Financial Freedom Junkie

Welcome, Financial Freedom Junkies

• Adam Fernandez • Episode 1

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#1 "Financial Freedom is Realistic" was unpublished for years, but now I’m bringing these ideas to life. I’m Adam, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), and real estate investor. From music major to forensic accountant, shaped by my Hispanic upbringing, my journey has been unique. My professional education and personal experiences allow me to help everyday people (like you) make informed financial decisions, understand their relationship with money, and develop a positive money mindset to achieve their current and future financial goals. Your path to financial freedom is more achievable than you may think, and I believe this podcast is the beginning of your roadmap.

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I want to tell you a story. My life changed on October 13, 2021. That day I began drafting a blog post titled Financial Freedom is Realistic. I even crafted a tagline, The Path to Financial Freedom is More Achievable Than You May Think. You Just Need the Right Roadmap. I went on to write about how everything nowadays seems so polarizing, so divisive, and understandably so because it, well, it sells. But what if we What if you really shouldn't be buying it? I'd like to let that sit with you, but I want to read the end of that blog post for you because it directly ties into this show. So here it is. If you're looking to drastically transform your current, and hopefully future, financial position for the better, and you need an authoritarian to tell you exactly what to do to progress regardless of your preferences and habits, I apologize if I wasted your time already. There are plenty of resources out there for you. But, if you're looking for realistic ways to improve your financial life or the lives of others, and you're fine taking what works and disregarding the rest, you've reached your destination. You'll learn to enjoy the ride at your own pace, and know that sometimes you have to hit the brakes to go full throttle. Now, I never published that blog post, but I think I made a commitment that day. And it was my first attempt to share something that I firmly believe is lacking in the world, or at least in the USA. Well, here we are nearly three years later, and I'm finally ready to talk. Those of you that know me already know that it, it takes me a while to get my thoughts out. I promise I'm getting better. Now, if you don't know me, you're probably wondering who I am and what we're trying to accomplish, why I created this podcast. Well, I'm Adam Fernandez. I'm 29 years old. I'm Cuban Dominican. My mom's parents were born in Cuba. My father's parents were born in the Dominican Republic. But I was born and raised in Miami, playing soccer for about 12 years. Um, and that's futbol or football in most other countries. I began college studying music. I was actually a piano major. I think I was I didn't necessarily realize at the time, but I was following in my brother's footsteps. He's a singer, songwriter, musician, but after a lot of reflecting, it felt more like a hobby than a passion, so I did some brainstorming, and ladies and gentlemen, this is, uh, this is before Google Gemini and ChatGPT and Claude, even though it seems like forever ago that these things have been out. So I started brainstorming about careers for people that are good with numbers, because, well, that was, that was true for me. Funny enough, I decided to pursue forensic accounting. So I got my bachelor's and master's degree in accounting, and ultimately I became a CPA, a certified public accountant, and a certified fraud examiner. Now, while in my bachelor's program, in 2016, I joined a club called The Honors Investment Portfolio. We called it HIP. The aim was to learn about the investing process and for members to manage their finances effectively and make rational financial decisions. We discussed stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, forex, uh, you name it. And we even invested through a virtual account, that's fake money, and a live account, our real money. Well, HIP changed everything for me. It changed, changed the way that I, , that I study money. So I guess you could say the wheels were really set in motion in 2016, maybe not 2021. But anyway, I haven't stopped learning about money since then, and I've learned a lot. So as you can probably guess by now, the purpose of the show, simply put, is to guide you to make educated financial decisions, to make better decisions with your money, and ultimately design the life you love. I truly believe you can. So how will we do that? What's coming? What's, what can you expect in future episodes? Well, we've got a lot to cover. So here we explore all things personal finance, saving, investing, debt management, talk about tax strategies, real estate, which I've, my wife and I have been involved in, wealth building, entrepreneurship, just about anything else that will benefit you in a financial capacity. But even when you're well informed, all of this knowledge is really useless if you don't have the right money mindset. Believe it or not, we all have a relationship with money, and you've got to understand yours to close the gap between your goals and reality. In terms of the format, it'll be a mix of solo episodes and interviews. I will interview financial experts and everyday people just like you. I want this to be conversational, informative, and I just want it all to be genuine. Now, that's basically the gist of it, but I don't want you to leave empty handed. I want you to walk away with something, or at least consider something, I've learned since I began on this journey to financial freedom. And I think it'll be most impactful if I summarize some of my major life events after 2016, when I was involved in HIP. I'll try to be as close to an elevator pitch as possible. So in the summer of 2017, I was finishing my bachelor's degree, working a full time internship at a public accounting firm, and I was studying for and ultimately I passed the Certified Fraud Examiner's exam. Now, the accounting firm provided me with an offer to come back full time as an associate, but they said, we know you're going to do your master's program, just go ahead and do your master's degree and come back when you're done with that in a year. But I wanted to continue learning, getting some on the job training, so in the fall I got another full time job, and I started my master's program. In the winter I started studying for the CPA exam. Now on to 2018. Well, in February, I got married. In March, I really started to feel the pressure weighing heavy on my shoulders. And my, my mental health was really suffering a lot. So I decided to quit my job. Of course, my wife and I had spoken about it. We said we have money in the bank to cover X amount of months of living expenses. And I committed to treating studying for the CPA exam like a full time job. And I did. So in the summer, I passed my CPA exams. I finished my master's program and got my master's degree. A whole lot happened in a year. And a few months later, we decided to move to East Tennessee. Just to mix things up a little bit. I chose to leave the job of my dreams at the time, working as a forensic accountant for Ernst Young, EY, one of the four largest accounting firms in the world. Because they didn't, they didn't have an office near where I was moving to, and remote work wasn't a viable option at the time. Now I'm not suggesting you uproot your family. But it was a decision that made sense for us because we were confident about the opportunity it would provide for us in the future. But that included leaving all of our family behind and we were all close, which was a massive sacrifice. we felt we were willing to live with. It was a really difficult decision, but we did it. So shortly after moving, I got an auditor position at an accounting firm, which taught me a lot. Then a few years later, I got an amazing opportunity to work at Warner Bros. Discovery. Well, somehow things came full circle and now I'm doing investigative auditing work again. I've been so fortunate to learn about corporate money for nearly a decade, and I've seriously studied personal finance for about 10 years as well. And more on the personal side since we moved. Between January 2019 and February 2023, in about 4 years, my wife and I bought 3 houses, two of them rental properties, and we became parents to two boys. It was a lot. especially considering most of that happened during the COVID 19 pandemic. So it was very difficult, but it was strategic and the planning, well, not just planning, but planning and action put us in a place financially that was honestly unimaginable in such a short period of time. Had we not been so intentional with our money, including during the time we were living off of one income while I studied to become a CPA, we wouldn't have saved $60,000 before moving out of Miami, we wouldn't have been able to buy our very first home as soon as we did, and we definitely wouldn't be where we are today. Makes me think of that quote where a lot of us overestimate what we can do in one year, but we underestimate what we can do in a decade. And of course, this wasn't nearly a decade. We're talking four years, about five years now, but it's been pretty crazy. So I guess the moral of this mini journey is that sacrifice can truly impact lives beyond your wildest dreams. That's, that's what it did for us. And so I think part of the reason I'm doing all this is to not only help you. achieve your goals, help you uncover what financial freedom means to you, but also learn where you're willing to sacrifice because we all got to sacrifice sometimes. And hopefully the sooner you make sacrifices, the better off you and your family will be in the future and for years and years to come. Anyway, thanks so much for listening. I'm so excited for what's to come. and learning how we can best serve you. If anything I said resonated with you and you want to learn more, please follow the show, share with others, and let me know what you found most interesting. Also, please feel free to follow me on other social media platforms. I am @ FinancialFreedomJunkie on Instagram, YouTube. I'll include links in the description below. I truly appreciate you. Thank you for being here. And I'm excited for what's in store for all of us.

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