Financial Fluency: The Key to Empowering Your Financial Future

In this episode, I spoke with Bernadette Joy, author, podcast and financial fluency advocate about why financial fluency—not just literacy—is the next evolution in how we talk about money. Bernadette shares how fluency empowers individuals to take control of their financial lives, ask better questions, and challenge outdated systems.

💡 Key Takeaways:

•  Financial education should be shame-free and accessible
•  Financial fluency is like learning a new language
•  Fluency is about context, communication, and intentional skill use
•  Just-in-time learning is more effective than just-in-case theory
•  Fluency can close the gender and racial wealth gap
•  Fluency empowers people to question the system

 🎥 Watch this episode below: 

Connect with Bernadette Joy:  

•  Website (here)
•  LinkedIn (here)
•  Instagram (here)
•  YouTube (here)

Books: 

•  CRUSH Your Money Goals: 25 Smart Money Habits to Save, Invest, and Fast-Track Your Financial Freedom (Amazon) (Bookshop)

Podcast: 

•  Crush Your Money Goals (YouTube)

Freebies: 

• FREE GUIDE: 10 Money Tools You Need

Resources mentioned: 

•  Invest for Better: Check out my conversation with Janine Firpo, the co-founder of Invest for Better (here)
•  Romy Pickron: Check out my conversation with Romy Pickron, the co-founder of Reducify (here)

Bio:

Bernadette Joy is an author, podcaster and CEO of Crush Your Money Goals®, a personal finance training company serving up education with a side of pizzazz. She's featured monthly in Forbes, CNBC, and CNET and appeared on more than 30 podcasts, radio and television shows. 

As the eighth child in her father's brood of nine and a first-gen Filipina-American, Bernadette understands those who feel like they missed the money memo. Sure, she boasts two bachelors and a master's, and a decade of Fortune 100 and startup experience. But her real street cred? Paying off a jaw-dropping $300,000 of debt in three years and investing her first $1 million in her 30s! Now she works 20 hours a week to focus her financial freedom on joy: K-Pop, yoga, karaoke and spoiling her nieces and nephews as their traveling rich auntie. Today she shares strategies so simple, your pet goldfish could understand.  She's coached thousands nationwide, sharing her 5-step secret recipe for ditching debt, mastering savings and investing for financial peace.