Kristen Ricupero
Owner/CEO
Master Financial Coach
Certified Profit First Professional
10 years ago I was just like every other average Jane. Spending, enjoying, buying things I “needed” and “deserved”. I was single but dating my now husband. I was in debt and drowning. $18,000 on a car loan, $5,500 on a personal loan and another $3,000+ in other credit card debt (that I racked up after transferring it all once to that personal loan), for a total of about $26,500 in consumer debt. I was looking for second jobs and wondering what I could sell to make my bills the next month. I had zero clue where my money was going. I made decent money, yet I was broke and living paycheck to paycheck and beyond.
I thought a budget was laying out my bills. I had no clue how to do a real budget although I’d had plenty of experience with corporate budgets. I thought in terms of payments. Famous last words – “I can afford that payment”….until I couldn’t. I hit a breaking point and decided it was finally time to change.
I started studying personal finance and immersing myself in it deeply. I learned that the budget isn’t just about numbers! I learned about various forms of budgeting and found one that worked for me.
In 15 months, I paid off all my consumer debt. In 24 months total, I paid it off and jointly cash-flowed our wedding and funded our full emergency fund. After the wedding, we combined finances and got busy paying off the little debt that he came into the marriage with (including the house we were living in).
10 years since my breaking point, we’ve had an amazing financial turnaround by getting and continuing to live debt free. Our children will not know the feeling of budening debt, I promise that every day. This is why I’ve become a financial coach. I want others to know and feel this freedom that comes along with managing your money well. I want others to realize that it can be done, no matter how many times you’ve tried it before! I want you to know that you can create your future - whatever you want it to look like!
I won’t sit here and tell you it’s easy - it might be simple, but money is more behavioral than it is about the dollars and cents. Does it require sacrifice? Of course in some ways! Do we still have fun? Absolutely!! Sometimes we have to give up certain things in order to have others. It’s about focusing on the things you value, and sacrificing the things you don’t.
About Me
Hi, I’m Kristen, a financial coach & consultant who specializes in helping small business owners and entrepreneurs with both their business and personal financial life. I help to strengthen money management skills, eliminate debt, create cash flow systems to maximize profit and educate owners and their families on personal finance matters to ultimately build wealth. By developing specific action plans that are tailored to each client’s needs, values and goals, it allows them to live and retire in ways they only thought they could dream. I believe that it’s nearly impossible for a business owner to completely separate their business and personal life, regardless of entity, and that both need to be running at optimum levels financially to create the ultimate life and financial freedom.
I went to Penn State for HR&IM (Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management) and was a successful restaurant GM for corporate restaurants about 9 years out of college, until I found a wonderful family company who took me in and taught me everything I know about small to medium family business. Growing up, my parents owned an insurance agency, my husband owns a local landscape company and he and I have a small portfolio of rental properties as well. To say my background is extensive and diverse in small-medium business is an understatement! I use both my training and experience to help my clients stop stressing over money.
I am fueled by my passion to help others succeed and become financially free and I truly love what I get to do every single day. In my spare time, I’m an avid runner and lifter who loves to say each half marathon is my last. I live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA with my husband, two children and furbaby.
Kristy Gower
Financial Coach
AFC Certified
Certified Profit First Professional
My very humble beginnings came from growing up with a single mother who always struggled financially. This experience early on put financial security in the forefront of my mind, and this drove my goal to not have these same struggles in my adult life. 20 years ago, my now husband joined the military, and we were married shortly after.
When we started our family, my husband and I decided that I would stay home with our children when they were small. Over the span of his career, he deployed seven times, so creating stability for our kids was incredibly important. So, this decision meant we were raising our two children on just his income. During this time, I became very skilled at making every dollar count. We realized how important it was to make sure we managed our money to accomplish all the financial goals we had for our family.
About 10 years ago, I started pursuing a career in personal financial counseling. I had the desire to help people struggling with managing their finances. However, to my surprise, this education around personal finances improved how we managed our own finances. We were the test subjects on all the awesome personal financial tools and exercises I learned. And it worked!
I found the rewards from implementing these financial concepts and goals in our own lives to be so very valuable. We paid off $50,000 in student loan debt, increased our retirement savings, purchased a home, bought an investment property, and so much more. These financial accomplishments were amazing, but we also found that feeling in control of our money affected all areas of our life. Achieving financial freedom was pivotal to reducing stress in our marriage and really the overall satisfaction and contentment in our lives.
From my own financial journey and helping coach so many other clients on theirs, I now understand that the answer to financial freedom isn't always found in making more money but in the management of what money you already make. Will there be some behaviors around money that need to change? Probably. However, can these small changes pay off in big ways for you? Yes!! Not just with your money, but in your life!
About ME
Hi, I'm Kristy, a financial coach focused on helping and supporting clients on their path to financial freedom. I achieve this by meeting clients where they are and guiding them with plans and action steps to help them get to where they want to be. I assist clients in creating a structured and sustainable plan and guide them in gaining confidence in their finances. I want everyone to feel empowered in their financial lives in order to get out of debt, save money, and build wealth for their "future selves." My desire for clients is to spend money on the things they care about and value. I customize my clients’ budgets to what makes sense for them, so my approach is definitely not "one-size-fits-all."
I received my bachelor's degree in finance, and I attained my Accreditation in Financial Counseling (AFC) from AFCPE in 2012. I am also a Profit First certified advisor. Throughout my career, I have coached a diverse group of clients, including military members, with various unique challenges. I’ve successfully helped thousands of clients achieve their financial goals. I truly believe financial success can be attainable by absolutely everyone. I help take the stress out of finances for clients. I want them to understand that their past money behaviors don’t have to predict how they will handle money in the future. I always tell my clients that they are the author of their story, and they can have a plot twist and still write the best chapter yet in their money life.
I’m driven by my passion to help people realize that financial freedom can be their reality. Best of all, they don't have to go it alone. I’m here to help them achieve this freedom and reach goals that they never imagined were possible. In my spare time, I lead a dance team, work towards fitness goals, and strive to be a rockstar mom. I live in the Sandhills region of North Carolina with my wonderful husband, two daughters, a pup, and our fluffy cat.
Jess Bingham
Financial Coach
Certified Financial Education Instructor, CFEI
Certified Profit First Professional
Early in adulthood, I found myself as a stay-at-home mom with two young kids and in the middle of a hairy divorce. While I had my savings, I was not prepared to suddenly be solely responsible for all the bills and expenses that come from a household. Up until that point I had never carried a credit card balance - the first time was the retainer for the divorce attorney. I stopped paying my student loans to cover other bills and racked up debt - my credit and confidence tanked. I vividly remember sitting in my car after being offered a job and pulling out a napkin from my glove compartment to write down some numbers. I just had to get through the next week, and then I’ll figure out the rest. This became my mantra for the next year.
I made a promise to myself and to my children that I would never feel so ill prepared financially again and dove into the world of personal finances. My hunger for learning only grew and I found myself back in school for accounting. Coupling this with a background in Social Work, I developed the philosophy that personal finances are so much more than just the numbers – equally important is the person behind them - their dreams, goals, and behaviors.
A decade later, I am proud to say my credit score is back in the 800’s and I was able to pay off over $30,000 of debt, including my defaulted student loan. As my personal finance journey has grown, so has my ability to create a life that brings me peace and joy. Now remarried, having a plan for our money has allowed my husband to go back to school and to pursue other passions without the looming stress of debt. In fact, we’ve been able to do more on much less money than we ever imagined!
I want to encourage you to have hope that you can create a life where money is a tool for your purpose and passions. The road is not always the prettiest, but with consistency and new habits in place, it can be done.
About ME
Hi! I’m Jess, a financial coach who specializes in using money as a tool to create a life you love – whether that’s running a business, running around the world, or running in the backyard with your kids. I believe successful money management involves the whole person and not just the numbers on a spreadsheet. I take a holistic approach of meeting each client where they are, understanding their vision, and creating a plan that works with their strengths in mind. I focus on sustainable budgets, eliminating debt for good, and creating lasting change through healthy habits to build wealth, and more importantly, the life you want.
I originally went to school for Social Work at Western Connecticut State University and later received my A.A.S in Accounting and Finance. I became a Certified Financial Education Instructor, CFEI® in 2023. Since then, I have successfully helped my clients get out of thousands of dollars of debt and use their money to honor their values for a more fulfilling life. I truly believe it is never too late to rewrite your financial story and with the right guidance and knowledge in place, financial freedom, whatever that may look like to you, is possible.
I am fueled by my passion to help others build confidence and experience their own financial success – I am so thankful that I get to do this every single day! In my spare time, I can be found in the gym lifting weights, hiking in the mountains, or wrangling my family together for a game night. I live in the Raleigh area of North Carolina with my amazing husband, 2 awesome kids, and our pack of pets (4 dogs and a cat).
Want to schedule a call with Jess to talk about your finances? Book a call below!
Ruth Middleton
Financial Coach
My interest in finances began as a youngster in elementary school when I earned my first 5 dollar bill from my weekend grass-cutting job. After my grandfather handed it to me I remember folding it carefully and putting it in an old shoebox that I pulled from my closet. I had a tree fort project in mind, and I was laser focused on earning and saving up the amount I needed to buy supplies! I quickly expanded my efforts to include washing cars and selling sea glass I found on beach walks. My parents required that I keep a ledger of all credits and debits to the shoe box and despite some spending, always for candy, my pile of cash kept growing and growing until one day I had met my tree fort mark! I still have this handwritten ledger and I still remember the thrill of setting a big financial goal and learning how to manage my money to achieve it. Throughout my life the financial goals have kept coming and even though the numbers got bigger and more adult, I’ve always remembered how I persevered on my tree fort goal, and I know I can keep doing the same no matter what curve balls come my way.
After graduating with a degree in Exercise Science from Virginia Tech I got my first full-time job and started my career in another passion of mine, health and human performance. I spent over a decade working as a strength coach and helping people improve their physical well-being while continuing to learn everything I could about personal finance. I absolutely loved being in a gym every day but I also never stopped loving the excitement of building out a financial spreadsheet and seeing how I could work the numbers and create a financial system that would lead to achieving my goals.
As I continued to expand my knowledge I soon realized that there were many people around me who wanted the support of a financial professional who could guide them and help them understand the very things I’d been investing so much time into learning! After using the financial independence I’d built to take a multi-year sabbatical from work I decided that Financial Coaching was the next step in my life’s journey and I began pursuing the Accredited Financial Counselor designation and opportunities in the field. Now that I’ve been a financial coach for years it is an absolute dream come true to have landed at Financial Fitness Coaching and I am so excited to be here!
AFC Candidate
I believe that together we can build a financial roadmap that will help you create the life of your dreams! As we focus on identifying priorities, building efficient systems, and establishing clear, daily steps that will bring you closer to your long-term goals, you will find yourself with opportunities you never dreamed possible. I’ve seen it happen over and over again! Getting your financial house in order is life-changing and it’d be an honor to be on this journey with you. And, regardless of how you currently feel about finances, I promise you I will strive to create a coaching experience where we have fun and share laughter together on the way, after all, it’s not just about the destination, it’s also about the journey. I’m here to help you build a path to a richer life!
About Me
Hi, I’m Ruth, a financial coach who is here to help you use your money to create a life you love more and more every day! I am a coastal Virginia transplant currently living in the mountains of eastern Tennessee where I spend much of my free time hiking, biking, paddling, and anything else I can do to be outdoors! I also enjoy musical theater, lifting, sand volleyball, ultimate frisbee, and volunteering with my local Pride organization. When I need to slow it down, I love peaceful, quiet mornings sipping coffee and reading my latest book or working on the NY Times puzzles. My longest Wordle streak is 51 days and I hope to one day be able to do the crossword puzzle past Tuesday! Spending quality time with my loved ones fills my soul and I’m always so thankful for days when I get to do things I love, with people I love.
A guiding value in my life is continually putting myself in situations that expand my horizons and give me perspective on ideas, traditions, ways of living, and beliefs that are new to me. I love to experience new places and I’ve spent time living in Thailand, China, the Philippines, and Hawaii! I learn so much about both myself and the world every time I get to live somewhere new or meet someone new, and I’d love for YOU to be the next new person I meet, I’m excited to get to know the person behind the numbers!
It's a privilege that you’re considering me as your financial coach and I’d love to work together to write a financial story that you can feel proud of. Peace of mind and financial freedom ARE possible, I’d love to co-create that with you!
Want to schedule a call with Ruth to talk about your finances? Book a call below!
WHAT IS A FINANCIAL COACH
A financial coach works with clients one-on-one or group settings in order to complete goals based on individual needs and values of the client. Also sometimes referred to as a money coach, a coach is trained in areas of debt elimination, dealing with collectors, avoiding bankruptcy, managing day to day finances, saving and planning for large purchases, building wealth and making sure clients are set up for success in protecting themselves and their loved ones. Financial coaching is confidential and is a judgement free zone where clients can address both current and upcoming financial issues and concerns in their lives.
As your coaches, we focus on improving long term behaviors to create lasting results, facilitate decision making and improving financial situations. We will first create a customized plan according to your values, dreams and goals. We then provide you the tools and guidance to carry out that plan, become financially free and move onto the wealth building process.
Coaches DO NOT handle investments or insurance directly. Rather, we have surrounded ourselves by teams of experts who we trust and will refer clients to once they're in need of those people in their corner.
