We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justin Buonomo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Justin below.

Alright, Justin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Oh man! I could go on for days here, but let’s see if I can stay organized.

Let’s start in my childhood. When I was 10 years my parents filed for bankruptcy. Shortly after we lost our house, car, they got a divorce and I even had to give my dog of three years away due to the new rental properties not accepting pets.

I lost huge portions of my life at a young age due to money… or what seemed to be money at the time. When I was 10 years old I made a promise to myself that I would never have to worry about money ever again one day when I can control it. I never wanted to my kids or family to go through what I went through in my childhood.

So looking back, my parents were successful and well put together people and STILL had those money problems and everything else they brought. This prompted me to be like “okay there is a deeper problem here.”

Fast forward to when I was 18. I received a settlement for $80k from getting hit by a car when I was 12. This money was all mine and no one else had any say or supervision over it. Just me and my poor money habits that I acquired from my childhood. I blew it all in 2.5 years and that right there was enough to show me that I really needed to do better the next time I was put in a position to do so.

I worked in the Johns Hopkins Medicine system for over 7 years before starting JFF. The majority of this time I spent in Senior Level Management positions running the hospitals from the business side of things. I had incredible mentorship, skills and resources that allowed me to build my own business and know how to at least run it at healthy levels from day 1.

I launched my company in Aug 2020. I worked at Hopkins still from Aug 2020 – Dec 2020 and I stepped away for good from Hopkins. I left a nice salary and an amazing career trajectory to take on JFF full time. I was making more money, working for myself and loved what I did with JFF much more, so it was an easy exit from the corporate world for me.

We have had an amazing amount of success in our 3.25 years of being in business and big reason is because we are solving a MAJOR problem in a world-class and unique way that was not available to the public before we came out.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I own and act as the CEO for a company called Journey to Financial Freedom. We provide financial coaching for business owners. We truthfully believe most people do not have business problems, they have personal problems leaking into the business, and most times these personal problems are financial ones.

People think that more money is the solution. But if you have poor money habits, all more money will do is make those habits worse or more noticeable.

We aren’t against making more money, but there is a time for it, and that usually comes after you take control of your current situation. If you can’t manage $5,000/month correctly, what makes you think you can manage $20,000/month correctly.

We address finances in two buckets. 1. The Systems and Strategies and 2. The internal world.
Systems and strategies are great and crucial to have! But to get BEST results, you have to address things at a belief level (the internal world) and we offer that perfect balance.

Things that make us standout:
1. Very relatable group of coaches
2. Modern approach to finances where you CAN live your life and make progress financially at the time.
3. No judgement/loving culture.
4. Pride ourselves on CUSTOM plans and experiences for each unique individual.
5. We are a well oiled machine and our client experience shows that.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

This is so super important. The best business owners have a strong financial foundation. If not, you will face money problems (most of them being unnecessary) along the way and storms that are just supposed to be bumps in the road end up being the end of the road for financially irresponsible business.

I self funded the business through my owns funds and budgeting/financial skills. When I left Hopkins, I left a 6 figure salary, but it didn’t bother me because I was already making more with JFF than I was at Hopkins and I also have 18 months reserves stored away + $100k in credit lines (half being 0% APR). So I used the strategies that we teach in our programs to eliminate the company deterrent of “funding/month” that most businesses have.

We scaled to 7 figures in annual income in just our second year of business and the financial skills we teach our the exact reason why and also the exact reason why we work with other business owners.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I lesson I had to unlearn was that “money was evil.” I blamed money for my problems as a kid. But I’ve come to realize that money is just a piece of paper or a piece of plastic. Where it goes wrong is when the human being behind the money is mis-using or abusing it. Money is neutral. Our actions determine the goodness or badness of it, but it truthfully has nothing to do with money itself.

The bible quote “money is the root of all evil” is so misconstrued. The #1 way being that there are a few words left out. The actually quote is “the LOVE of money is the root of all evil” because if we love something then that means we idol it. And we can only idol one thing at a time. So if we are idolizing money, there is no room for God!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.journeytofinancialfreedom.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justin_buonomo/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justin.buonomo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-buonomo-a4bb56185/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinbuonomo/featured