Journey To Launch

Ericka Barnes first appeared on the Journey to Launch podcast in 2019 to share how she reached financial independence in her mid-30s. Since then, her life has looked nothing like a straight line; divorce, layoffs, a new marriage, and a second retirement later, she's back to share the full story. In this brand new episode, Ericka walks us through what she's been up to since our last conversation, from rebuilding financially after a divorce, to reaching chubby FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) in 2023. The financial foundation she had built; real estate, index funds, and a prenup, turned out to be more than a wealth strategy. It was the infrastructure that protected her when life got complicated. Today, Ericka and her husband are fully work-optional, house hacking in St. Croix while splitting time between Atlanta and the US Virgin Islands. This episode is a powerful reminder that financial independence isn't just about retiring early, it's about having the stability and options to navigate whatever life brings, rebuild when necessary, and ultimately design a life on your own terms. In this episode, Ericka shares: How she rediscovered her love of creative writing and the two books she is publishing this year How a prenup protected her financially and emotionally through divorce and why every couple should consider one Why she went back to work after lean firing, what chubby FIRE actually feels like, and the key difference between the two The case for geo arbitrage in a US territory and how she and her husband bought a home in St. Croix with a built-in tenant to offset the mortgage What's New in the Paperback Edition of Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A bonus chapter: When Life Happens: Staying on the Path to Financial Freedom Through Setbacks, Shifts, and Uncertainty A book club and discussion guide with prompts, exercises, and action steps Updated corrections from the original hardcover Exclusive bonuses when you purchase the paperback, including: The Fire Starter Course The Find Your FIRE Number Worksheet Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode: Ericka's first episode on the podcast: From Making $35,000 A Year To Being A Millionaire with Ericka Grant The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins: jlcollinsnh.com Afford Anything Podcast: affordanything.com Check out the FIRE Calc Get your paperback edition of Your Journey To Financial Freedom if you haven't already. Apply to Share Your Journeyer Story, here. Join the Journey to Launch Book Club to dive deeper into financial freedom with guided discussions and resources here! Join The Weekly Newsletter List to get updates, deals & more! Leave Your Journey To Financial Freedom a review! Get The Budget Bootcamp Check out my personal website here. Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast! YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link. What stage of the financial journey are you on? Are you working on financial stability or work flexibility? Find out with this free assessment and get a curated list of the 10 next best episodes for you to listen to depending on your stage. Check it out here! Connect with Ericka: Website: freelennial.com/about/ Instagram: @ericka_sojourner Email: [email protected] Connect with me: Instagram: @Journeytolaunch Twitter: @JourneyToLaunch Facebook: @Journey To Launch Join the Private Facebook Group Join the Waitlist for My FI Course Get The Free Jumpstart Guide

Doing everything right at work and still getting passed over is not a personal failure. It is a pattern, and the data proves it. In this episode, I sit down with Stefanie O'Connell, award-winning journalist and author of The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up and Then Pushes Them Down, to dig into the data behind the very real costs women face for simply being ambitious. Stefanie spent years reporting on personal finance stories where people did everything right and still came up short. That pattern led her to a deeper investigation into systemic bias, and what she found is both eye-opening and infuriating. From salary negotiations to promotion pipelines to the way overwork culture is weaponized, the research reveals a compounding bias that plays out quietly, day in and day out, across the full arc of a career. Rather than placing the burden on individual women to work harder or ask better, Stefanie makes the case that the most powerful response to systemic inequality is collective action. In this episode, Stefanie shares: What the ambition penalty is and how it quietly derails women's careers through modern, hidden forms of bias How race, ethnicity, and motherhood intersect with gender to shape who gets penalized and how Why trends like the Trad Wife and the Soft Life share the same flaws as the girl boss era Why collective action, not individual optimization, is the real path to closing pay and leadership gaps + mores. Watch the video to this episode, here. What's New in the Paperback Edition of Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A bonus chapter: When Life Happens: Staying on the Path to Financial Freedom Through Setbacks, Shifts, and Uncertainty A book club and discussion guide with prompts, exercises, and action steps Updated corrections from the original hardcover Exclusive bonuses when you purchase the paperback, including: The Fire Starter Course The Find Your FIRE Number Worksheet Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode: Check out Stefanie's book; "The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up and Then Pushes Them Down" How to Build Your Network, Thrive In Entrepreneurship, & Leverage Your Skill Sets To Make More Money w/ Stefanie O'Connell Bonus Episode- Coping w/ The Impact to Your Income & Career Due to the Coronavirus w/ Stefanie O'Connell Rodriguez Check out the FIRE Calc Get your paperback edition of Your Journey To Financial Freedom if you haven't already. Apply to Share Your Journeyer Story, here. Join the Journey to Launch Book Club to dive deeper into financial freedom with guided discussions and resources here! Join The Weekly Newsletter List to get updates, deals & more! Leave Your Journey To Financial Freedom a review! Get The Budget Bootcamp Check out my personal website here. Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast! YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link. What stage of the financial journey are you on? Are you working on financial stability or work flexibility? Find out with this free assessment and get a curated list of the 10 next best episodes for you to listen to depending on your stage. Check it out here! Connect with Stefanie: Website: TooAmbitious.com Instagram: @StefanieOConnell Facebook: @StefanieOConnell Connect with me: Instagram: @Journeytolaunch Twitter: @JourneyToLaunch Facebook: @Journey To Launch Join the Private Facebook Group Join the Waitlist for My FI Course Get The Free Jumpstart Guide

There is a reason you know what to do with money and still struggle to do it. In this episode, I sit down with Rahkim Sabree, financial therapist, accredited financial counselor, and author of Overcoming Financial Trauma, to talk about what is really driving our money behaviors and why the answer goes much deeper than budgets and spreadsheets. After more than a decade in the banking industry, Rahkim walked away from it all to build something on his own terms. That leap eventually led him to the financial therapy space, where he now helps people understand that our relationship with money is shaped by six distinct sources of trauma, from generational and observational influences to workplace, systemic, and societal pressures. He also shares what happened when a house fire destroyed his home just weeks before his book launched, and how he used his own frameworks to navigate the loss. His core message is that most financial education skips the emotional and physiological roots of why we behave the way we do. Once you understand where your money behaviors come from, real change becomes possible. In this episode, Rahkim shares: The six sources of financial trauma and how they show up differently for each person Why our nervous system responds to money as a threat, and what that looks like in everyday behavior The difference between a scarcity mindset and a scarcity reality, and why that distinction matters How he navigated his own financial trauma after a house fire destroyed his home just weeks before his book launch What's New in the Paperback Edition of Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A bonus chapter: When Life Happens: Staying on the Path to Financial Freedom Through Setbacks, Shifts, and Uncertainty A book club and discussion guide with prompts, exercises, and action steps Updated corrections from the original hardcover Exclusive bonuses when you purchase the paperback, including: The Fire Starter Course The Find Your FIRE Number Worksheet Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode: Check out Overcoming Financial Trauma by Rahkim Sabree: Available wherever books are sold Rahkim's Forbes Column Check out the FIRE Calc Get your paperback edition of Your Journey To Financial Freedom if you haven't already. Apply to Share Your Journeyer Story, here. Join the Journey to Launch Book Club to dive deeper into financial freedom with guided discussions and resources here! Join The Weekly Newsletter List to get updates, deals & more! Leave Your Journey To Financial Freedom a review! Get The Budget Bootcamp Check out my personal website here. Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast! YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link. What stage of the financial journey are you on? Are you working on financial stability or work flexibility? Find out with this free assessment and get a curated list of the 10 next best episodes for you to listen to depending on your stage. Check it out here! Connect with Rahkim: Website: RahkimSabree.com Instagram: @RahkimSabree Facebook: @RahkimSabreeOfficial Twitter: @RahkimSabree Connect with me: Instagram: @Journeytolaunch Twitter: @JourneyToLaunch Facebook: @Journey To Launch Join the Private Facebook Group Join the Waitlist for My FI Course Get The Free Jumpstart Guide

Most people spend their entire careers waiting for the day they can finally stop working. In this episode, I sit down with Brian Herriot, author, speaker, financial advisor, and entrepreneurship coach, to dig into the concept of time freedom and what it really means to build a life on your own terms. Brian spent 14 years in corporate consulting, chased the early retirement dream, and hit the $1 million savings mark right before COVID wiped out 35% of it. In that pivotal moment, his wife asked him a simple but life-changing question: "What would you do all day?" That question launched him on a completely different path, one not about accumulating enough money to stop working, but about designing flexible, intentional work that funds a life you love right now. Rather than sacrificing your best years to reach some far-off finish line, Brian makes the case that you can build toward a "free date" rather than a retirement date, a model that works for employees, entrepreneurs, and minimalists alike. In this episode, Brian shares: How the Time Freedom Formula works, balancing lifestyle expenses, investment income, and flexible work to fund your ideal year The three money personalities (money manager, money maker, money minimizer) and which one drives your path to freedom The "Look Back, Look Ahead" lifestyle design exercise that helps you build a vision for your next 10 years Why contrast, not constant leisure, is what makes time off feel truly meaningful What's New in the Paperback Edition of Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A bonus chapter: When Life Happens: Staying on the Path to Financial Freedom Through Setbacks, Shifts, and Uncertainty A book club and discussion guide with prompts, exercises, and action steps Updated corrections from the original hardcover Exclusive bonuses when you purchase the paperback, including: The Fire Starter Course The Find Your FIRE Number Worksheet Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode: Check out Brian's book, Time Freedom (pre-order + get a free audiobook with code JAMILA), here. Check out the FIRE Calc Get your paperback edition of Your Journey To Financial Freedom if you haven't already. Apply to Share Your Journeyer Story, here. Join the Journey to Launch Book Club to dive deeper into financial freedom with guided discussions and resources here! Join The Weekly Newsletter List to get updates, deals & more! Leave Your Journey To Financial Freedom a review! Get The Budget Bootcamp Check out my personal website here. Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast! YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link. What stage of the financial journey are you on? Are you working on financial stability or work flexibility? Find out with this free assessment and get a curated list of the 10 next best episodes for you to listen to depending on your stage. Check it out here! Connect with Brian: Website: TimeFreedom.life Instagram: @TimeFreedomLife Facebook: @TimeFreedomFirst Connect with me: Instagram: @Journeytolaunch Twitter: @JourneyToLaunch Facebook: @Journey To Launch Join the Private Facebook Group Join the Waitlist for My FI Course Get The Free Jumpstart Guide

What happens when you've achieved the financial success you once dreamed of, but something inside you starts asking for more or different? In this episode, I sit down with Tiffany Aliche, also known as The Budgetnista, for a real and layered conversation about evolution, grief, purpose, and what it looks like to transition into a new season of life. Tiffany shares her journey from being in deep debt and rebuilding her life from scratch to creating a multimillion dollar business and financial legacy. But more importantly, we talk about what comes after success, how grief reshaped her priorities, and why she's being called to explore something entirely new beyond money. In this episode, I discuss: How Tiffany rebuilt her life from six figures of debt into a multimillion dollar business The difference between survival-driven hustle and aligned, intentional work What it looks like to step back from being the face of your brand without letting it go Why following a calling is possible at any stage even without financial stability What's New in the Paperback Edition of Your Journey to Financial Freed A bonus chapter: When Life Happens: Staying on the Path to Financial Freedom Through Setbacks, Shifts, and Uncertainty A book club and discussion guide with prompts, exercises, and action steps Updated corrections from the original hardcover Exclusive bonuses when you purchas The Fire Starter Course The Find Your FIRE Number Worksheet Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode: Check out Tiffany's paperback version of her book,"Get Good With Money", here. Check out the FIRE Calc Get your paperback edition of Your Journey To Financial Freedom if you haven't already. Apply to Share Your Journeyer Story, here. Join the Journey to Launch Book Club to dive deeper into financial freedom with guided discussions and resources here! Join The Weekly Newsletter List to get updates, deals & more! Leave Your Journey To Financial Freedom a review! Get The Budget Bootcamp Check out my personal website here. Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast! YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link. What stage of the financial journey are you on? Are you working on financial stability or work flexibility? Find out with this free assessment and get a curated list of the 10 next best episodes for you to listen to depending on your stage. Check it out here! Connect with Tiffany: Website: thebudgetnista.com Instagram: @TheBudgenista Twitter: @TheBudgetnista Facebook: @TheBudgetnista Connect with me: Instagram: @Journeytolaunch Twitter: @JourneyToLaunch Facebook: @Journey To Launch Join the Private Facebook Group Join the Waitlist for My FI Course Get The Free Jumpstart Guide