Intro

📍 Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we take you behind the scenes to explore integrated self leadership and help ambitious family men build lasting legacies for themselves, their tribe, and their community. I'm Scott Raven, and together we'll discover how successful leaders master a delicate balance of career advancement, personal health, financial growth, and meaningful relationships. Get ready to soar.

Meet Justin Buonomo: Journey to Financial Freedom

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Corvus effect today. I am thrilled to be joined by Justin Munomo, founder and CEO of Journey to Financial Freedom. He helps purpose driven individuals transform their relationship with money into a tool for living their dream lives. From his own journey of faith, family, and financial mastery, Justin shows us how money can be a vehicle for positive impact.

Rather than a source of stress. And he translates that into his own personal life as a husband and a father to be that integrated legacy builder that we talk about so much here. So Justin, welcome to the podcast, man.

Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you having me. I know we've been working on getting this scheduled here for a couple of months now, and it just so ironically is timed right after the national championship for football where Scott is an Ohio State fan. I'm a Notre Dame fan, so We shot a little pre podcast episode today about our breakdown from yesterday's game, but I'm excited to be here, my friend.

Thank you for having me.

yes, yes, yes. We are recording this actually on the 21st of January, the day after the national championship game. for those asking, since I live here in Atlanta, no, I did not go to the game last night. It's a school night, right? But at the same time, uh, it was a incredible game between two great teams that really had a lot of resilience to overcome adversity.

During the course of the season, I'm fortunate that there had to be a winner and a loser, but at the same time, celebrate two great seasons.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm, I'm, excited to celebrate a little bit more by, by diving into today. So thank you for having me.

Absolutely, and let's go ahead and let's dive in, and let's just go ahead and get started in terms of your own personal path to what I know is The ethos behind everything that you do to truly understand money's role in purposeful living. And I'd love you to go into your story in terms of how you came to that enlightenment.

Justin's Early Financial Struggles

Absolutely. And so, um, when I was 10 years old, uh, my parents filed for bankruptcy for the second time. And as a result of that, we lost our house. They got a divorce and I literally watched my cars get repoed from the driveway and

I'm diving right into it.

Yeah. Hey, hey, we're, we're starting strong today. I'll put it

yeah. And so at the time I had three year old dog, um, who was my best friend.

I was 10 years old, had him for about three years. Best Buds. And when my parents split up and they lost the house, you know, when you file for bankruptcy, your credit is, is fairly shot. And so you can't go and turn around and buy another house. If anything, you're lucky to get accepted into a rental property, right.

To start renting. And so thankfully they were able to establish homes, but the rental properties that they both found didn't allow pets. And so as a result, I had to give my dog away. Right. And so lost a lot of

And that's such a, that's a family

Yeah, exactly. A thousand percent. And that was just so tough for me to wrap my head around.

and so at a very young age, had a lot of things taken away from me and a lot of damage caused from what seemed to have been money, right? Obviously the issues were

deeper. Um, and so after that, you know, my parents for the most part, they, they struggled ever since don't get me wrong. Like they provided, you know, bills were paid for the most part.

And, there is just this sense of struggle, this lack of peace, constant stress, um, um, never knew what was going to come up. And so, just kind of walking on eggshells financially. Right. And so, I remember being 10 years old and that news being broken to me. And again, there's, there's deeper nuances to the story.

There's probably other reasons why they got divorced. You know, obviously there was deeper reasons behind the money problems. Um, but Nia, 10 year old Justin, This happened all of a sudden for me. At least it felt like that. It felt like one day we were fine, the next day like my whole life got ripped out from underneath me and everything changed.

You

Do you think it was just a case that you were too young to be cognizant of the warning signs that were there, that there's a certain level of adultness that needed to go into, say, hey, something's not right here?

It's exactly that. And you know, between my parents, obviously not openly sharing it with us. And also too, I just think that like, My dad's ego, you know, kept it hidden where, you know, we, all we knew was a life where like, he would buy us things, right? He'd bring us to places, right? And, uh, you know, that kept up until the day or two that the news was broken to us that this was all happening.

And so little 10 year old Justin just sees it like, okay, this is a money issue. And I made a promise to myself at the time. I remember exactly where I was sitting and I said, One day when I can control it, I'll never have to worry about money ever again. I'm never going to let my family go through what my family is going through right now.

This pain, this suffering, this trauma, these issues, like why? why? are we going?

can happen at any time. I mean, you know, those of us who are old enough to remember the financial crisis of 2008 that, much of the wealth that we acquire all of a sudden gone in a stock market. It can happen at any

time. Mm hmm.

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. A thousand percent. And, you know, I think that's why we have to be responsible and do the things that we can that are in our control to not just protect us from that, but also avoid it. Like the pains and unnecessary stress and anxieties around money in totality.

Lessons from Financial Mistakes

And so as I got older, um, another, another big part of my money story, um, I turned 18 and I received a settlement for 80, 000 from when I got hit by a car when I was 13.

So I got hit by a car when I was 13. We hired a lawyer, settled, And the settlement was for 80, 000 and they were going to release the funds to me when I turned, the day I turned 18 into my checking account. And so, um, I call it the financial behavioral cycle. A lot of times you just do what you saw growing up.

Like when you get your own money, right? It's you now create direct experiences with money that you saw indirectly growing up. Whether that was your parents, whether that was your family, whether that was your friends, parents, or like, even like the era that I grew up in, like you grew up in the era where like, uh, you know, Lavish spending, uh, was fantasized or romanticized and made to seem like it was the cool thing in movies and music videos and

Your parents unintentionally training you and

Yep,

see

monkey do.

exactly. And so like, that's what you see as normal, right? And so when I got this 80, 000 settlement, all I did was just mirror what I saw. Growing up financially. And I think I told you this the first time we spoke, but to say I blew that money would be a compliment for how I spent it. Gone and I think less than two years.

Um, you know, I have to pay the lawyer right off the top. So I think after I paid the lawyer and a little bit of taxes, I had like 56, 000, but immediately went to the car dealership and bought a brand new Audi A4. Put some black rims on it, put the black tin on it, put the red calipers on it.

I mean, at least you had taste with your binge. I'll put it that way. So,

is, that is one thing is I've always had good taste in the finer things. I've always had that, uh, what is it? A champagne, taste with the beer budget. Yeah. Yeah. At least that was definitely the situation back then. And, well, at least thought, I thought I had a champagne budget.

I thought that money was endless, but it wasn't. And so I, took the rest of the money. I moved six hours away to college and. Nobody had any say over that money. It was in my checking account and I had no supervision with it. And the people that could supervise me, unfortunately, just weren't the best role models for being a good steward of your money.

So simply put what I'm saying, Scott, recipe for disaster. But the thing was, man, is I learned some good lessons. Thankfully, I learned from the mistakes that I made and only the mistakes that I made, but the temporary freedom that having that amount of money in my bank account provided. Mind you, I just suffered for like eight years with scarcity, right?

With, with. Bankruptcies with unhealthy relationship with money with constantly having to worry about it with some days not being able to go to practice because my dad couldn't afford to pay the soccer coach, right? Now I had this real, now I had no worries, right? That feeling was amazing to me,

right? but you also didn't have the wisdom at that point. And, you know, it is so hard for young adults to have that kind of wisdom. I know that, the moment that I got out of school, that I racked up a good amount of credit card debt in terms of a spending spree on my first apartment in the Boston area, and, my father's like, Dude, you realize how much it's going to cost you in the long run to pay for all of this, right?

You just don't have that wisdom when you're young.

No, not at all. Not at all. Especially if you weren't mirrored. Healthy money, wisdom grown up. And, and so The experience did come with an asset of wisdom for me though.

The Path to Financial Wisdom

And so after that, you know, I ended up graduating college, getting my master's degree, and I worked for Johns Hopkins Medicine on like the business side of healthcare.

And so I ran basically some of the Johns Hopkins hospitals from the business component. And so a part of that business component was strong financial responsibilities. Strong budgeting responsibilities. And so at 23 years old, when I got done with my master's, they hired me for a senior level administration position that I had no business being in.

I think they were just desperate. Um, the position had been open for over a year and, um, I interviewed well and they thankfully gave me a chance. Um, but it was a nice salary for a 23 year old and thankfully it hit me at that time where it was like, okay, I need to learn how to manage my money because I'm only going to make more money.

Right. Just, it was just basic basic, simple math, if you will, that if I just kept climbing the ladder at Hopkins, which I thought was the plan, you know, eventually the goal was to become the president of a hospital or a healthcare system, I knew that all that was going to happen was I was just going to make more money, right?

And so I wanted to make the best of that. I didn't want to end up like my parents. I didn't want to be that guy who's making a bunch of money, but has no money or making a bunch of money, has no money and has a ton of debt. And so thankfully I had the wisdom from what I saw growing up and the mistakes that I made on my own, where I made a decision then and there, like, like, I'm going to learn how to budget my money.

I'm going to learn how to manage my money. I'm going to learn how to save money. I'm going to invest money. And I took a lot of the things that I was learning at Hopkins that they're like, I was doing all the budgets for all the departments at Hopkins. I just took that system, implemented it on the personal side of things, leveraged some of my discipline to stick to the plan.

And, you know, um, started to snowball effect the results that I was getting with my finances.

That's, so huge. you know, two of the underlying elements we talk about here in terms of effective self-leadership are self-awareness and self-accountability. And the fact that you were taking so much of those key. Moments that shaped your philosophy on money, not just professionally, but then applying it to your life personally speaks volumes in terms of not repeating the same mistake twice.

It's okay to make mistakes in life. Just don't repeat them and learn from them.

Right. Absolutely. And, And, I think that's just a good financial lesson right there where there's a massive difference between accountability and responsibility, right? And responsibility is, okay, that's my, that's on me. That was my fault. I mean, I blew that 80, 000 or I made that mistake. Owning up to it.

Accountability is now making change, you know? And so I love the quote that says the past may have not been your fault, but it is darn well, your responsibility to step up and take care of your future. Right? And so when I made those mistakes with my finances, I'm like, you know what? I was a young kid. I had no guidance.

All I did was just mirror my parents mistakes growing up, right? Not my fault. Forgave myself for that, but it's not a license to keep making mistakes. Right. And so how can I step up and take care of my future? And I think that just learning how to manage your money, right. Learning how money works, learning how to manage your money, right.

Just from a basic budgeting and savings standpoint, right. And then a little bit of a next level thing, but just start asking yourself, why do you believe the things that you do about money? And why do you do the things that you do with money, right? Really getting to the core of it. And right there, you can start to create some immediate transformation.

And you know, that's a beautiful segue in terms of your purpose in terms of who you look to serve, who are these purpose driven individuals, who a lot of them feel like they're on the financial rollercoaster of sorts. They have a great month, then they have a lousy month, right? And that they constantly feel like they are chasing the market in order to not only live out their purpose, but also do so in a sustainable financial matter.

Why is this struggle so real for so many purpose driven individuals?

It's a great question. I think it's simply put that they were never taught how to manage money the right way, and they haven't taken the time to sit down and figure it out, you know, and so when they just have these misconceptions that either a more money is going to solve their problem. So if I just make more money than all my money problems go away, which is a huge misconception or two that the out of sight, out of mind strategy, like works for some reason, like I'm just not going to look at it and it's automatically or magically just going to fix itself, you know?

And so I think that it takes. A good amount of effort to take control of your finances in a way that leads to freedom, in a way that leads to peace, in a way that leads to control. And I always say your relationship with your money is like your relationship with anybody else, right?

Think about your relationship with your significant other. Would you neglect ignore and disrespect your significant other and expect to get best results? Probably not, right? So we can't do the same thing with our money and be wondering why we're not getting best results.

I mean, I was always taught that, you know, when you have your significant other, your spouse, right, they will be a mirror. They will reflect what you provide. If you provide crap, they are going to give you crap for lack of a better term. So it's on you to make that relationship strong. And I know that one of the big underlying principles behind this, and I'd love you to go deeper on this, is there is a significant difference between financial wealth And financial freedom. They sound similar, but they are very different in nature. I'd love you to go deeper on that.

Sure. Yeah. So I'll just, I'll give my definition of financial freedom. My company's name is JFF, Journey to Financial Freedom, and that is the end goal for our clients. And so financial freedom is living life on your own terms with freedom of choice and time with no worries of money. Why are you able to do that?

Because you own an asset, right? Or what I call your vehicle. You own an asset or financial freedom vehicles that make you enough money each month automatically to cover your expenses in your lifestyle, whether you choose to show up or not. Right? And so when you're financially free, it's the difference between that and wealth.

You can be wealthy, but not be financially free at the same time because financial freedom is just, you don't need a day job anymore. Right? The only people who are the majority of people, reasons why people go to a day job and they give their sacred time and energy for that is because they need the money.

Right? They need the paycheck, right? And so we trade our, our time and our energy for, uh, money, right? And that money comes from the day job. If anybody listening to this, even if you love your day job, if I told you tomorrow that you didn't need to go because money was taken care of, none of you would show up.

You know?

Unless you loved your day job. Now, if you love what you do, Hey, you know, go for But if you're doing it just for the paycheck, then, you know, that's like any other drug, the moment that you get off the drug, that you're going to feel better.

right. And I think that a very small amount of people love their day job, right? I think there's a lot of people that like it. I liked my day job. It was a great day job. I liked it. Love it? Different story. A very good barometer if you love your day job or not is if I told you tomorrow you didn't need to go ever again because you don't need the money and you're like, cool, I'm not going.

You don't love it. You've just been telling yourself that because you're stuck in it, right? And again, there's different scenarios and I mean to be so blunt and like knock people for having a day job. It's not it at all. Like it's not what I'm doing here, but like when you're financially free, like you, Don't need to go to a day job.

Right. And so there's a lot of people that are wealthy that still need to go to a day job. Right. Think about, you know, a lawyer or a doctor or, um, an engineer, they're making 250, 000 a year. They're saving a lot of money, but you know, if they left that day job, their main income source would dry up and they don't have enough money saved and or invested yet to be that asset or be that vehicle,

and they're probably spending in a manner where a percentage of what they're bringing in is sustaining the lifestyle that they have. Now, they still have those expenses, but nothing in order to cover the expenses.

Exactly it. So that'd be my, my difference.

Interesting. of the things that we talk about in terms of our empower framework is what does it mean to strive towards your legacy and be integrated legacy builder as it relates to wealth. We talk about reaching a point where you can channel where you can channel your wealth into the causes, organizations and people that you care about, including yourself.

And I know that this is very akin to.

Creating a Mission for Your Money

One of the elements of your four step process being to create a mission for your money. Why is it so important to have a mission for your money?

Yeah. It's such a great question. And so a mission for your money is just simply, well, what are we doing with your money? Like, how are we allocating it? Or what goals do you have that we want to allocate your funds towards? And so many reasons why it's important to have a mission for your money. One, so you don't spend erroneously, right?

Like if you don't have any plan for your money, you don't have any goals, right? You're not like, I want to save this money. I want to buy this. I want to invest here. And you're Making money. It's just going to go out erroneously, right? You're going to have suboptimal spending, right? Having a mission for your money already allocates your funds.

And so it's, uh, increasing the odds that you're going to spend or direct that money in a more optimal fashion than just blowing it. Right. That's a very simple answer there. I think the biggest thing though, is this is where actually most people get caught up with their finances. So as Scott alluded to, this is step two in my four step process for financial freedom, to figure out a mission for your money, or another way to put it is What are the top three financial goals that you should be working on that make sense for your unique situation?

Most people get caught up They're like, should I invest?

Should I save money? Should I pay off this credit card? Should I buy a house? Should I start a business? Should I put money into my business? All of that, I think, leads to confusion, which leads to overwhelm, which leads to inaction. And as you can imagine, It's not very conducive with you making financial progress.

So really a mission for your money. The biggest component of it is so we can actually make sure you're making financial progress,

right? And so

You know, One thing I would love for you to do, cause I , kind of put the cart before the horse by talking about the four step process and jumping straight into the second step. I think to really paint the picture for those people listening here on the podcast is to go through an example.

of a transformation story that went through this four step process

it. That's

about what each of the steps meant along the way.

a great question. I'm fresh on this topic. I just shot a podcast episode for my own podcast right before this on my four step process for financial freedom. So I'll tie it.

didn't plan this in

I know, I know. I love it. I love it. So I'll tie it to a client success story. I'll give her a fake name. We'll call her Kate.

The Four-Step Process for Financial Freedom

Alright, so Kate to us, I think it was two years ago now, and, step one, when it comes to our four step process for financial freedom, it's, it's, two pronged, right?

part one of step one is we got to implement the right systems. Right.

Yes.

Mm

quote. we rise and fall to the level of systems that we have implemented. It's a variation of the quote. It's not exactly it, and so systems are super important. Simply put, we have to implement tools.

Right. It's another word for systems, excuse me, that allow us to measure your money, allow us to manage your money and allow us to budget your money, right?

The Importance of Measurement

Because you cannot improve what you're not measuring. And so I always use the example of like, let's just say you wanted to lose 10 pounds, right?

You'd have to measure your weight by stepping on the scale on day one and every single day leading up to know if you actually accomplished What you're trying to accomplish. And so same thing with your

You've been looking in my journal in terms of this year in terms of what I had to do jam one with a 10 pound weight loss goal. So good on you, man.

We're synced up here. We're synced up here.

Budgeting: A Tool for Abundance

And so just, easy tools, right. That'll just help you manage and budget your money in an abundant way. Right. And unfortunately, society has made budgeting feel constricting, feel like handcuffs, feel like punishment. that shouldn't be the case.

Quality budgeting systems, right? They should allow you to live your life. They should allow you to spend your money, but in parallel with making financial progress

little bit further on that. And I'm sorry to put a little interruption in here because there is this Mhm.

Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindset

Scarcity versus abundance mindset that is often applied to a lot, particularly as it relates to money and wealth. What I'm hearing you saying is budgeting does not mean scarcity and it doesn't have to mean

Exactly. A thousand percent. And so why is because for one, the budget is just a tool that's going to allow you to accomplish your goals in the fastest, most stress free way as possible. So right then and there, it's like, that's not scarce at all. That's helping you expand. That's helping you achieve abundance.

You know, it's like, so it is a tool for us to achieve your goals. Right.

Strategic Sacrifice

The other thing is, is that like, I'm not saying you don't have to sacrifice things along the way, but sacrifice from scarcity is a heck of a lot different than sacrifice from strategy. Right. And so

if you're just like, Oh, let me just, cause I heard some guy on the internet say, stop eating out and stop buying coffees and, you know, Sell my car.

I'm just going to do it because I'm scared. I'm not going to be able to pay my bills. If I don't, that is a scarcity that will get you nowhere. Right? But if you sit down and you measure your money with a quality budgeting system and you objectively see where we need to make some sacrifices as a part of our strategy to help expedite your financial goals, you're Completely different ballgame, right?

And then the last thing this tool, right? Budgeting. It's going to show you how you can live your life and spend your money while making financial progress at the same time. I promise you that's possible, right? You just have to do it in a calculated, controlled and confident fashion. And in a tool like a budget allows you to do it that way.

so let's take a Kate and I'll put Kate in air quotes, right? We've now got her correct financial systems and tools in place. And as we alluded to earlier in the podcast, the next step of this process is a mission for her

Mission for Your Money

money. Talk to me in terms of. How that comes about, because that, to me, at first glance, sounds like there's a huge, vast horizon out there, and you've got to pick where on the horizon that you want to point

the ship.

Absolutely. And before I do that real quick, this step one, it also comes with prong two, which is your mindset or your internal world. You'll never outperform the belief system that you have about something. And so if you have negative internal thoughts around money, that's what you're going to see play out in your external reality.

And so we often address that at the same time, tools, mindset. After that. We can move on to the mission for your money. And as I mentioned, this is where most people get caught up because they're like, should I invest my money? Should I save my money? You know, should I pay this debt off? Should I buy a house?

There's so many things you could do. Right. And so there's two things that I would tell people. that can help direct you on picking what goals you should go after. Number one, just understand your unique variables, right? What make you a unique human being, right? Which is our age, how much money we make, where we live, what are our goals?

How many kids do we have? What do we do for a living? Just a few, just as an example.

It's so easy to forget that we are one of one in this

Exactly.

like us.

Exactly. And there's no cookie cutter approach to finances. If you want to get best results, you can listen to some guy on the internet and do exactly what he does and get some good results. But us being unique human beings, we need that custom approach to our goals.

And that is considered after we understand ourselves as a unique human being. Right. And so that's going to be different from people, but then from there are different person to person . But

Foundations of Financial Freedom

But then from there, I just tell people like, if you don't have these three foundations and I'm going to list off, it might be a good place to start.

The foundations are a good short term goal plan for your money. Because I always say, if you want to build a castle, you got to lay it on a strong foundation, right? And these foundations literally help us build the foundations to our financial freedom. And so the foundations are number one. Having a proper emergency fund, right?

In the bank, which is just a pot of money set aside for when something pops up that you're able to weather that storm, right? It's number two is learning how to manage debt. Why I say manage debt instead of pay off debt is because not all debt is bad, right? There's a massive difference between good debt and bad debt.

Bad debt is buying things that you don't need with money that you don't have with no plan on how to pay it off. Good debt is leveraging other people's money at a low cost or no cost to increase your value, your wealth, your opportunities,

yeah, if you, if you listen and just picking on somebody or picking somebody that I know subscribed to the as low debt as possible, Dave Ramsey, right, you would say, no, it's about the style of debt in terms of. whether that debt fits with how you can manage it.

Yeah, absolutely. Like trying to buy a house or a car in cash is stupidity, right? Because what are you saving yourself by buying a house in cash? 5 percent over 30 years, right? Go, like, let's just say you bought a 500, 000 home right now at 6 percent interest rate, right? Over the 30 year duration of the loan, you might pay 500, 000 in interest on top of that principal, right?

Which sounds like a lot, don't get me wrong, but go put That 500, 000 that you would need to buy this house in cash, go put it in an investment calculator, right? Over the same 30 year duration as the mortgage note, right? The S& P 500 gets 10 percent return on investment each year on average, right? So put an investment calculator, 500, 000 invested in the stock market over 30 years at a 10 percent return on investment.

It turns into millions and millions and millions of dollars. So yes, you took out a loan and paid 500, 000 on that loan on top of the principal, but. Instead of using the money to pay for the house in cash, you put it in the stock market, blew that 500, 000 of interest out of the water by making millions of dollars with that money in the stock market.

So simply put, it's all about asking yourself, where's the best allocation of your funds, not just paying for everything in cash, just because you don't want to be in debt.

the way I, way I heard it explained to me, and I'm curious, you know, because you're obviously much more expert than I am, is if the rate of return you can get on your money in an investment vehicle, average rate of return, right? Less the rate of debt, less the cost of increase. If that's positive and the beta, the risk is, tolerable.

That it's something you should do all day long,

exactly, exactly. Do the rewards outweigh the risks, you know, compared to the other options? So like, yeah, you could do worse things with your money than pay off your mortgage faster or buy it in cash, but is it the best thing to do with your money? Right? Where can you make the most money off of that, right?

With the least risk. And so, yeah, it's, it's a great example. And so that's one of the other foundations, but simply put emergency funds, pay off your high interest rate debts, anything over 15%, right? That's the best use of your money. Cause I can't guarantee you anything in the stock market, but I guarantee if you pay off your credit card, you'll save 25%.

Right? And then the last, the third foundation, which is a little looser than the first two, which is buying a home instead of renting. This one's a little looser because you might be in transition. We might be, you know, strategizing around while we're delaying a little bit, but you can't argue with me that over the long haul, it makes more sense to purchase a primary residence than it does to rent .

Right? And so those are the foundations. I tell people, if you don't have one or all of those goals, emergency fund, bad debt paid off, and a home purchase, you should probably start there

and, you know, just out of curiosity, as we're going to start to transition this to your own family and how you instill these principles of freedom into your life, right? How does the current lifestyle and desired future lifestyle play into this process? Because there is the nobody's guaranteed tomorrow.

So you shouldn't shy away from having a level of living in the now, but there's also a level of prudence in terms of, I want to be in a position where I achieve financial freedom on my timeline or whatever that goal is for you.

Great.

Choosing Your Financial Vehicle

That's step three. We got what I call it, increase your income. And simply put, this is where we figure out what your vehicle is. That's going to make you financially free in the fastest, most fulfilling way possible. Right? And so if you want to be financially free in five years, it's most likely not going to be your 401k through your employer.

That's going to be the vehicle that gives you that freedom. Right? And so, I have to figure out what your vehicle is, right? And so you really only have three options, stocks and bonds. But as I just alluded to, those are for the long haul. I'm not against the stock market. I love it, but I understand it's for the long haul, especially for someone's current situation, listening to this.

If you only have 2, 000 left over each month after you pay your expenses and live your life. To save enough money in the stock market with that 2000 each month to where the amount of money that you have invested in the stock market is enough where you could live off of the passive income or the, interest that you're making off of that, it would take you 30 to 40 years to amass enough money in the stock market, right?

Which is, what's the problem with that? Too long, right? So then our second option is real estate, real estate, a little bit faster, but I've sat with some of my most successful clients before, and it would take them up to 10 years to amass enough rental properties where the leftover money or the profits from those rental properties would be enough to cover their expense in their lifestyle each year, right?

And so again, I'm not against real estate. I just utilize it to decrease my tax liability, not as a financial freedom vehicle, right? And so that really just leaves you with the last option, which is business. Right? Your own business or buying somebody else's. And I'm a big fan of businesses being the vehicle because it can provide you financial freedom in the fastest, most fulfilling way possible.

And so to kind of answer your question, we've got to figure out What is your dream lifestyle cost? We take our clients through this exercise, go into your budget and ask yourself, if you had your dream house, what would the mortgage be? If you had your dream car, what would it be?

What would the car payment be, right? If you could do what you want each month, right? What would their expenses look like? most people come out to, okay, 20, 000 a month. Right? It would be my dream expenses. And so then we have to figure out, okay, now that we know what your vehicle is, let's assume we picked what your vehicle is.

We've got to decide when start producing you 20, 000 a month automatically, Once it does, you're financially free.

Right.

Building Sustainable Wealth

And, you know, just to close on your four step process before we start to, uh, move towards, uh, you know, uh, your direct life, uh, building sustainable wealth, right?

look like to you? How do you describe that to the people that you

work with?

Great question. So if we did the first three steps, right as particularly step three, you should not only be making more money, you should be seeing more money, saving more money, profiting more money each month. So like I said before, your past prior theoretical example, let's just say you had 2, 000 left over each month after all expenses and lifestyle.

If we did all the other steps the right way, particularly step three, let's just say now you have 10, 000 left over each month. Right? We want to take that money and invest it in a way that not only generates you passive income, but makes you financially unshakable. So what I mean by that is you often hear the investment advice of diversify your investments.

I don't really believe in that . I believe in going all in on a one thing to get rich and then diversifying to stay rich. And so I went all in on my business to get rich. My wife and I ramped it up and over the past couple of years, it's been profiting a lot of money for us. We took that money and we bought other vehicles with it.

Right? So instead of just having JFF now as our one financial freedom vehicle, we took the money in step four and we bought several other vehicles. And so now if JFF is down one year, one of the other three vehicles is going to be up and we're going to be up in totality, right? So that's diversifying to stay rich, right? So I went all in on one thing to get rich, took the leftover money in step four, diversified to stay rich. that make sense?

Got it. And you know what I can hear in that approach is leverage available time to your benefit and what I mean by that is that if you are younger and you have more available time in order to bigger risks, and if they don't pan out, so what? You still have time on your hands. But if they do pan out, and you're able to then diversify the results of that, that you can reach financial freedom earlier.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, especially if anybody's listening to this and you're younger, you've got more time, less commitments, less liabilities. It's a great time to build business and, or figure out what your vehicle is. And so I was just talking to my buddy the other day.

He's 27 years old. He makes 150, 000 a year working from home, minimal expenses, no girlfriend, no kids. And right now him and I are working on step three, which is we got to figure out what your vehicle And it makes sense though, because not answering anything else, doesn't have any other liabilities, not, doesn't have any other, commitments if you will.

And so, um, when you have that time and limited risk, it's a great time to hop in.

hear you. I hear you.

Instilling Financial Principles at Home

And let's, you know, we'll move that towards your own family, right? Husband, father to Peyton, right? what from the way that you approach wealth and financial freedom to others? Do you directly translate to the home front and be able to instill the generational lessons that are going to far surpass you?

Yeah. And the first thing that comes to mind is my wife and I have been very good partners when it comes to finances, right? Even since we started dating, we partnered up, we budget accordingly. Our goals are her goals and my goals are our goals, right? And so we're a great team. And so, That is extremely helpful when you can get on the same page with your significant other, right?

And so don't use it as an excuse for you not to step up and take control of your finances because that's better than nothing. But I always say it's like, imagine you and your significant other are playing two on two basketball against another couple and your significant other is shooting hoops for the other team.

It's going to be pretty hard to win, let alone get best results. And so like the biggest thing is like, that's a partner, right? So you have to optimize that partnership, especially, you know, if the income is your guys income, if it's the household, and if you have kids watching as well, like more is caught than taught.

And so, how you partner with your partner on finances, not only gets you good results tangibly, but emotionally, right? For the child, it provides the best environment as well. So that's the first thing. And then on the emotional side of things is like, we're very abundant people, right?

And so the way that we talk about money, the way that we strategize around money, you know, it's from a very abundant sense. And so I said earlier, I skimmed by it, but part two of step one, which is that mindset, right? that internal relationship with money. I mentioned before, like your external wealth is just a reflection of your internal wealth.

And so if you have scarce, limited, fearful, faulting on money, that's what's going to play out in your reality, right? And so the way that we talk about money, the energetics behind it, the mindset that we have, the perspective of how amazing of a tool it is to provide and design the best life for us, exuberates through our household, right?

Especially for the kids to And then there's just, proof of concept. My wife, We're tired at 28, at 29 years old, we bought a multiple million dollar house in a gated community, in our area. And, those things are okay. Like if you do them the right way, they're a beautiful thing.

And that was big goal of ours,

thing that is really apparent is that's not you, you know, uh, flaunting, right? That is you demonstrating as an example that we were able to achieve this with the significant level of disciplines and decision making that we made. And, uh, it's not trying to be showy, it's trying to say, We're examples that this is possible.

exactly. That's so good. It was exactly it. for saying that.

You're welcome. You're welcome.

Final Thoughts and Takeaways

So, as we are starting to close this particular episode, and I always do a tip the cap to the concept that Randy Posh had in his book, The Last Lecture, where at the end of the book, he says, did you notice my last head fake? This book was written for my kids. So Peyton is listening to this podcast. What do you want lessons to be taken away?

this quote authentically just came to mind, and it's from a book that I love. It's called How Rich People Think. And there's a quote in there that says, The wealthiest people, not even just financially, yes, financially, but also in other areas of their life. But the wealthiest people understand the importance of saving and investing their money, but they realize that they're going to build a world class wealth by solving major problems in this world with incredible solutions.

And so.

It's exactly it. It's like savings and investing is important, right? But like, you're going to make an incredible wealth by providing an incredible solution to a major problem in this world. And so, use my company sometimes as an example, like, There's a lot of very smart, purpose driven, faith based, ambitious people out there that want to live their best life possible and realize money is a major tool to make that happen.

And they just never were taught how to manage it the right way. And so we package the solution and sell it deliver it. And so, that's my close to home example. But I always use an example where everyone will understand. Think about Amazon Prime. Everyone in America is lazy and impatient. Insert two day free delivery.

right. Multiple billion dollar idea because they provided a solution to a problem. in this world. And so that quote, I would say one more time for us to close. If Peyton was listening, I want to understand that, the wealthiest people, they understand the importance of savings and investing, but they realize they're going to build a world class wealth by creating an amazing solution to a major problem in this world.

And beautiful segue in terms of Justin, how can people find out more about the solution that you provide through Journey to Financial Freedom and other vehicles that you are

working on?

Absolutely. So Journey to Financial Freedom would be your best bet. It's a financial coaching company for the faith based and ambitious. And, you can go to our website, which is journeytofinancialfreedom. co. There's no M on that, just co. And you can read through about the services and some of the things that we offer.

There's also a link on there where you can click that and book with one of my amazing team members just to learn more about the program. It's a very safe, laid back, easy informational call. If you want to learn how to manage your money better to reach financial peace, actually have control over your money, start making some progress and eventually freedom, then we're the people for you.

So explore my program by booking the call with right now her name is Stephanie. In the future, it could be different people, but you can find that link on the website. We can put it in the show notes as well, but also you can just find me personally on Instagram.

the show notes for everybody

Okay.

you know, any other places that, you, uh, would want them to go, we'll put those in the show notes as well, but certainly that, URL will be there.

Awesome. And then Instagram as well, Justin underscore Buonomo. find me there, shoot me a message. And then also like the link in my bio, you can also book with one of my team members. And there's a couple of other things, in my bio and, or just content on the page that'll really help you learn, about how to manage your money better to ultimately lead to that freedom that you desire.

Cool, cool. We'll make sure that we get the right set of links in the show notes when this episode does get released. But Justin, you've been an absolute pleasure. I think that this has been a great mix of incredible wisdom with good hearted banter between us. Any final thoughts before we close down this episode?

Yeah, the one thought that comes to mind is I always tell people it's literally impossible to live your dream life if you don't have your finances under control, because not a single person listening to this would say their dream life consists of unnecessary stress and anxiety and missed opportunities when it comes to their money.

And you are signing up for that if you don't have your money under control. And so the good news is, you don't. What you need is right in front of you. You could take action right now to take control of your money and start to see the results fast. And so Scott, I appreciate you having me. I hope the audience gets some value from this.

And, thank you again for letting me hop on.

No worries, Justin. Thank you for being a part of the Corvus effect. And, you know, one of the things that we preach is we have a take action philosophy. So I do hope that people will take action. And if they do need that trusted ear that they'll reach out to. you and your company via the show links. We'll put all that up in the show notes.

And to all who are listening to this episode, thank you so much. If you have enjoyed this, please subscribe and please share with your friends, particularly those who can listen and learn from the incredible wisdom that we have with these guests. And we will see you on the next episode of The Corvus Effect.

care, y'all.

Outro

Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. To access today's show notes, resources, and links mentioned in this episode, visit www.thecorvuseffect.com While you're there, you'll find links to our free tools and resources to evaluate where you currently stand versus your aspirations with personalized recommendations for action. If you found value in today's episode, Please take a moment to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share with those who may benefit from it. You won't want to miss future conversations that could transform your approach to leadership and life. Join me next episode as we continue our journey towards building lasting legacies that matter. Remember, it's time to soar towards your legacy.