Podcasts I’ve Listened To: Journey To Launch with Jamila Souffrant

Hello again everyone! I hope your summer has gone well so far, a nice holiday was had by those in the U.S. and apparently those in Canada as well. I’ve been working, doing homework, and generally trying to do better at life in a number of ways, which apparently takes a lot of time. Who knew?

Because my time has been so tied up, I’ve taken to listen to podcasts, typically while at work or while driving. I have quite the variety as well, though, of the five or so that I listen to regularly, three are about self-improvement. Regardless, I figured I would review these since books haven’t made it in front of me in the past few weeks.

I’m starting with ones I’m totally caught up on. I tend to find myself a year or more behind on them, and so I must go back to the beginning and listen straight through. And to begin, I’ve recently caught up on a personal finance podcast.

Journey to Launch with Jamila Souffrant focuses primarily on financial independence, or FI (pronounced as each individual letter or as the second part of wi-fi). FI looks different for everyone and is sometimes extended into FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), but the basic idea is taking control of your money situation and putting it to work for you instead of working for your money. Through budgeting, saving, investing, side hustles, or a combination of some or all of these, you can pay off debt, create wealth, set up a sufficient retirement fund, and essentially design the life you want to live.

This is a pretty appealing concept, as someone who has loads of student loan debt and until recently felt very overwhelmed by finances. But listening to Jamila and her guests talk about their experiences and their own journey to FI definitely made me feel like I wasn’t alone in this struggle. Unfortunately, this is something that millions of people experience, and often don’t get out of. There’s hope found in this podcast, and proof that it’s truly achievable.

At first, it sounds too good to be true, paying off thousands of dollars in credit card debt, student loans, mortgages, and car payments. But the stories told on this podcast often come from people who were in the worst situations, for instance, a woman who graduated law school with a huge chunk of student loan debt, moved to New Orleans, and was scheduled to start her new job– just days before Hurricane Katrina hit and she had to relocate. Or the real estate mogul who literally lost everything when the housing bubble burst. And plenty of other people just living paycheck to paycheck, barely scraping by if at all, who turned their life around. It’s pretty inspiring.

The thing I like most about this podcast is that Ms. Souffrant provides both actionable steps you can take to reach FI (“Follow this budgeting plan to get your spending under control”) and also reassurance that FI isn’t one plan fits all (“If financial freedom for you is just paying off debt, that’s totally fine!”). She has guests on her show that provide a variety of experiences, paths to FI, and definitions of FI. Retiring early and traveling, “retiring” from a necessary job to start a business or chase a job they actually wanted, paying off debt and getting ahead while working a job they had no intention of quitting… All of these scenarios and more make it onto her podcast. There’s someone from every corner, and there are tips for every path.

At this point in time, FIRE is a little out of my scope of vision, but listening has really lead me to focus more on paying down my debt, saving, and even doing some minor investing to start. I’ve dramatically cut back on my spending and started looking at other avenues for income generation (can you say, “side hustle”?), and for now, that’s enough. But who knows where the journey’s going to take me?

Would I recommend this podcast? Most definitely. It’s a great starting point for people looking to get their finances under control, as the content includes both tips outright and extra resources as well, such as other podcasts or books to point you in the right direction.

Do you have any suggestions on books (or podcasts!) that I should add to my list? What would you like me to review? Let me know in the comments!