or we are told we aren’t working hard enough to achieve our goals. So nobody is told that more than a kid that comes from an immigrant family, okay, it’s like, okay, why aren’t you a doctor, you’re six, get it together, you know. And so it’s like, how did you make sense of all that, growing up with eight other siblings?

 

Bernadette Joy  05:47

Yeah, first of all, are you my mom? Like, how did you. How did you know that? That’s what she said.

 

X Mayo  05:53

Mexican to this day, with all of my success, she’s like, Miha, you know, you can still get a degree, you know. And she’s supportive. I don’t want to give the impression that my mom will sew a costume if I need it tomorrow, but that still, she comes from that era of just like security, you know. And I’m just like, my dreams are my security, you know, it’s different, yeah.

 

Bernadette Joy  06:12

So, you know, it’s interesting because, and I’ve only started sharing this about my personal story recently, in that it was kind of like a, like a faux pas for us to talk about in our family, my father, if you, if you notice, in the book, I say it’s my father’s nine kids, as in, not my mom’s nine kids. My mom had two kids, me and my brother, but he had seven other children from a previous marriage. And so I, you know, I, I don’t think there’s anything that I wouldn’t talk about at this point, but like, my me and my brother were kind of like the other of like the other family growing up and and so there was a lot of conversation of, not only did my father have to, you know, essentially support nine kids, but with the last two, with me and my brother, we had to be better like. We just had to be we like we carried the burden of the fact that my father decided to marry another woman and have children, and that was me. And so I always, I only learned about it in my adulthood, of just like, why was there so much pressure on me to be like a perfect child? And I realized a lot of it was, you know, just like trying to make up for mistakes that my parents have made, and so that’s not to say that my parents were bad people. You know, everyone’s team, man, they they did the best that they could, but for me to subsequently later on, it was interesting when I started sharing my story about paying off all the student loan debt and then subsequently paying off like all of this debt that we talk about in the book, my father’s first initial reaction was he was embarrassed that I was talking about my personal finances out in public, because you don’t tell like Filipinos, you don’t tell people you ain’t got no money, right? So the fact that I was like, on TV being like, hey, I had all this debt. He didn’t hear that. I paid it off part. He heard the oh, it makes it sound like I couldn’t afford to put you through school, and that looks bad.

 

X Mayo  08:05

Wow baby Boomers who over identify with their children and as if my mistakes are yours. And, you know, I think if anything, it might be a shot to him, they’re like, oh, wow. Maybe I didn’t prepare her. But instead of taking that perspective on it, it’s just kind of like, you’re embarrassing her name.

 

Bernadette Joy  08:21

Yeah so that was that was really hard for for a long time. But, you know, unfortunately, my father passed away in 2021 during the pandemic, and that’s okay, thank you. But it’s interesting that now the book is out, and I had this moment a couple of weeks ago because my, my father’s birthday is coming up, where it’s just like, you know, what would have been really cool for him to see all of this, and for him to see me talking to you and being on on these, these different types of platforms that are now, you know, taking the shame out of money, taking the guilt out of money, like showing him like, hey, actually, a lot of people are talking about this, and we’re being more empowered as a community for that. But I like to think that he’s still seeing it right now. So, you know, I think there’s still joy in the fact that even though growing up, like you said, you know, having eight other siblings, the conversation was always like, well, we don’t have enough money, even when my dad was making good money later on in his career. And a lot of that trickled into the habits that I had, and then subsequently the habits that I had to build to get out of. Build to get out of that scarcity kind of environment.

 

X Mayo  09:25

What was your relationship with money like as a child?

 

Bernadette Joy  09:28

Uh, complicated, I think in that my again, this goes back to my my dad and my mom. My mom was expert sales, uh, shopper like so she used to, she had a friend that used to work at Lord and Taylor in New York City, and so she would always be scouring the clearance racks because she wanted us to look like we had money, even though we didn’t have money. And and so I learned kind of early on that hey, like, it’s important. To look good in front of your peers and wear like the very fancy items, but we can’t afford to pay full price ever, and so I do attribute that my very good like now, you know, vintage shopping skills and all that stuff for my mom. So I picked that up from her, but I also picked up this idea that the only way to become wealthy is to work hard and make a lot of money in your income. There was never a discussion about investing, of course, as a first generation family, there was always this pressure that you must buy home if you want to look good in front of the other Filipino people.  And there’s always.

 

Bernadette Joy  10:38

My cousins, absolutely.

 

Bernadette Joy  10:42

I mean, I grew up in the Catholic Church, there was all the guilt.

 

X Mayo  10:46

Oh yeah, so many candles, so many Hail Marys. My God, we get it. Mary is like, Guys, please, I get it. I’m the baddest. I get it. I know I’m the shit. Please stop everybody’s just like, hail Mary full of grace. I just like, please give it all these candles. Shut this down, especially in California, we shouldn’t have no fucking no all them candles in Catholic Church.

 

Bernadette Joy  11:08

Yeah, it’s, it’s a hazard now, for sure. And, you know, I think, you know, when I think about my relationship with money, it was always like, you’ll never have enough. And you know, I think a lot of immigrant families feel that or believe that. But I think the messaging was really interesting for me in the perspective of, you know, we were, we were middle class. Growing up in Queens, New York, I actually posted a picture of my childhood home on my Instagram this past week, and people are like, Oh my god, like, You’re from Queens and you grew up in that neighborhood. Like they, they a lot of people see me now as a, you know, Bernadette crush your money goals, and, like, having crossed over this millionaire thing, not realizing, like, yeah, I grew up in a very, like, non glamorous household, and so it was complicated, but I also think it was very formative for how I walk in the world now.

 

X Mayo  12:03

Okay, let’s get into your lore. Okay, because you have paid off hella debt in like, three years, and we’re talking not 10 20k we’re talking $300,000 USD to be exact. So let’s clap it up.

 

Bernadette Joy  14:07

Not Pay close.

 

X Mayo  14:08

Yes, and before we get to how the hell you did that, tell us how you amounted that much.

 

Bernadette Joy  14:17

Yes, so the $300,000 was student loans. It was kind of the usual bills that Americans have, you know, credit cards and car payment and all of that. But I also played into this idea, and this was, like, when he TV and like, Chip and Joanna, like gains were, like, super popular and stuff that I was just like, oh, you know what I’ll be. I’ll be a landlord, and I have no business being. I didn’t know anything about real estate, and I got into this kind of space where people are like, oh, yeah, the way you you make more money is to get into, like, all this debt, because it’s good debt or whatever. But what I ended up finding myself in was $300,000 of debt that I had no plan to pay off. And I was not, personally, was not making very much money at the time because I had left my day job to go back to school. And so 2016 now, like 10 years ago, I remember specifically in January being like, I wonder how much I took out in student loans. It must not be that much, because I’ve been paying along the way. And when I opened up that that bill and saw it was not only the fact that it was $72,000 but it was accruing interest daily.

 

X Mayo  15:30

Excuse me?

 

Bernadette Joy  15:31

Yeah it was accruing interest daily. Where I actually did the math on it, where, because I would, I would actually look at the balances, and every day it was growing a little bit. I was like, What’s going on here? And it was the equivalent of, like, you know, a matcha latte, which I drink all the time. And I was just like, I felt, I basically thought to myself, like, wow, I’m basically buying a matcha latte every day and just like, chucking it out the window. And so that really was how I got there. Was, I think, I think this is a whole other discussion, but I think in communities of color, particularly women. I think over education is a trauma response. I didn’t I don’t know that I necessarily needed a master’s degree. I just thought I needed I just thought I should get one.

 

X Mayo  16:10

You’re literally yes, oh my God. My best friend of 22 years now, she was just like, Yeah, I’m just gonna go get a master’s and she did at Fordham University, and one of the top programs in nonprofit got her message, nonprofit is just like, overachieving, and also where I’m the oldest girl, you know, and she’s the oldest girl as well. Like, that’s a thing that we want to do, of course, every certificate we can get, yeah.

 

Bernadette Joy  16:34

I have three degrees. What? Like, why do I need three degrees? So that was definitely a trauma response in some shape or form, to your point of, like, being told I need to be a doctor at six. Doctor at six and and then it was, you know, kind of living, the I was definitely living outside of my means at the time, and, and if I’m being truly honest, it was me trying to keep up with other people, like trying to show people that I was successful, when deep down inside I, like, I knew that I’d know, I didn’t know what I was doing. And so I was just trying to show that off externally versus actually doing some of the internal work, if I’m being totally honest about it.

 

X Mayo  17:06

Yeah. And so you said you accrued the $300,000 because of, like, all the things that usually Americans, you know, have to deal with, and probably add maybe some health care in there. I probably like, you know that that pap smear can run you Oh, Jesus. If you want to go to a good one who knows what they’re doing. You know, you don’t want to go to a self talk. Dino, you know, we can’t DIY that shit. That is. She’s a cute 20k oOh, yeah, absolutely. So now you’re up to your damn neck, you know, in debt. Bernadette, when did you know something had to change?

 

Bernadette Joy  17:34

Uh, so, January 2016 I walk over into my uh, husband’s he was like, watching TV, and I said to him, I was just like, oh shit, I really screwed this up. I have a lot more debt than I had thought I had taken out, and I have no idea we’re gonna pay it off. And interestingly, so if you ever get to meet my husband, AJ, he is the most chill person ever, which is awesome in a lot of regards, but also when you’re high strung like me, and you get a very, like very, just, logical and rational response when you’re, like, dying inside. He was just, he, his almost exact words were, well, what’s the big deal? Everyone we know has debt, so, you know, everyone else seems fine, so what’s the problem? And I basically said, Yeah, but you know, I don’t want to be like everyone else. First of all, second of all, all of our fans and family, all they do is complain about how much they hate their jobs and how stressed out they are and how they can afford things so like that doesn’t seem like a level of success. And the turning point for me that day specifically was I realized that the reason I was in that debt was not because I had I had thought, oh, this was a great investment, and this is like, what’s going to do my future. It was really the shame that I felt that the reason I got into that debt was because I was just trying to live up to my parents expectations and my family’s expectations, even though it wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do. And so that day in January, I was just like, well, you know what, bro like, fine. You don’t think it’s a big deal. I think it’s a big deal. So I’m gonna figure this out. And what I did was I initially Googled just like, how to pay off debt, how to pay off student loans or whatever. And everything I found was an old white guy saying the same stuff and and I realized that I would probably have to come up with my own plan.

 

X Mayo  19:23

And one of those hustles were correct me, if I’m wrong, you used to get paid to review and edit people’s resumes.

 

Bernadette Joy  19:31

Yeah, yes I did what most people do when they real again. Immigrant mentality was like, okay, the only way to get out of this is to work harder and make more money. Like, there’s no other way about this. I’m like, what else? What else can I do?

 

X Mayo  19:47

Yes, if you are first gen or second gen, you can relate right now to Bernadette. It’s just like, No, make more. A lot of it. Get it now, yeah.

 

Bernadette Joy  19:54

Get it now, and hustle harder. And so, because I was in my MBA program, I. I realized there’s a lot of people who knew that I was in HR at the time, and so they people would ask me to review their resumes. And so I was like, Okay, well, I used to do it, you know, again, going back to, you know, being a people pleaser and all of that. I was just like, Oh, I just like doing it to help people. But I realized I’m like, wow, people are getting like, 10 20k raises off of these resume edits, so maybe I should charge for them. But of course, I did. The other thing that a lot of people do is, like, I severely under charge for it. So I was charging people like, $19 at the time. I know it’s so embarrassing.

 

X Mayo  20:30

No, it’s not, no, it’s not Bernadette, because I severely under charged myself when I used to do makeup. So absolutely not like I was charging them for one of my foundations cost more than what I was charging them. And I was going to their house, setting up a light, but you’re just, like, trying to be kind you know, and you just, you just don’t know what you don’t know. So you were charging them $19 obviously, that had to change. Where did it go up to?

 

Bernadette Joy  20:50

It went up to, like, $400 per resume.

 

X Mayo  20:53

Good girl, absolutely. So was hustling the way you got out of debt.

 

Bernadette Joy  20:59

At first. It was the band aid. But you can only do that for so long before you get completely burned out and and so in hindsight, and this is like, why I wrote the book crush your money goals. The C, R, U, S, H are the actual steps I took to get out of debt. And the C is really where everyone should start and where I did my initial kickoff before after, I realized it can only hustle for so long, which is to curate your accounts. And what I mean by that is I always, I always give people the analogy of, like, my sneaker collection. So, like, I grew up in Queens, and so, like, I love buying Jordans and, you know, like making sure they never got their creases and all that stuff. And so I tell people, you know, you need to curate our bank accounts and our everything that has money coming in or out of them, like that collection that you really like, love and adore. If you are looking at your bank, your collection of accounts, and it’s a mess and you don’t know what they’re doing, or you feel like they’re not all valuable, then we have to clean that up first before we decide what our next move is.

 

X Mayo  21:59

Okay, so I’m so happy that you got into that, because I was already like, Okay, it’s time to crush our debt. I know that that is your shit. You have created that acronym. So can you tell us? I know you started up with the C, but can you tell us what CRUSH stands for?

 

Bernadette Joy  22:13

Yeah. So it’s five steps that I personally use to crush debt, and also to crush any money goals, even if you’re not in debt. And so C stands for curate your accounts, which I just mentioned. R is to reverse into independence. And I actually have people calculate how much it would how much you would need to invest in order for you to just like, say, screw it. I don’t want to work anymore, which seems like a very big thing to do when you’re just trying to pay down debt, but I’ll explain later, like, why that makes sense. And then you is to understand your net worth. So actually understand each of now that you have all these accounts and you’ve and you’ve organized them, and you know what, know where they are, then we go line by line and figure out what each of them are doing and how we can optimize them. And then S is to spend intentionally, which that’s why I love that you your first question was like, What did you spend money on? A lot of the advice that was given at the time was, you know, rice and beans and don’t go out and don’t look fly and, you know, all of that stuff, versus just bra you don’t need to buy it, yeah, all that stuff. And so I have spending intentionally as a step where it’s not necessarily about sacrificing, it’s more about, like swapping and being very intentional. And then the last part, the H, which we’ve already kind of covered, is Healing Your Money wounds and really uncovering what your money story was like, how, how was your relationship growing up with money, and how is that affecting your decisions now, and how you can maybe shift. I like to tell people I love a good plot twist. And so if this has been Your Money Story up until now, then what’s the plot test twist that we want to have? Want to have going forward.

 

X Mayo  23:43

Oh, my god, yeah. Okay, main character, period. And your new book teaches smart money habits. But I would like to know. Bernadette, how can we drop bad money habits? Go to the Catholic Church. Say your Hail Mary’s pray with the can pray […]

 

Bernadette Joy  24:03

Pray the water. Yeah, the Holy Water, give me an example. What would be a bad habit?

 

X Mayo  24:09

Okay, so let’s do me. Let’s do use me in as an example. I have a bad money habit of overspending.

 

Bernadette Joy  24:18

On what?

 

X Mayo  24:20

Uber Eats. Let’s just do there’s a few things I overspend on, but Uber Eats, I overspend I think I didn’t realize it’s like, You do one thing to better yourself, and you don’t realize, like, oh my god, other things will happen. Because I am a workout. Girly, I am a gym girly, I work out. I move in my body, minimum five days a week, and like, six days, like intense workouts. But for that reason, I get tired, and so the like energy to cook, or even, like, when you are working out, you have to wash more clothes. That was something I never even considered. So it’s like, like spending on Uber Eats, just because, like, my life moves quickly. If I haven’t, I edition, or have to record, or I have a meeting, and it’s just like, Oh, it’s so convenient, you know? So, yeah, so let’s how do I drop that?

 

Bernadette Joy  25:08

Well, that’s an interesting choice, because my first question based off of everything you said, why is that a bad habit?

 

X Mayo  25:16

I don’t just feel bad. I feel like, why don’t you cook? And then I’m like, oh, but then.

 

Bernadette Joy  25:23

Well, you just said all the reasons why you don’t cook, it’s because you got it, you’re doing laundry. It’s because you’re working out five days a week. It’s because you’re busy as hell in your day job. It’s because you spend a lot more time having meaningful conversations with people like the one that we’re having right now. So I here’s what I think is so interesting. You kind of fell into the trap of what most people do, which is like most people, when they say, oh, I want to drop this bad habit, it’s usually like that. It’s eating out or spending too much money on clothes or something like that. And in this particular scenario, my real question for you is, I don’t think it’s the habit that you have to drop. I think it’s the shame that you have around it that you have to drop, because what’s another therapist?

 

X Mayo  26:01

Bernadette, invoice me please for this session.

 

Bernadette Joy  26:05

I think. But what’s the alternative? What are you gonna do? Cook more and then, like, beats even more […] . Like, what’s the alternative here?

 

X Mayo  26:11

I know, and then also, like, when I’m spending money on groceries, especially now with these fucking tariffs and everything going up, and like, oh my God, if You’re dating a man and he has eggs, it’s like, wow, equivalent to a Rolex, you know, like, it’s so it’s so expensive for certain stuff now, so I’m like, the money that I’m spending on that, and then the labor, and then have to clean up and stuff. So it’s just like, it’s just become easier. But this is a great exercise, because now it’s like, how do we even know if it’s a bad habit? You know, I would love to know your thought, like, what? What’s like, the metrics that we can use, because someone could be just like me and be like, oh, I have a very active lifestyle, so I do Uber Eats more often than I feel like I should. And that’s a bad habit. Like you just, yeah, you just, you just clocked me and said, No, it’s a shame girl.

 

Bernadette Joy  26:53

Yeah. so okay, let’s, let’s actually go through this exercise. So you said the bad habit is, I eat. I spend too much money on Uber Eats. So why do you spend so much money on Uber Eats? Just like one sentence.

 

X Mayo  27:05

I work out and I’m tired.

 

Bernadette Joy  27:07

I work out and I’m tired. Well, why?  Why do you get so tired when you work out?

 

X Mayo  27:11

I work out really, really hard.

 

Bernadette Joy  27:13

Okay, why do you work out really hard?

 

X Mayo  27:15

For my mental.

 

Bernadette Joy  27:16

Okay, why do you need to work out so hard for your mental what’s going on with your mental?

 

X Mayo  27:22

The type of business that I work in, also the necessary work that I’m doing to make myself be a better person, that is part of it. It like it sues me. It gives me peace. It calms me. I think I show up as a better human being, not only for myself, but for others around me.

 

Bernadette Joy  27:49

Okay, so what we just did was like a really quick exercise of, like the five, whys here. So you’re you left from I’m a bad I have bad habits of eating out, to eating out allows me the opportunity to show up as a better person, a better human, with my friends, with my family, with my relationships, and with my job, and therefore I shouldn’t eat out because it’s a bad habit like?

 

X Mayo  28:15

Wow, Bernadette, drag me. Yeah, wow, that’s a great exercise. Oh, wow, is this in the book? I gotta get that book.

 

Bernadette Joy  28:36

I love that you’re so open. Thank you for like, doing this example.

 

X Mayo  28:44

Absolutely.

 

Bernadette Joy  28:45

You know, like, the only habits that I see as truly bad are the ones that are not in service of your wealth, your health or your mental well being. If you’re if eating out, and you just said it, eating out allows you more mental space and allows you to show up better, and your day job and you work, you work out a lot because you’re actually caring for your physical health, then who cares if you’re spending 30-40, bucks or whatever? On Uber Eats as long as it’s within your planned expenses. Now, the now, the slight trade off I would make here is, rather than saying, oh, I need to, I need to eat out less, or I need to do Uber Eats less, is to say, let me intentionally at the beginning of the month, just accept that’s what I’m gonna do, and there’s no shame around it, and just put $1 amount to it and say, Okay, I’m gonna eat out five times a week, because I work out five times a week. So that’s gonna cost me, I don’t know, 30 bucks every single time I’m just making something up. $150 on Uber Eats a week. That’s $600 a month is my mental health and me showing up as the best version of myself at my job worth $600 I think the answer is yes.

 

X Mayo  30:40

I think it is yes. No, it is. And I think this question is like part of what you’re talking about, I would love for you to talk to me about the three C’s and why that way of thinking is helpful and not hurtful.

 

Bernadette Joy  30:53

In the book, I have a particular habit around why eating out is actually good for your budget. And the C’s that we cover in there is if you’re eating out for the sake of culture. So that’s number one, if, like, if you’re going out because you’re getting a cultural experience. Or for me, like, there’s, I don’t know how to cook certain Filipino foods, so like, I will pay someone to go make that for me the way that my mom makes it. I think that’s okay if you’re going out for what you’re talking about, you’re talking about conscious health choices. Like, obviously, if you’re eating at McDonald’s every day, like, that’s not really great for your health or your mental health or your wealth, right? But you’re talking about eating food that’s better for your estrogen levels. It’s better for your your ability to, you know, do well at your job, and that’s fine. Number three is to conserve energies. See, conserve energy, which is exactly what you describe, if you’re eating out because you’re a busy, motivated, ambitious woman, and you don’t want, you don’t want to be like the traditional like, oh, I can cook everything at home or whatever. That is totally okay. And I get that so much from a lot of my clients, who feel the guilt because their moms were amazing cooks, or whoever was amazing cooks, but they’re not an amazing cook. But the last piece, and this is mostly why I go and eat out, is that C stands for connection, which is, nowadays, there’s so much wrapped up in mental health and and money, where people think, oh, I need to spend more money. Actually, what I found out is, a lot of my clients, the reason they’re spending so much more money is because they’re lonely and so, yeah, you know what, going out and having a nice meal with your girlfriend who you haven’t seen in ages. Why should we feel guilty about that? Well, how’s that a bad choice? That’s that’s what we’re trying to combat here.

 

X Mayo  32:31

Yeah, oh my god, that’s amazing. Okay, so let’s break down the three C’s again, so our listeners can remember we got culture, we got conserving energy, and we got connection. Okay, okay. I love that. I love those three C’s, and now I’m going to do that step. Thank you so much. I just feel so empowered, because I really feel like information is liberation. So when you broke down that bad habit, like those steps, why? That was very helpful, and this is very helpful too. Oh my god, Brandy. I could talk to you for two hours. Okay, let’s keep going. Okay, I’d like to let our listeners know what they can do to slowly start managing their finances, right? And something that stood out from the book was it talks about holding a digital detox and decluttering your calendar. That is good. That is you’re clocking all Americans that digital detox, absolutely, I think I got off Instagram and started spending less 100% because the ads and all of that. And they know they’re listening, right? You’re listening right now, you raggedy bitch. And they know exactly I just, I say the word couch, I see a couch, you know. So how do we do this? And how does this relate to money?

 

Bernadette Joy  33:40

Okay, so remember? So we talked about, you know, church and on Sundays. I’m sure a lot of people may be able to relate this, relate to this is I’ve so I’m, I don’t consider myself a religious person anymore, but I still, in some way observe the Sabbath on Sundays, meaning that I literally take my phone and I lock it in my car, and I don’t look at it all Sunday. Wow, all Sunday. And so one day a week, I shut off all the screens. So no, so I tell people like, no big screen, no medium screen, and no small screen, right? So on Sundays, I actually forced myself to and and for me, being doing what I do for a living with social media and stuff like that, was a very hard habit for me to kick. But one day on Sundays, it turns out, when you’re when you’re not like, constantly looking at that stuff is to your point. You’re not getting hit with all these ads or whatever, but you actually start living in like the real world and talking to like real human beings. And you’re like, holy shit. Actually, my life is not so bad when I hang out with people. So number one is I do screen this Sundays, which is a habit that I talk about in the book, where on Sundays, I literally shut off all the screens, and then on the digital kind of detox, I paired it with another habit in the book. It’s like declutter the date, where you can do one of two things. So declutter the date simply is, whatever the date is. So if today one. Is the 10th, then you would try to find 10 items to get rid of, and so.

 

X Mayo  35:04

What? Yeah, so it’s fucking genius.

 

Bernadette Joy  35:09

Yeah, yeah. So it’s super fun. I I like it because it’s just like a little game for myself. So like, day one, you get rid of one thing. Day two, you get rid of two things. Day three, you get rid of three things, so and so forth, right?

 

X Mayo  35:19

Excellent.

 

Bernadette Joy  35:20

Thank  you. So if you had to guess in a 30 day, in a 30 day month, how many items would you get rid of?

 

X Mayo  35:27

Um, I’m so bad. If yes.

 

Bernadette Joy  35:30

It’s still total guess. Nobody gets this right. Don’t worry.

 

X Mayo  35:32

Okay, 150.

 

Bernadette Joy  35:35

You would get rid of over 400 for 400 things. If you just did this for one month.

 

X Mayo  35:39

I’m doing it.

 

Bernadette Joy  35:39

It would be like 400 and like 9090. Something. Things, if it was like a 31 date day month, right? So, so you could do it with physical things, but I also tell people that you can throw in the digital stuff in there. So if you get rid of a subscription, that’s one item if you, if you one of my favorite things to do is, I love to unsubscribe from emails that are no longer serving me. So like newsletters or ad campaigns or like coupon things or whatever. And I count those as part of my my detox. So if every day you got rid of the number of items as a date for one month, you would clear your life out of like almost 500 things.

 

X Mayo  36:16

If you started a cult Bernadette, what color would we wear? Is it?

 

Bernadette Joy  36:20

The answer is purple.

 

X Mayo  36:21

Okay, girl, oh my god, women, it’s truly the best I see where they’re coming for our rights, because with the superior species, and I don’t make the rules, sorry. Now this is my last question. I can’t believe we’re coming to the end. Bernadette, it’s been wonderful. I need to hire you for everything, please. It’s like that episode of Friends when channel was like, Monica run my life. Okay? So you know, I can’t let you leave without talking about the looming student debt crises. Right? The girls are scared because payments are set to resume later this year. How can people manage their payments? And I want to talk to you, of course, the debt queen, because you paid off over 70k in student loans yourself. Mm, hmm. So, yeah, so how can, how can we help the girlies manage their payments?

 

Bernadette Joy  37:14

Okay, so first thing is, a lot of people have, like, lost their usernames and passwords because they haven’t looked at it in so long. So number one is, go find out where your student loans are, because they might have shifted. A lot of people like will go log in and realize that company no longer exists, or that they sold those loans somewhere else. And so I have had a lot of clients recently who are just having trouble even tracking down where their student loans are. So that’s number one. Number two is, once you do track them down, is you need to actually go and read the fine print of what you actually signed up for, because a lot of people don’t realize what they signed up for, like I did, where I didn’t realize that I was accruing interest daily. So even if, even if your loans were on pause, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t accruing interest. So what I found is a lot of folks were defaulted into income based plans, meaning that they had their student loan payments being, like, the minimum amount possible, but it was almost all interest, rather than you might be in a bracket where you can say, hey, I can afford X amount of money towards my student loan. So let me make my plan actually meet what I can afford to do right now, which would save you a lot of interest. This actually happened with my brother in law, where all the steps, like, he’s like, I don’t know where my username password is. I’ve just been doing the minimum payments, or it’s been on deferral. And then we come to find that all of his payments up until now, for like, years, have entirely been towards interest. So he hasn’t, he hasn’t touched any of the principal in like, a decade and a decade. And so I’m really urging people to go and look at their plans and see what kind of payment plan they signed up for. And actually, a lot of personal finance folks are telling people, oh, you should go in an income based plan. But what they don’t tell you is that income based plan is often interest first, so making sure that you call your provider and say, Hey, this is the amount of money I can afford to pay every month. What can I do to make sure that the that most of it goes towards principal and how? What can I do to make sure that it is the amount that I can afford, versus, like, delaying the payments any longer because it doesn’t stop the student loans from accruing?

 

X Mayo  39:14

And again, the color for the cult is?

 

Bernadette Joy  39:17

Purple.

 

X Mayo  39:18

Okay, we’re gonna meet our Wednesdays. We bring our book, we wear purple, we buy the book, and we support Bernadette and all of her endeavors. Oh, my God, I will follow your gospel forever, honestly, better than the Catholic church before our listeners, where should they be following you on social media?

 

Bernadette Joy  39:37

Well, thank you so much. This was literally the most fun I’ve had on a podcast interview in a really long time. So you can find me @Bernadettejoy, spelled with the board of debt. I’m primarily on Instagram, Youtube and LinkedIn, and you can head to my website, crushermoneygolds.com you can find more information about the book. The book is also available at Audible if you like my voice, and if you want to join the cult today, there is a free guide. So if you go to crushingmoneygoals.com/freeguide, I created a list of 25 things that can help you kick start today, and it’s absolutely free.

 

X Mayo  40:10

Oh, my God. Bernadette Joy that last name is correct, because I feel so joyous after talking to you. You are wonderful, amazing. Your husband better know what a good thing he got, and I’m sure you remind him every night.

 

Bernadette Joy  40:23

I will play this episode for him. Get reminded by.

 

X Mayo  40:26

Amazing and wonderful, and I’m gonna go older Uber Eats and not feel bad about it, because I worked out really, really hard today. Thank you so much. Bernadette, I wish you nothing but the best, and I look forward to keeping up with all the amazing things that you’re gonna do.

 

Bernadette Joy  40:38

Thanks for having me.

 

X Mayo  40:38

Yes, thank you bye. All right, y’all Bernadette read me like a book, honey, and I don’t know how 300 pager. Okay, it’s giving Harry Potter. I’m still waiting on an invoice, because we had a whole ass therapy session. Who knew I was carrying around all this shame of ordering Uber Eats even though I’m conserving energy. You know what Bernadette said, If it lands under the three C’s, then it counts. She is so real, and I’m truly grateful for her honesty. I learned a lot about the little steps we can take to slowly chip away at our debt. You hear that Instagram, I’m done. Okay, it’s over. I’m done falling for your ads and I ain’t purchasing a damn thing. And for the girlies who decided to get their higher education degrees, you heard Bernadette. Go find that username and password, gather your receipts and get informed on your loan. Now I’m gonna get all my purple clothes and get ready to go to the church of Bernadette in Bernadette’s name, amen.  The Dough is a Lemonada original. I’m your host X Mayo.  This series was created in partnership with Flourish Ventures.  This series is presented by the Margaret Casey Foundation. Our producers are Tiffany Bui, and Dani Matias. Kristen Lepore is our senior producer.  Mix and Sound Design by Bobby Woody. Original Music by Pat Mesiti Miller. Jackie Danziger is our Vice President of narrative content.  Executive Producers include me X Mayo, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer.  Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review.  You can follow me on IG  @80dollarsandasuitcase and Lemonada @lemonadamedia across all social platforms, follow The Dough wherever you get your podcast or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, thanks so much for listening. See you next week, bye.