Episode 473: How Service Workers Can Achieve Financial Freedom & Increase Their Financial Health with Barbara Sloan
Journey To Launch
Jamila Souffrant
4.9 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From homeless to bartending at Coyote Ugly, today's guest has gone through it all when it comes to working the service industry. Barbara Sloan is author of "Tipped: The Life Changing Guide to Financial Freedom For Waitresses, Bartenders, Strippers and All Other Service Industry Professionals," and a personal finance expert.
She's spent two decades working in every imaginable position in the service industry, in addition to owning and running a woman-owned construction company in Manhattan. Now, she helps other service industry professionals map their way to financial independence.
We talk about the unique challenges that face over 4 million service industry professionals, how these workers can use the system to their benefit and all of the mistakes Barbara made on her own way to financial literacy.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What a service industry professional is + their unique career and financial opportunities + challenges
- How to budget with an inconsistent or fluctuating income + how to build in buffers during seasonal work
- Advice on how service industry professionals can increase their income + begin to invest
- The transition from being hired at a construction company to owning it + more
What's New in the Paperback Edition of Your Journey to Financial Freedom:
- A bonus chapter: When Life Happens: Staying on the Path to Financial Freedom Through Setbacks, Shifts, and Uncertainty
- A book club and discussion guide with prompts, exercises, and action steps
- Updated corrections from the original hardcover
- Exclusive bonuses when you purchase the paperback, including:
- The Fire Starter Course
- The Find Your FIRE Number Worksheet
Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode:
- Grab your copy of Tipped by Barbara Sloan
- Check out the FIRE Calc
- Get your paperback edition of Your Journey To Financial Freedom if you haven't already.
- Apply to Share Your Journeyer Story, here.
- Join the Journey to Launch Book Club to dive deeper into financial freedom with guided discussions and resources here!
- Join The Weekly Newsletter List to get updates, deals & more!
- Leave Your Journey To Financial Freedom a review!
- Get The Budget Bootcamp
- Check out my personal website here.
- Leave me a voicemail– Leave me a question on the Journey To Launch voicemail and have it answered on the podcast!
- YNAB – Start managing your money and budgeting so that you can reach your financial dreams. Sign up for a free 34 days trial of YNAB, my go-to budgeting app by using my referral link.
- What stage of the financial journey are you on? Are you working on financial stability or work flexibility? Find out with this free assessment and get a curated list of the 10 next best episodes for you to listen to depending on your stage. Check it out here!
Connect with Barbara:
Connect with me:
- Instagram: @Journeytolaunch
- Twitter: @JourneyToLaunch
- Facebook: @Journey To Launch
- Join the Private Facebook Group
- Join the Waitlist for My FI Course
- Get The Free Jumpstart Guide
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, call my wife. |
| 0:03.1 | Calling UK Wildlife. |
| 0:04.7 | No, call my wife. |
| 0:07.1 | Here's a cheese knife, Lester. |
| 0:09.2 | Voice assistants not working for you. |
| 0:11.3 | With Black Rock Investment Trust's hands-on investing, long-term approach to growth and regular dividends, you have a lot working for you. |
| 0:18.1 | I live in Kent. |
| 0:19.6 | Get to know, BlackRock Investment Trusts at blackrock.com. You have a lot working for you. I live in Kent. Get to know BlackRock Investment Trusts at |
| 0:22.0 | blackrock.com. You have a lot working for you. Capital at risk, marketing material. BlackRock |
| 0:26.5 | Investment Management UK Limited, authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. |
| 0:31.4 | I was hired to do accounting and finance and also they tasked me with setting up in the HR department and employee retention. |
| 0:39.1 | So there I got to see all of the sides of benefits and how that supported the financial health of an employee. |
| 0:45.5 | And I was like, oh, I just remember thinking like, oh my God, why didn't anybody tell me this? |
| 0:50.7 | Why did I not know any of these things for so long? And I was able to make so many mistakes. |
| 0:58.5 | Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host, Jamila Sufran. As a money expert who walks |
| 1:05.0 | her talk, she helps brave journeyers like you, get out of debt, save, invest, and build real well. |
| 1:13.0 | Join her on the Journey to Launch to Financial Freedom in five, four, three, two, one. |
| 1:25.2 | If you want the episode, show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the |
| 1:31.3 | description of wherever you're listening to this episode. In the show notes, you'll get the |
| 1:36.1 | transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more. Also, |
| 1:42.0 | whether you are an OG journeyer or brand new to the podcast, |
| 1:45.8 | I've created a free Jump Start guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. |
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