Episode 93: How to Achieve FIRE and Live Abroad with Stefanie Gonzales

Acquania Escarne 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to The Purpose of Money Podcast. Today we're talking to Stefanie Gonzales about how she created millionaire wealth and accomplish financial freedom and independence all before the age of 38.

You are listening to The Purpose of Money Podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host Acquania Escarne.

Stefanie Gonzales is the founder of The Women's Wealth Effect a personal finance brand, where it's her firm belief that more money in the hands of women leaves a lasting legacy on their personal lives and their communities. As a global leader, speaker, wealth career coach, and now podcast host, her love runs deep for her familia of four, who relocated in 2022, from Singapore to Portugal. She's also transparent about her experience as a Latina in corporate America, and how she 9x her salary in 15 years, paid off 420,000 in debt, became a millionaire at 37 and achieved partial financial freedom and independence by age 38.

Hey Stefanie, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today?

Stefanie Gonzales 1:22

I'm doing great. Acquania Thank you so much for having me. I am doing really awesome. You know, the holidays are almost here and the end of the year is upon us and we're still getting things done. So All good on our side.

Acquania Escarne 1:36

Absolutely. And I'm excited to because you and I were first introduced to each other at Fin Con, which is one of my favorite conferences, where money nerds meet. So shout out to Fin Con.

Stefanie Gonzales 1:48

Absolutely.

Acquania Escarne 1:49

I swear fin con has introduced me to some of my favorite besties. In over the last couple of years, I attended my first Fin Con conference in 2018. But you particularly sparked my interest because you continue to be involved in a WOC podcasters group and you are really vocal and transparent about your ability to relocate to Portugal with your family and to accomplish what some would call semi-fire, you are semi-retired and able to financially afford to work less and enjoy life more.

So today we're gonna talk more about how you made that happen for yourself and how you're helping other women do the same. But before we get into that, I want to talk to you about your money story, you know, how was money for you when you were growing up?

Stefanie Gonzales 2:41

Yeah, you know, I would say I came from a very hard working household, my dad actually started working at his first job at the age of 16 and to this day still works at the same company. So you can imagine seeing somebody who had that level of longevity at one company or slash job and, you know, pour his entire life into that, that definitely left an impression on me.

My mother is constantly educated and you had an opportunity to see her at Fin Con of all things, she traveled across the US to spend some time with her daughter and I was very fortunate to get her a ticket to come and now she's starting her own podcast. She's an LMFT, she has her PhD and so this education and hard work kind of combination was what I saw in front of me my entire life and this concept of women being able to do anything they set their minds to is what I was always told.

I think with that, and I share this in my mini course, it was very much hard work long hours, you know, with what I always saw, my dad was always going to work on Saturdays, he was taking calls all the time, my mom was working the night shift as a nurse. So when I entered the workforce, that's what I thought. I thought it was, you know, pour everything that you had into your job and while I think that serves you in a great way at certain parts of your life, towards the end of my now 15 year career in tech, that my life was shifting and the priorities that I had were shifting as a wife, as a mom, as someone who was really wanting to also figure out who she was right in her now late 30s and having achieved you know, the level of quote on quote success that, you know, I felt I had and money for me was a paycheck. It was a job and it was working in that job until 65. Right.

But once I really came to find out about the concept of fire, and I really took a look at what my now job was affording us to be able to do especially as expats in Singapore with all the benefits that we had. We were really able to accelerate our progress towards financial independence by being purposeful and for us you know, my husband came from you know, a very humble beginning he's adopted. He is now an entrepreneur has been an entrepreneur, for the last seven years and has amassed, you know, significant success make has made his full million right at in that job and we thought to ourselves, well, wow, we really want a different life for our kids. So how about we really get honest with ourselves about our past with money, the way we came up with money, learn from that, learn from that experience, and figure out how we want to shape a lifestyle differently for our young boys, right. And living internationally was a big part of that and so I say that, because I think for a lot of us, especially those of us people of color growing up in families who are very hardworking, are very, very excited about diving into education, because that's a real gateway to progress. Those are all great things. I think also looking at financial literacy, and understanding what that looks like, as a tool to really catapult our progress towards creating generational wealth, progress in our communities, sustainability in the way that we want to see public service efforts, you know, come across for kids for older generations, etc.

There's just so much to be done, and for different communities that looks different and so I really hope to instill a global mindset and in my boys, because the US is one part of the world, there's so much to be seen. I want them also to grow up understanding that, yes, a job is something in your life, but it's not the end, all defining thing in your life. And so that's where we are.

Acquania Escarne 6:44

Absolutely, I love that that's such a perspective, a lot of our parents generation, are focused on getting that good job and retiring from that job, because previous companies used to give pensions and really good benefits. So you had an incentive to hang on to remain loyal, and to stick around. But you chose a career path that is predominantly known to pay well and when you use your money wisely, really allow you to leverage that to create wealth sooner and earlier, and in your case in your 30s.

But I'm curious, because I know what it's like to be an expatriate and I know that living in places like Singapore, which it can be very expensive, can also eat away at that wealth. So how did you, as a family make very tough decisions on what you were going to spend on in such a high, you know, expensive place to live? And what you were going to save?

Stefanie Gonzales 7:46

Yeah, I think there's a really important thing to bring up in this part of the conversation. It's, there are roles that companies have, that are these come in, I'll call them coveted roles, because not they're not ample, and they're not everywhere, but they are very much possible and they're these expatriate roles that have significant benefits tied to them.

So give you some examples of my experience in the opportunity that I was granted in my supply chain job. My housing was paid for. So our 7300 Singh dollar per month, condo was fully paid for, we were able to continue renting our home back in Texas, and when we paid off that home and became debt free, so all of that passive income was fueling our investments, our healthcare was very, very good and so I had both of my son's in Singapore, fully paid for, I took advantage of my maternity leave and took five to six months off after both of them were born.

I think I'm probably the only female expat that has done that actively done it twice and, you know, in that kind of expat stint, there are cost of goods and transportation allowances that we receive. So we looked at that entire picture and the relocation costs that were afforded to us, I negotiated a bit more on top of that, because we had a dog and we were selling some cars back at home that we were going to lose some money on and so we wanted to really try to position ourselves in a way that we could take advantage of this great opportunity in front of us, right?

Because yes, Singapore is expensive. And so one of the things for me was I if I was going to get asked to move, I was requesting to move in an expatriate package and not a local quote on quote, package which there's a lot of details that go into that depending on you know, what your companies offer. Singapore being expensive and us being in Singapore during COVID was kind of a blessing in disguise because while we could have YOLO'd and traveled all across Southeast Asia while we were in Singapore, which we wish we would have been able to do that we just weren't able to because Singapore was relatively locked down during COVID.

We saved all the money we we probably would have used traveling across that part of the world and said, "Okay, let's get really purposeful about what we want to do with this disposable income." And so in 2020, Joseph and I, my husband, read Quit Like a Millionaire together and I talked about this Joe was CD me fire for years, right? But I wasn't listening and I was busy and I was working. And we finally sat down and said, Let's read a book together. We did that. And that book was great because it was funny, and it was witty, and it was well written, you know, from a couple's or really female voice perspective. I was like, wow, let me go get my spreadsheets out. Let me go figure out where we are financially. And let me project our financial progress into the next five to 10 years. What does this look like for us? When we did that, we got real clear with goals. We said, okay, in 2021, we want to invest $200,000, because we looked at my husband's income and my income, and the bonuses and the equity, and all these things were coming at us in terms of our benefits. We said, okay, 200,000 for 2021. We ended up investing 350,000, because we said, "All right, we really got clear right about the goals". We got clear about our priorities, we got clear about what we valued in terms of our spending, and what so now that we had this strategy and vision in front of us, it was like, Well, what can we save and invest more, if we looked at our lives differently, right, we would buy things secondhand for our kids, whenever, you know, we were buying the rocker when my son was born, or we would take hand me downs because we could and they were great instead of going off and buying, you know, a onesie for $50 in Singapore, right. So I think it was just those choices that we were making for our future selves, and being very clearly aligned about them as a couple that were really allowing us to just peel back the onion and go, "Hey, I might be making $275,000 a year, but why am I going to spend all of that right, I should really be living off of what we really need to live off of and investing the rest." Because lo and behold, that's gonna get you somewhere as long as you give it some time and some compound interest in the market.

Acquania Escarne 12:03

Absolutely. I want to unpack that a bit, because I don't want anyone listening to feel like they can't do this to just because they don't live abroad, or they don't have any company paying for living expenses. So let me just be clear, I have also lived overseas, once in Haiti, Italy, and then with my family in Dubai.

So I know all about that expat life, where a company is covering your expenses. So if there's anyone listening, who's interested in living and working abroad, definitely look at countries where the company will cover your housing, insurance and other high ticket cost of living expenses. I too, have had a son abroad. So I will agree with you that it really helps when you have really good medical care. In my case, we had a preemie overseas. So that's not only scary, it's also very costly.

But my husband's job at the time covered 100%. 100% of the Preemie expenses, the doctor bills, and you know, my son was in the hospital for five months. So I'm just gonna let you kind of think about how much that costs. Then think about the joy we had when 100% of that was covered by insurance. But I think you did make a good point, whether you're abroad and you're working, or you're home, and you are trying to find your path to financial freedom, prioritization matters. I love what you said about how you and your husband got on the same page and decided to put your future first, right? So making those tough decisions about you know, are we going to buy this expensive newborn onesie? Or are we going to buy what we really actually need, which is clothes for our kids, right? Then also choosing to take that extra income and invest it. That is powerful, because so many people don't even think to do that. Some people will take that extra money and store it in a bank account and look at it.

Stefanie Gonzales 14:07

I used to do I totally used to do that.

Acquania Escarne 14:11

Yeah, don't do that. Or what about what you said about renting out your US property while you're gone, and then paying off that property when you had an opportunity. So I also, we have a condo in Maryland, while we were in Dubai, a tenant paid the mortgage, and we pocketed the same amount that we would have paid toward the mortgage. So we invested the difference, but treated ourselves like we were still paying the mortgage. Does that make sense? Right?

Stefanie Gonzales 14:41

Yeah, it's almost double double made your money.

Acquania Escarne 14:41

Exactly. Because we had the tenant paying down the mortgage, and we had what we would have paid still being put aside in investments. So that's where we found the extra money. So renting out your primary residence when you're not living in it is a great way to make some extra income that can go towards investing. But I just think that you also made a good point about when you're in that high income earning space. Right, which a lot of my listeners are high income earners. They just don't know what to do with their money. You basically said, invest it, use what you need to live and invest the rest. Is that and I think it was simple.

Stefanie Gonzales 15:23

Yeah, and I think there's another thing to that too, you know, start where you can gain some knowledge and understand what you're investing in. Right? We're thinking about and I know, in the crypto space, it's all all over the place right now. But we are keeping ourselves informed and understanding what Bitcoin and at least Ethereum means and what the blockchain means and what that future intechnology is going to look like. Right. For my clients, I'm constantly trying to instill in them this constant sense of wanting to learn more, because this technology, and as the world continues to evolve with innovation, investing is going to look different, assets are going to look different. All those things are going to come at us faster than at a faster pace than they ever have, right. So while we're investing in index funds, and ETFs, and diversified elements that will allow us to create passive income over time, we're also looking at dividends right?

Now, we're going to look at some other things over time as well, because we at least want to make sure that we're constantly keeping our ear to the ground and understanding. Well, what is the next 2.0 or 3.0 in our investing journey. The cool thing about it is, once you start to create space in your mind to bring these things into your life, you want to learn more, because it's exciting. And you see the potential for it, right. So, while we're in this phase of our lives today, we're really excited about what we're going to continue to learn in the future.

Acquania Escarne 17:01

Did I ever tell you about that time, I was 16, and my dad gave me a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I read that book, and I was completely inspired to start investing. I started out with putting my first paycheck from a retail job into a Roth individual retirement account. Now the rest is history. I've been investing ever since. I invest in real estate. In my latest course, the purpose of money Maximizer, I'll teach you how to leverage the power of life insurance to invest in real estate, and how you can use life insurance to leave a guaranteed legacy. Create the wealth, you've always wanted, to pay for college, supplement your retirement, and so much more. I'm sharing so many gems about how to leverage life insurance that you definitely want to get in this course. So you can learn them too. If you're interested, check out thepurposeofmoneymaximizer.com That's www.thepurposeofmoneymaximizer.com. I can't wait to see you inside. And I hope you use all these gyms.

Absolutely, I feel like you should always be learning and keeping your mind open. And I want you guys to understand, she didn't say go put all your money in crypto, she said, learn, listen and be aware of what's happening and what's going on. When the time is right and you're prepared financially to do so then you can dive into cryptocurrency, other investments diversification, but you and I invest pretty similarly, I also invest in EFTS, and index funds, which are basically an opportunity to invest in multiple companies at the same time. So you can also be in multiple industries, but you're not putting all your eggs into one basket, ie purchasing one stock one company. And I think that's a great way for those who are beginning to start because day trading or picking individual stocks, when you don't do all the research can be overwhelming. It can also be costly when they're not effective. So it's a great way to make sure that you are covering your risk by investing in multiple spaces. But I do want to ask you a fun question. Since you are married, you have a partner who was investing with you and on this journey with you. Is there anything that your husband was absolutely against doing? And you may have had to convince him?

Stefanie Gonzales 19:27

Oh, man. I don't think so. I mean, if anything, there have been some purchases that we've discussed. We're like, let's let's just really get to the numbers so that we can decide. I think the thing for us is how do we take some of the emotion out of some of our decisions, right.

So give you a recent example that we're literally living today. We are now debt free, but we're in the mode of going okay, we're going to take on some debt to purchase what we want to purchase that you know, what's called Smart debt or debt, this leverage, ie our next home purchase here in Portugal, but we're also having to purchase a car, we haven't had a car for the last five years and so we're going through this whole motion of "Alright, what do we want to purchase? What makes what's the right financial decision? Oh, this car is nice. But should we purchase this one? Or should we purchase the financially sound one." For us getting to the numbers, is the thing that helps us take the emotion out of the equation. So I think, you know, my husband's the visionary and the dreamer. While I have my own dreams, and you know, I have certain elements of that as well. I am the operations person and the executor.

So in most cases, I come to the table with the data, or at least he understands that I'm going to come to the table with the data so that we can really get to brass tacks about what we need to decide. In some cases, I had to bring the data to the table because I'm emotionally invested in the decision and I need to kind of call my own self down. But um, you know, whether it's thinking about buying a Tesla, because it's an electric vehicle or not. Those are the things that I think we have, we've learned how to effectively communicate together on and it's taken some time.

Acquania Escarne 21:17

Absolutely, my husband and I have been married for almost 15 years, 14 this year, 15, next year, and we still value communication in all of what we do. I will say we're at each other's checks and balance, right? Like, I can have a great idea, and even the money to do it. My husband will be the person who says, Okay, what do we really need to do it, you know, and when you get to a certain point in your financial journey, you are making those types of decisions because you have the money, but it doesn't mean you need to spend it on that particular thing at that particular time.

Then there are other things where we kind of said, Look, I need certain experiences to have joy. So no matter what it's going to entail, I'm willing to find the money, make the money to make it happen. But I need your support in making it happen, right. So I will never like, go do a worldwide tour for a kazillion dollars without my husband being supportive of it. But if that's a goal of mine, he'll support me in saving for it. I think that's key too, especially when relationships money can be a key factor that leads to divorce or arguments. Right.

So I think you made a lot of great points, as you know, as a married person who has a partner who's who's on the same page with you, also making sure that you're continuing to communicate, which keeps you on the same page. I think that's really important. So I have a question I asked a lot of married couples this are you on team a joint bank account or a team?

Stefanie Gonzales 22:58

It's a great is a great question, because I literally wrote this lengthy two part, email to my mailing list a couple of weeks about this. So when we were in Singapore, because I was on my employment pass, my husband was my dependent. So he couldn't do things like open a bank account on his own, or get our electricity and all that stuff in his name, it had to be under mine. And for whatever reason, we never got him on my Singapore bank account, because he had means of getting, you know, to money and all that good stuff. We've never, we had never held a joint bank account or any joint accounts throughout our entire relationship.

So we've now been together 11 years, seven years married. And about two weeks ago, we really needed to get him on our Portuguese bank account for reasons like taking money out of ATMs here is expensive if you don't have a local account, etc. We walked out of the bank going, "Wow, this is our first bank account together, literally, this is our first bank account together." The way that we've done it is we understood what all of our bills were, I mean, Joseph moved in with me when we first started dating really, at the end of the day.

So we immediately understood, like, what our rent was, what was being paid. We equally contributed to those things as a couple but not through bank accounts. Right. And that's the that's what worked for us throughout our entire relationship and as we've now become more active investors as a couple, I manage the money with him as a beneficiary, on the account, etc. So, you know, you can go check that that post out and see, you know, some of the responses to that. But I did have a couple of people reach out to me that are here in Portugal and go, "Yeah, I finally got my husband or my wife on the account because we're now expatriates, and we need you know, to have this one joint account." So we're team do what works for you. Really, at the end of the day, I can see benefits to both. I think it's really understanding what your situation is and how your goals align.

At the end of the day, if you can't talk about money, but you can, you know, have other relationship relations with each other, you probably really need to reevaluate your situation really at the end of the day. But yeah, not not joint has worked out for us this past 11 years.

Acquania Escarne 25:18

That's cool. And I like your answer, you know, seeing what works for you. And I think that ultimately becomes the best solution in any relationship when money's involved. But I'm always curious to see what people say my husband and I were on Team joint bank account, but we are well aware of what everyone is doing. We do have our accounts that we established prior to marriage, where we were the only person on it, and the other person is the beneficiary. So we still have our solo bank accounts that are present and whenever you know, the other person wants to know about them, they have full access to do so.

It's not like we're hiding any money. But we primarily utilize our joint bank account to pay family bills, to take care of family expenses, and there's full visibility on that account. But we just felt like, hey, these accounts are there, it's really no need to close them. As long as you know, we're doing the right thing with our money. So our checking account that we share is where our income is deposited. But I totally understand why you may have gone so long without one because you didn't need it and you have that visibility, and you have that communication. So I think that's key. So I'm not telling anybody to keep some hidden bank accounts or hidden money. But I am saying, communicate with your partner and do what works for you. If that means joint bank account, go for it. So you do have a company, you do help people with their money? What are your top three tips for new clients? Who might come to you and say, I want to accomplish fire in the next five to 10 years? How can you help me do it?

Stefanie Gonzales 26:59

Yeah, you know, there's, I like to go through my clients money inventory with them first. I think whenever you really sit down and look at where does all your money come from? Where does all of it go? Where is it housed? What investment accounts have you been investing in for?

You know, so long, for example, I have clients that come to me that will say, I've been investing in my 401k for the last five to 10 years. I need to understand what it's actually invested in, or oops, it's actually not invested in something, it's just been contributed to the account, right, those types of things. So I think getting really clear with your money inventory all the way from your credit score to what your total net worth is. And just even understanding those things, is really important step one, because you can't have that conversation and understand. I call the ABCs of money inventory, your assess your income, be aware of your spending, and then allocate, create the gap, create allocation for the gap, then you don't know what you could invest, or what you need to save, or where your emergency, you know, savings account needs to be replenished, etc.

Right. So inventory first, then the second thing is do you have an emergency fund if COVID taught us anything, right? It's that your job is not promised to you. The world is can change overnight, and we are more globally connected than we ever have thought we were right. so if you if you don't have at least one month of living expenses saved up that is day one, the thing that we're trying to strive to do. And so one month of living expenses, depending on your your marital situation, do you have kids? Do you have a quote unquote stable job, which we tend to tend to say as salaried versus contract job? I have a matrix of what I go through with my clients to say how much should you ideally have saved in your emergency fund, and it's arranged between three to six months after that initial one month? And then after that, we're going okay, what is your debt look like? And is your debt really eating away at what your potential could be for your saving and investing strategy? And do we need to put in a plan to address that debt, high interest debt, something over 7% or more?

I think those are the get to the basic things. First, your inventory, your emergency fund and understanding your debt situation to say okay, now that I understand that, and I have this breathing room, and I understand my money, at least in terms of operationally where it sits. Now we can start saying, let's invest in a smart way and we can invest while we're paying down debt. I don't advocate that you need to be 100% debt free to then start investing because time is your best friend when it comes to investing for independence, or investing for retirement even at 65. But understanding the details so that you can move forward with clarity, control and confidence is incredibly important when it comes to setting someone up for success in their investing journey.

Acquania Escarne 30:00

Absolutely, that was so good. So check out the ABCs. Make sure you know where your money is and where it's going. And then you can make a plan on how to start investing. And I completely agree with you that people cannot afford to wait until they're debt free to start investing, because for some people, especially in our state, where we have six figures in student loans, it might be quite some time before you are completely debt free. But it doesn't mean that you should waste that time and not invest. So I think you can pay down debt, invest and save at the same time.

This has been awesome. Stephanie, thank you so much for your experiences, where's the wisdom in it by he's, it's been a really great conversation. But I have to ask you one last question. Sure. The name of he podcast is called The Purpose of Money. So I asked all my guests this question, what is your purpose for money?

Stefanie Gonzales 30:58

Oh my purpose for money is to afford me the life that I was intended to live on this earth, whether that's being a mom and being able to provide experiences for my children, a wife, and create memories with my husband, a daughter to create, you know, memories with my mom and dad and show them my appreciation and gratitude for everything that they gave me and gotten me to this point. I think that there's life to live on this earth.

Now, it doesn't have to be run by money. But it certainly can be utilized as a tool to create a life that can have some level of ease and peace and comfort, right. And so I see that as its initial starting point, and of course, creating some level of generational wealth for our kids going forward. You know, I was talking to my mom about this yesterday, and she was saying, I worry about the world that we're leaving for my grandkids, right? Whether it's you know, climate change, etc. But you know, all that being said, if there's anything that I can leave for them, it's you know, memories, experiences and some level of stability as they go off to make decisions as adults themselves.

Acquania Escarne 32:11

So absolutely, that's beautiful. Before we go, please let my listeners know, where can we find you drop your website and all your social media handles?

Stefanie Gonzales 32:22

Absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram @women'swealtheffect. And you can find me on LinkedIn at Stefanie Gonzales. Stefanie with an S and Stefanie Gonzales that ends with an S. I also can you can find me or understand you know what I offer in terms of my content with my free mini course kickstart your relationship with money. It's 30 minutes, six topics. Little bit amount of your time just to get those things we talked about right your money inventory and those basics down pat. And in January 2023. I'm launching my masterclass.

Acquania Escarne 32:55

Awesome. All right. So we might have to bring you back to talk about how that experience is going and what the masterclass involves, but until then, everyone, thanks for listening and keep building generational wealth.

Thank you for listening to The Purpose of Money podcast. For more resources and information, check out my website, thepurposeofmoney.com and while you're there, please sign up for our newsletter so you have the latest information on new episodes and blog posts. Until next time, keep creating freedom in your life today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai