I didn't really go out to dinner on a work week for almost 3 to 4 years because I was always working it was wild right but I've unplugged myself on The Matrix and it's pretty awesome yeah I think more of us need to try it where you know by being intentional with our money and what these jobs and the income can do for us I love talking about increasing your net worth this is our barometer for wealth building success today we're going to speak with an investor who has grown her family's net worth to over $1 million by 40 years old Stephanie Gonzalez is our guest today Stephanie is originally from Texas but now lives in Portugal with her husband Joseph and their two kids and when she's not building her family's wealth she enjoys working out and teaching others to build wealth like she has through her platform women's wealth effect welcome to the show Stephanie oh thank you so much for having me Andy I'm excited to talk to you I'm glad we can connect here and I can uh share your awesome story I know we had a chance to meet in person recently in New Orleans and I'm excited to uh chat with you today so so Stephanie looking back what was your motivation for Building Wealth originally oh wow I did not have a motivation to build wealth my original motivation was to build a career but when I met Joseph he was very motivated by Building Wealth he understood Building Wealth as a tool to create Freedom right choices in life I honestly thought that like wealth and millions was greedy I literally had this kind of internal dialogue like MrScrooge in my head about it um and I distinctly remember whenever we were dating we had this conversation about what we wanted for our lives and how we wanted to build it together and when he told me he wanted to be a millionaire those were the words that came out of my mouth that sounds greedy but once I realized the same things that he had come to realize way earlier in his life the freedom elements the autonomy to have more choice in your life as women that's incredibly important um and I and as I was building my career I recognized after having kids that you know my life was changing and there was a lot of friction between life choices and what I ultimately wanted to do with my career where I had flexibility where I didn't um and so Building Wealth was a real opportunity for us to take advantage of to give us more choices and give me the opportunity to ultimately leave my 15year Tech Career I love that I love that now you you you mentioned the idea of becoming a millionaire or becoming rich or whatever we want to say had that sort of icky feeling for you when you were first learning about it where do you think that came from and I'm I'm I I've I've heard this a million times so I just want to know personally where you think that came from you know I'm Mexican-American and I think there's an element of growing up and being told to be humble and grateful for all the things that we had and you know the success that ultimately I was having over time and there was just this this thing right I think little micro learnings that I was picking up over the course of my life that fed into that narrative and I think acknowledging that that was what I was saying to myself in my head was a big stepping stone in being able to do something about it and then hearing other people even the women that I coach right um tell me the same thing you're not alone if that's what you're telling yourself it's not necessarily true and that's why I'm really passionate about helping women learn how to to invest and increase their net worth and figure out how to do something with their passions to create not only impact for their communities but in my opinion it's more broadly across the globe I Live Now in a different country this is our second country after moving from Texas and I see women doing some really amazing things with the wealth that they have built which is awesome that's incredible that's incredible now you said there was also an epiphany moment for you said I'm I want to build my career and then Joseph was saying let's build wealth when did you have that light bulb switch in your head as you were building your career that oh there's a difference here yes oh wow um so I was a very driven person to either figure out how to build the career or figure out how to build the business eventually right um there's a lot of entrepreneurs that have come before me in my family and and I think that's an amazing thing but when I was growing my career and we had kids right before we had kids we got asked to move to Singapore I did to grow a team and I was super excited about it it was like the thing that I had wanted for a really long time to live as an expat at this top you know three tech company in their supply chain that was renowned for what they've done in the industry and I was learning a ton but recognizing that at some point something had to give like I had this idea that I was going to run and burn at the pace that I was all the way until I was 65 right and so when I had my kids I was like ah I have like this Heart of Mine being pulled this direction we joke around and we tell people that I was married to my to the company I was working for right when in reality it was kind of like that um and so I was getting pulled in a lot of different directions and honestly at one point Joe and I looked at each other and we said we should go to coup's therapy because Stephanie's having a really hard time even putting what she's feeling into words and all of the things that were happening were really signs of burnout and and it it's interesting burnout isn't like somebody's walking in the door like absolutely depleted all the time it's a sometimes it is a lot of other things that are happening whether it's exhaustion you're telling yourself you're exhausted but you're just going to push through it and you just kind of push through a lot of things but it manifests in things like your health um not being able to sleep you may not be able to even maintain weight you're losing your hair I'm having kids by the way at this time too so right I'm becoming a mom dealing with this crazy job and I'm recognizing that okay I couldn't answer the question what was it all for what what was enough and I I find it interesting to ask this question to other people who have successful careers right or successful businesses like at one point at what point is it going to be enough what is it all going to be for so I was a planning and forecasting expert I worked in the supply chain as a as a demand planner and when I started learning about investing and Building Wealth I was like well let me go ahead and put all this experience to work and build a personal finance plan and I I told myself if I can create a billion- dollar plan for a company I could create a million dollar plan for myself let's go ahead and try it out and I've reiterated on that plan multiple times um I was actually going to stay at the company I was working for until 2026 but because I was getting more comfortable with the idea of what wealth could do for us and if I did take a step back or a step away rather from that chapter in my life of careers right um the wealth that we had built had now afforded me the ability to do that and take some time to figure out how I wanted to build my business it's been hard trying to walk like trying to see like literally in the paycheck the bi-weekly paychecks not coming anymore from the company right but because I'm so clear about our investments the strategy the next one to two years of how we're going to use some of that wealth that we've built and and do that unapologetically and not freak out about it you know there's some scarcity in that and so it's interesting it's been a cool test of kind of being semi-retired and living off of our investments for to a certain extent some cover call ETF some dividends some just withdrawals right from our index funds um but we're still also pursuing means of bringing back our active income me through women's wealth effect and and Joseph selling real estate now here in Portugal which is a really hot market and he's very good at it so um yeah I think at some point the coup's therapy the doing the budget as a result of the coup's therapy starting to intentionally invest and taking advantage of the opportunity as a multi six figure earner not you know it was like why why do we not take advantage of this like it what is it not what's the income G to be for if we didn't do it and I'm so glad that we did um that's awesome that's awesome and what was Joseph doing prior to real estate in in in the United States yeah when I met this is an interesting part of the story when I met Joe he was a teacher okay um a Spanish teacher and a coach and he was off to go travel across Europe on sabatical he had sold all of his stuff and he was he wanted to ultimately become an entrepreneur and he wanted to figure out like what kind of business plan did he want to develop what did he want to do and so he took that time and when he came back he worked in Insurance eventually got into real estate so when I got asked to move to Singapore he essentially put his career on pause to figure out like how is he going to make a career work in Singapore he ultimately built a team of um vas that helped him uh market for real estate agents through Facebook ads and so he built built a digital marketing company while we were in Singapore and so that gave him a lot of expertise about real estate how to Market how to you know generate leads all these things and obviously help other agents um and he stepped away from the actually selling real estate actively for a while but now that we're here in Portugal and he's so good at online media to generate an audience um he he picked it back up and he's got a partner here now in the Portugal country area and uh I'm really excited for him that's what he's doing now that's incredible that's incredible we got a great partner there and uh the ability to adapt and adjust especially as you're going from country to country that's got to be huge now let's talk about the income side of things you said you've moved away from Corporate America you are doing your entrepreneurial thing as well as living on some Investments talk about the income switch from where you were to where you are today how much are you guys living on today versus where you were and how are you making that work yeah yeah so I started off making $30,000 a year in the jewelry industry and kind of like a retail jewelry chain and when I pivoted to Tech I was making about the same and so over the course of 15 years in Tech I went from $30,000 to making over half a million dollars as a global director in their supply chain right that included base salary bonuses rsus the whole thing so when you look at like a a W2 statement like that there's a lot of things that go into that and for me as an expatriate right I was also getting paid housing right Transportation all these things so I talk to people a lot about careers and paths to these interesting things that you could go do with a lot of really awesome skill and experience sometimes it's just we don't know that they're there sometimes we don't know we just don't know that it's for us right and so I help women also through the career planning element try to figure figure that part out for Joe he was a teacher right and so he was making about $30 to $40,000 at the beginning of his career he paid himself through his business about $100,000 whenever it was at its peak right his digital marketing business um his his business has generated over a million dollars over the course of the last decade which has been really cool to see um and now we live off about 100 to $110,000 annually we rent now we're millionaires who rent here close to the beach we've got a very specific set of criteria about lifestyle education safety healthc care like all these parameters that we think about whenever we build and Design our lives and so when we think about our longer term fire number our original thought was 1. 8 million that's what we wanted that's what we wanted to live off of and the reality is is we recognized in doing that initial plan that that was like our skinny fire number like if we needed to retire off of something that was you know okay and live in a decent cost location all that good stuff we'd be good with that but the reality is is we want to retire early with two young kids right and so 2. 5 million is is about the target number now and we feel pretty confident that we're going to head back into that direction and you know I think it's it's been interesting to see how Clarity in understanding what investing can do for you and clarity about your skills and what you can do with it out in the marketplace and obviously Joe and I being aligned has been really helpful in US navigating this last couple of years because it could have been pretty scary but it's been pretty liberating that's incredible yeah I think there maybe somebody listening or maybe somebody jumping into the conversation and saying okay so they live now on like 100 to 150 something like that and they used to have a much higher income what about your life now is much better than what it was when you were making a lot more money what what's different now about your life that you enjoy more about the other side because some people equate a whole lot of money to a whole lot of happiness and you're flipping that on its headl now right now what what are you doing differently now in Portugal versus what you were doing before well I want to acknowledge one thing when we were making a lot of money we weren't inflating our lifestyle just because I was making 500,000 is dollars in annual income didn't mean I was spending all of that we were actually investing around 60% to maybe 70% of our income depending on what you looked at in which month over the course of 2021 to 2022 and I tell people these numbers right Andy we grew our net worth from our first first 100,000 to our to a million in like three to four years wow and so when I when I tell people that they're like oh there's no way I could do that here's the thing there's 15 years behind that of building a career and it was the last four to five years of that where I was making really good money and because we didn't inflate our lifestyle we were able to literally just move these massive chunks of money over right and so I know a number of multi six figure earners and and I looked at some of the statistics it's like 45 to 51% of sixf figureure earners are living paycheck to paycheck for multiple reasons right sometimes it's lifestyle inflation right and so I think for us and us talking about living off of one income conceptually early on in our relationship really helped us maintain that thought process along the way now how does how is life different versus making you know that kind of money I live by the beach I see friends I create my work schedule on my terms we were talking a little bit about this before our conversation today I take coaching calls in my afternoons on Mondays and Tuesdays afternoon Tuesday afternoons that's it I do not take individual coaching calls beyond that window of time because I hold those boundaries for the life that I want to design on my terms right before that I was working working 60 hour weeks waking up at 7:00 getting the kids out the door starting at 8: or 9 going all the way to 6:00 having some dinner getting back on the phone at 9: and working till about midnight or 1:00 in Singapore right and so we laughed about this but I didn't really go out to dinner on a work week for almost three to four years because I was always working it was wild right but I've unplugged myself on The Matrix and it's pretty awesome yeah I think more of us need to try it where you know by being intentional with our money and what these jobs and the income can do for us wondering if you're on track well our sponsor projection lab is here to help projection lab is a modern financial planning tool that helps you visualize your financial future like never before with beautifully designed charts and Powerful simulations it's more than a retirement calculator it's a personalized tool that reflects your life and empowers you to build a plan that truly works for you unlike other tools projection lab captures the details that matter most your family your goals and your unique situation whether you're just starting out or refining your path to find Financial Independence or retirement projection lab helps you define life Milestones build confidence in your financial decisions gauge your chance of success and reduce the stress of uncertainty thousands of people are already using projection lab to design their dream financial future it's receiving excellent praise from leaders in the financial Independence space including MrMoney Mustache choosefi and the Mad fientist who called it the most beautiful financial planning tool I've ever seen and here's the best part you can start planning for free or unlock powerful premium features like tax optimization and advanced visualizations for as little as $9 a month ready to take control of your financial future use the sponsor links below or click the link in our video description to get a 7day free trial of the projection lab premium features today I love that I love that now there was probably a point and time where you were making a lot of money and I believe they call it the golden handcuffs how did you let that go and transition I mean I'm sure that was a difficult decision for you wow this is the peak of my career or I'm making so much money yes I'm giving up a lot for that but I'm sure there was a lot of consideration with where you were and probably the women you coach too about that moment where you say it's just not worth it anymore longterm for my life H how did you make that decision part of it was my financial forecasting right and looking at okay if I leave this on the table what does it mean and it gives you the ability to make the choice without a l as much fear and anxiety there's still the fear and anxiety but not as much um I left a bit over1 $150,000 on the table um in just rsus that weren't Ved yet and I had just gotten literally a grant award for another like $75,000 worth of rsus and I was like thank you but here's my resignation right and so it's you know I didn't necessarily leave everything on the table like I had this scenario where where I was going to leave at the end of December 2021 right after my second son was born cuz I was almost like I had just had it and um I decided to stay until bonus time because I didn't want to leave all the the gold on the table and so yeah we kind of met in the middle Joe and I in terms of hey do I how long does she really stay and he tells me all the time he's like you're just not a different person you're just like a a happier in in a lot of different elements of your life person and I I can I can smile about that probably like the time you guys originally met and you guys were having a lot of fun together yeah you know the last thing I'll say about this is yes you know we got to go to the beach together on Saturday and had a babysitter so that we could go to the beach and just like have fun when you make the decision to spend more time in your earlier years as a couple semi-retired or fully retired you better know how you want to spend your time you're going to see each other a whole lot more right and I used to be like just pent up in my office all day and Joe would go about his day and do what he needed to do with the kids and you know help with the house a ton and now I was in his hair and he was like what are you doing here right um so it was a little bit of an adjustment period but it was really cool to see how we had that opportunity earlier in our lives right and our now we got to go into 40 together you know healthier happier and uh it's been really cool that's cool like anything it comes with practice right you know you you you learn learned how to become a half million dollar earner and that took a long time to do now you're in a new stage of your life where oh I got to learn how to share a lot more in my time with my not only my husband but my family as well and still have time for for the things that that uh uh excite me as well now Stephanie when you talk about a million a million plus people are listening watching like what does that mean what does that net worth consist of can you walk us through the sort of assets and liabilities just to kind of understand what what that means yeah yeah so for us we're a little over 1.
3 right now and here's an interesting thing our our Peak was 1. 5 but we've dipped into our overall net worth right buying a car moving into a place that we had to furnish like all these things they're just intentional spends that we made the decision to go ahead and and leverage and utilize um but our investments consist of retirement accounts right so what was 401ks and I used a Roth 401k too so I was really excited that I could take advantage of that and so our retirement accounts are at about 350 370 and they're Coast for our ultimate retirement right they're going to be over 2. 1 2.
4 million by the time we hit the age of 65 when we actually plan on using them um and the rest of it is brokerage accounts split into two very specific strategies one that is a Index Fund growth set of accounts right S&P 500 total US Stock Market we are just letting that ride and we want it to grow for us us and we want to reinvest invest those dividends there is another $400,000 which that used to be our house so we sold our house in Texas it was a fully paid off home and we were renting it out when we were in Singapore because the market in Austin was really hot we sold it and so we were we paid the capital gains on it and everything was painful but it was the right decision for us um and so we went ahead and took that and invested that in some covered call ETFs because we knew that we wanted a cash flow like set of assets um because we weren't going to have the income right the $3,300 in income rental income from the house anymore and so now we we get about 32 $3,300 a month on covered call ETFs which are covered called premiums they're not necessarily dividends um but it helps us in the current state that we're in create some cash flow that we can actively live off of without having to sell off our Index Fund Investments as much now do you guys have any liabilities at this point or is this something you you you the house is gone you guys are renting any other liabilities you know we almost um took out a loan for a car and then I was like no I'm we're debt free I love it let's not so we paid cash for our car when we bought it last year and we just have our credit card that we pay off every month and so you know we we use our credit card because we know what we're spending and there's points and that's nice um but yeah other than that got it so we got a uh a mortgage free coastfire millionaire couple here is that right yeah I love it awesome talk to me about some generational wealth plans you have for your kids at this point I know you guys think about investing quite a bit a lot for your lives I'm sure this is something you're considering for your kids talk to us about any plans you have yeah so a very specific decision that we made actually so we had the decision to make between okay do we want to invest in a 529 or do we want to invest in a custodial account we're living internationally right we really aren't sure that our kids are going to go back to the US and attend a university in the US the price of college is crazy right um and it's interesting there's been a lot of press lately about the price of University abroad specifically in Europe being way cheaper and so we made the decision to invest in custodial accounts for the boys versus 529s primarily for the fact that we did not believe we didn't believe that there would be like a ton of possibility that they'd go to school in the US and if they did they'd be fine and the second piece was we're going to teach them about and so this kind of like angst about oh well they're going to have access to all this money at the age of majority our plan is to make sure that they are confident and they know how money works and we are going to trust them you know with making decisions as adults at that point if you ask Joseph he's like they don't have to go to college and I was not that I was not that person right I went to school so did he right we were both you know able to benefit from college um but he questions things a lot a lot more than I do and uh yeah we'll see what happens when it comes to their education and their next steps yeah I I like to look at College as a way for you to gain that knowledge and expertise so that you can create the big amount of money the big salary you can create your own generational wealth for kids but you guys are great examples of the entrepreneurial side of things as well you start to build your own accounts you start to build your own business then you can you can create the salary that you need to to live the life that you want now you guys are at this $1. 3 million level here in your 40s what is exciting you over the next 5 to 10 years as you guys look towards your your future together as a couple oh man you know traveling more but more local to our area you know we were in Singapore and we had our second during covid and Singapore was Notorious for their stringent lockdown and so we did not see family for a really long time even before we moved to Portugal and so we spent a lot of time back in the US visiting family in the US and we have plans to go to Australia this coming year to visit our friends for Christmas so we're going to do like a whole month there and so because we've done we paid our dues in the US last year we're going to pay our dues in Southeast Asia this year we want to spend some more time here and um and continue to settle we've been in a lot of flux for the last two years we originally moved to Lisbon when we moved here got the kids into school and then we moved out of Lisbon closer to the beach and had to get into a new school and so there's always something right and Joseph constantly reminds me you know when I think about like women the women's wealth effect and like what I have done with it and what I want to do with it and just the timeline of things that are happening he's like do you realize that we've been so busy like we're just now getting started on being able to put our feet on the ground and really create some sustainable processes and just like habits for our life and so he's right um you know we are in a very settled stage but always with our eyes wide open I love it I love it now there's somebody listening and they are very interested in growing their wealth like you have over the past couple of Decades of your life what is one small step that they could take following this interview oh man you know I would say and you kind of alluded to this earlier I have three things I'd normally say but if I had to choose one it would be be a constant learner be open to constantly learn and because of that I was able to learn in various jobs and grow my career here learn investing right figure out how to move to Portugal I did the whole D7 process right on our own um and I think just that mindset of being a constant learner there's so many ways to learn a like audio wise visual wise text wise and I think just that one thing if I had to add my other two it would be being intentional about everything the partner you choose the career you go after the Investments that you invest in not just something you don't understand and I'd say the last one is increasing your income I mean there's no secret to the fact that you know we made the progress as at an accelerated Pace because we increased our income and I wouldn't change that I love that I love that Stephanie thank you so much for your time today you are helping people with the same Mission and where can people connect with you to learn more about your story and maybe connect with you on on some support you could provide yeah so you can find me on Instagram at at Women's wealth effect you can also find Joseph and I at permission to be Wealthy on YouTube and so we started that channel two years ago but we got intentional about it this past year and so we're sharing more of our experience our journey um our expertise in our respective domains um on that channel and then if you would like to learn more about what I do and how I teach investing to a certain extent feel free to download my free financial Independence planner over 400 people have downloaded it and and it's you it's a calculator but it's a more nuanced calculator than investor.
