More Money Podcast - 010 My Story of Moving Away from My Hometown & Starting Over - Jessica Moorhouse

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to episode 10 of Mo Money Mo Houses. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse, and I know I said in episode one, my first ever episode of the podcast, that I would not do this, that this podcast was going to be completely me interviewing guests, but I'm going to kind of break that rule today. I know I've talked a lot about this particular thing I'm going to be talking about soon on my blog quite a bit. It's been a big part of my life for the past couple of years. But for those of you who aren't super familiar with my blog and are just joining the podcast, I thought this would be a great opportunity to kind of tell my story so you can kind of get a better idea

Starting point is 00:00:48 of where I'm coming from, who I am, and all that kind of stuff. So what I'm talking about, I know I'm sounding really mysterious, I'm just talking about my journey of moving away from my hometown and starting fresh somewhere new. It's just kind of crazy because i feel like if you knew me growing up or even in university i feel like most people would probably say i'd be the last person that would you know jump you know

Starting point is 00:01:20 do a crazy leap of faith thing and move to a new city. I know it's not as crazy as moving to a new country. And I hope to eventually interview one of my close friends about that because she actually has a very interesting story about moving to a new country and starting a new life like that. But I feel like a lot of people can probably relate to my situation, which is moving away from your hometown and starting a new life somewhere else. And I know it isn't a very crazy, like it's not even that crazy. I know it sounds ridiculous, like just saying it out loud, but whatever. It's my story deal. But yeah, I grew up in Vancouver, really a suburb of Vancouver, but whatever. And I moved

Starting point is 00:02:07 to Toronto. You know, that's not that crazy. I'm sure lots of people from other places that are listening to this are like, oh, yeah, good for you. It's not a big deal at all. It's still the same culture. You're still in the same country. It's still the same language. You know, what's the big deal? The thing is, it was a big deal. It was probably the craziest, scariest thing that I've ever done in my life. And not just all of that, which I will get into later, but it was also a very expensive thing to do. And that's something I don't think lots of people think about when they think about, you know, traveling long term or living somewhere else for a long period of time. It is expensive. It really is. And I'll kind of talk more about

Starting point is 00:02:55 the specific specifics of that, you know, moving along. So kind of let me start from where this all where where this decision happened um so I guess honestly I was never really one of those people that thought that I would move away I thought I was going to live in Vancouver I mean I I grew up in Coquillam which is a suburb um of Vancouver it's maybe a 30 minute drive. But then after university, when I got my first full time job, I moved to Vancouver proper and lived in the city. I guess I lived there for about three years and lived one year on my own with some roommates. And then I guess two years with Josh before we got married. And yeah, and I kind of just thought, yeah, that's it. That's kind of the way things are going to go.

Starting point is 00:03:51 But I guess it was kind of in the process of, I don't know, I'd been at my job that I kind of my first real full-time job outside of school for two years at that point. I was in the process of planning my wedding. And I don't know. I guess I was, I mean, how old was I? 25, 26. And I don't know. I know people think it's a ridiculous thing to say this,

Starting point is 00:04:20 but I honestly do feel like I was going through a bit of a quarter life crisis. I know it sounds ridiculous. I hate when people say it to me. It's like, really get over yourself. But I feel like that's what I was going through. Like when I was younger, when I was a teenager, I thought I had my whole life planned out because I'm a big planner, like crazy long term. I feel like if I don't have a 10 year plan that I like my life is chaos. Ridiculous. I know, but whatever. And so after I'd been at my job for a couple of years and kind of saw my life as what it was, it was fine. There was nothing wrong with my life. I had great friends, I had family, I was with men I loved. I mean, everything was fine. And

Starting point is 00:05:05 but I just wasn't happy. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like this when everything is fine in your life. Everything is going to plan, so to speak, and you're just not having a good time. And that's kind of, I guess, when things started to kind of switch for me. I needed something more. And I know part of this is because I'm a very ambitious person. And I love that side of me. And I also kind of hate it because I feel like no matter what, I won't be satisfied. Which is, I mean, you know, the part that's great about that is I'll always continue to strive for more and challenge myself and, you know, kind of the possibilities are endless. But the other side of it is you know when will it be enough I don't know that's that's a long-term

Starting point is 00:06:09 issue that I do not have the answer for and I doubt I ever will but it is what it is anyways recognizing that myself because I am pretty self-reflective and think about these things a lot um I got to a point where I looked around and I just wasn't happy and I knew I needed a change and I needed to challenge myself in a really big way. And so one of the things me and my husband, he was my boyfriend at the time, did was before our wedding, I guess it was maybe four months before our wedding, we went to Thailand for about a month to kind of backpack around and travel. And I'm a big traveler. I love to travel and just experience new cultures. And I thought that would almost be enough for me, that trip that would kind of,

Starting point is 00:07:02 you know, feed that hunger for something new and something exciting. But if anything, it just kind of made me want to do more crazy things. And so we had an amazing trip. I wrote literally, I'm pretty sure, a blog post for every single day that we were there. And I'll put those in the show notes in case anyone is interested in literally all the specifics. And also what is interesting about that for all you personal finance nerds out there, I wrote, and this is crazy. Sometimes I think back, I'm like, am I really that? Yeah, I am that person. I wrote down a budget for every single day that we're there. So I could keep track of every single dollar that we spend,

Starting point is 00:07:45 which is kind of great because then I could at the end of it be like, this is how much that trip costs. And luckily it was like, huh, it wasn't that bad. We could do that again. That's great. Anyways, so we went to Thailand, we came back and I'm like, yeah, no, Josh, we need to do something. And thank God he's just as crazy and ambitious as me and a big risk taker. And he was on board. I'm like, we need to, I think we need to move. I think we need to go someplace else and experience life in a different way.

Starting point is 00:08:18 And so we kind of weighed our options. Being Canadian obviously limits us to Canada. Yeah, we could probably try um the U.S. but it just seemed really complicated with the whole visa situation and we don't have any family members there so it just kind of you know let's just stick with Canada for now and uh we kind of you know looked on a map and um said okay where do we where do we want to go? And kind of the big two cities that popped out to us were Toronto and Montreal. I am a French speaker, though don't ever ask me to say something in French because I will just stammer and say je ne sais pas. I actually went to French Immersion

Starting point is 00:09:03 surprisingly, and i really should know french at this point but it's been it's just been too many years since i practiced so i'm sorry grandma my my grandparents are fluent in french like they still they're so cute they still have their french accents because you know my parents are or my mom my mom's side of the family is all from quebec um but anyway so so I'm like okay well Montreal is technically a option I could get by maybe if we stay there I'll become fluent again and I we do I do have family there and uh Josh actually has some family members members there too and uh so we considered that but then at the end of the day I think it just it just didn't feel right you know and uh

Starting point is 00:09:47 I don't know we just I always had a feeling Montreal was not gonna be the city that we moved to um even though it's a beautiful city and I actually do have friends that after film school moved there and are they're still there they absolutely love it but uh kind of Toronto was it like we're like yeah I think I think it's going to be Toronto and so there was when was it it was after our wedding before our wedding I can't I can't remember at this point it's been a little while um but Josh and his friend actually did go to Toronto for about a week for Canadian Music Week. And because before that, honestly, we had no idea what Toronto the city looked like, felt like, or anything like that. And so he went with his friend to kind of check it out. And he came back.

Starting point is 00:10:40 He's like, yes, this is it. I have a good feeling about this. And I'm like like I trust you and I honestly I know it sounds crazy but before I moved here I had I'd never like been here that's insane but that was just kind of the I think mental state that I was in I'm like I don't care just take me I just want to I just need to be somewhere different. I need something new and something challenging and something scary so I can kind of progress and evolve personally.

Starting point is 00:11:14 And so, you know, crazy us thinking what's the worst that can happen? We got married in May of 2013 and sold all of our belongings. Not that we had that much anyway, but still, it was kind of a crazy process of selling everything on Craigslist. I don't know if I'd recommend that anymore, honestly, because it was a lot of work for a little bit of money. But it is what it is. We did it. We sold everything that we had and um the few things that we were going to bring mainly just clothes and oh gosh I don't even like we really didn't

Starting point is 00:11:52 bring that much with us like no furniture or anything um but just kind of the essentials so we can get by and we found a sublet apartment um for the summer for a couple months and then we're just going to find an apartment after that I I quit my job and I'd been there for at that point three years and Josh kind of severed all of it. Not severed, but he, you know, because he's a freelancer, he kind of had to say goodbye to everybody and be like, hey guys, I'm not going to be in Vancouver anymore. If you want to reach me, I'm going to be in Toronto. So I don't know if you're going to give me business or not, whatever. And yeah, we packed up our lives, had some really tearful goodbyes to our family and friends and hit the road.

Starting point is 00:12:35 And yeah, that's the other thing. We did not fly here. Oh, no, no, no. We thought we'd really test drive that brand new marriage and road trip it from Vancouver to Toronto. And I'm actually going to put a map on the show notes because I actually did like for every little city. I kept track of every little thing. And there's also a bunch of blog posts I did about that. So I'll include that as well. But it was a long drive. I want to say a couple of weeks. And the reason it

Starting point is 00:13:01 was that long, because I know people were like, i'm pretty sure you can do it in like half that time yeah that's probably true but um we were driving josh's car i don't have a car and his car is standard and i don't know how to drive standard and i kind of refuse to learn because i'm old and i don't really care to learn so that's what it is what it is he drove the whole time thank you so much josh for driving the whole time and another fun thing we did which is also the nerdiest thing we probably have ever done we listened to books on tape but specifically the whole harry potter series on tape and honestly it was magical it was amazing it was super fun and it also kept us awake. So we did that. And two weeks, we actually made a couple fun stopovers. We went to Grand Prairie, Alberta to go to some

Starting point is 00:13:53 of our friend's wedding, which is beautiful. And we stayed in a lot of crazy small towns that we probably never thought we'd stay in like one that just kind of pops into my mind is uh minot north dakota or it's minot not not quite sure nicest people in the world they're so cute they do kind of have those like accents i love i absolutely love america honestly the best and it's not just because i can go to walmart and buy liquor i mean that's part of it like that's kind of pretty damn cool as a canadian like i feel like i'm a kid in a candy store you can buy like a flat of beer and groceries okay that's crazy um but the nicest people we met on our trip and that was really it just made the whole experience really exciting um in a very

Starting point is 00:14:43 you know it made it exciting because we also knew oh my gosh once we get to toronto it's gonna get real like we're gonna have to figure our lives out and uh anyway so after about two weeks we land in toronto on july 1st canada day which i thought was pretty cool because what a great start to your new life on Canada Day. It's kind of cool. Of course, what sucks about Canada Day in Toronto and Ontario, I suppose, is everything is closed because it's a stat. And like growing up in British Columbia, like that's just not a thing.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Like you don't, like everything's open. It's fine. Like what's the big deal? But no, in Ontario, you need if you need like food or liquor or any essentials, you need to buy it. Like you have to like stockpile that crab. And yeah, don't don't expect to be able to buy anything. So the only restaurant that was open near us was this Ethiopian restaurant. And I do not like Ethiopian food.

Starting point is 00:15:51 No, I do not. I don't like that. There's no color. I don't understand why that little bread thing is sour. Like, it's not. I don't get it. Sorry. Anyways, tangent.

Starting point is 00:16:03 So we get into our sublet. We meet the guy that we're going to be staying in his apartment for the two months. Really nice guy. I don't know where he is now, but the crazy thing is, you know, while we were staying there, I think after a couple of weeks, we checked the apartment office or whatever to see if there's any other suites available. And there actually was one and we found one really close to the place that we sublet. And after our sublet ended, the guy came back. We're like, oh my gosh, we're totally going to hang out. Never saw him again.

Starting point is 00:16:37 I have no, I hope he's okay. I forget his name. He was Swedish. Nicest guy. A little quirky, but it was a good time all around. So let's kind of get into what life is, you know, after all that excitement, like, yeah, we're going to start a new life somewhere. Well, we get here and we have no jobs. And then, you know, we were diligent about, you know, putting money in our emergency savings accounts. And I did start sending out applications for jobs before we left. But of course, I do find, in my experience at least, it is harder to find a job in another city when you do not live that city. Because I feel like when recruiters or whatever look at your resume, they'll be like, hmm,

Starting point is 00:17:24 what's that about? Why is their address in a different city? So anyway, so of course I did not find a job right away. Actually, it took me about, oh gosh, maybe it took me a month and a half or two months to find my first job. And I don't think I, I think I wrote about this and then I deleted the post because at the time I was still looking for work, but I took that job and it was a job sort of related to what I wanted to do. It was marketing, but I lasted, was it even a week? Yeah, it was five days. Yeah, I was there five days. And it was probably the most stressful five days of my life. And not because I couldn't handle the job or the organization was terrible, but it was not the right fit. I think I just took the first job that

Starting point is 00:18:20 was offered, not the right job. And it was not good. And so I remember, and this is just like so not me because I usually have my stuff together. I was in such a panic that whole weekend after my first week of work that I called my mom and I like was having a panic attack. And I'm like, I don't, I can't do this. Like, what do I do? I need to have a job to live but I can't go back to work on Monday like I cannot like I can't even and so she's like well I think you know what to do listen to your gut and quit it's okay and it's true but usually there's always kind of a negative connotation to quitting like it's a bad thing or you know and uh but yeah I'm like you know what this is not why I moved to Toronto I didn't move to Toronto to find any job I moved

Starting point is 00:19:14 to Toronto to get a better job I wanted to jump start my career I wanted to kind of move away from the job I had prior which was a little bit more sales focused. And I wanted to get something a little bit more marketing focused. And so if I made this big trip out to Toronto and start a new life here and take this big risk, I'm not going to do it for just a job that makes me have a panic attack on the weekend. That's probably a bad sign, right? Yeah. And so I went in there on Monday morning and I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm really, really, really sorry. This is not cool. I just, this isn't working out for me.

Starting point is 00:19:54 So I quit. And immediately after, once I left the building, oh, like a big weight was just off my shoulders. Like I knew that was the right decision. And I honestly, it's funny because it's like two years later, like I kind of forgot about that week at that one job. Like almost like it didn't happen, almost. Get groceries delivered across the GTA

Starting point is 00:20:22 from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. After that, there's another bout of unemployment, which was not fun. And being unemployed in Toronto in the summer, you'd think would be, oh, that's the best time. Not exactly. Because during most of that time, we were living in that sublet apartment and it was a junior one bedroom. It was tiny. It was with this person's stuff that

Starting point is 00:20:59 wasn't our stuff. It was a weird situation. And it was really hot like we're from Vancouver it doesn't get hot like most of the time you still need a sweater when it's like a hot day you know um here in Toronto it gets so hot you want to just live in a bath of cold water and ice cubes. And that was definitely something that we'd never experienced before. I mean, yeah, we'd like been to Thailand like a couple of months before, but it was nothing like this. It was just like muggy, humid, stinky. Oh my God, the stench. I can't even, like still to this day, once in a while, I'll like walk on the sidewalk and be like, holy crap, what is that? I actually had a friend, well, a friend, it was Kate from Blonde on a Budget and she was in Toronto and

Starting point is 00:21:51 we met up and she's like, Jess, it for real smells like garbage in this town. I'm like, really? I don't smell it. Which is also scary that now I am immune to Toronto's garbage smell, but that's a whole other situation. Anyways, so after I quit that one job, I was unemployed for about a month again, and then I got another job. And I wrote about this on the blog post. I will include it in the show notes. My experience, I was so happy to have another job. It was somewhat related to what I wanted to do. It was a really big corporation. I was really actually excited about that because I've never, up until that point, had never worked for a big corporation. It was a big brand name and two month contract job. So really not a lot of time there. And the pay, oh God, let's just say it was, there's a term I actually use in the blog post. It was basically like I went back in time with my salary and I'd never, up until that point, I'd never experienced getting another job that was like a lot lower than my previous job. And that was a big blow to my ego because again,

Starting point is 00:23:13 I moved to Toronto to accelerate my career, better myself, and just be awesome. Basically, this is like ridiculous inflated idea of, oh, life is going to be so much better in Toronto. Everything's going to be better. You know, and no, it was not at the beginning. Absolutely not. And so, but I took it because I needed something and I was getting desperate and you know, it is what it is, but it was really hard because at that point, I mean, I guess it was 27 and I went back in time with my salary, went back in time with my budget and was almost living like the same budget as my first year in my first full-time job outside of school. And that was, yeah, that was hard. That was a big, big blow to my ego, but I got through it. I made some friends,

Starting point is 00:24:06 actually one friend in particular, we're still really great friends. So that job was worth it because of that. But otherwise the job was also not so great. And I never really talk about jobs in the blog because I don't want anyone to, you know, find out where I worked and be like oh you were you know but it just again not a good fit for what I was looking for long term especially and so um I was planning on doing the full two-month contract job and went in every day and just worked my hardest no matter what and then out of the blue and it's kind of when you're not like I was still sort of looking for work, but not as aggressively as when I didn't have a job. And this email comes into my inbox. And it's asking if I was interested in interviewing for this one position, a position

Starting point is 00:25:01 that was very close to my old position back in Vancouver. And it was actually a friend of mine from my old job who had recommended me for it, which was awesome. I didn't really think anything would come of it because, you know, it's like if there's an opening, you know, you'll find out, but you know, you never know if there's going to be opening. And I'm like, yeah, I'm absolutely interested in this position. And so I interviewed and I got it. And I'm like, is this really happening? This was a better pay than my previous job in Vancouver. So it is an improvement. And it's something I'm familiar with. So I know I can do well at it. But it wasn't exactly marketing. It was more sales related still. But still, I was so happy just to do

Starting point is 00:25:42 something a little bit more familiar. I think I'd just been so tired of doing things that were so new and out of my comfort zone that I was so thankful just to do something that was so familiar. And yeah, I kept that job for six months. And then, but in that time, I actually also started the digital marketing program at U of T because I kind of realized, you know, I think in order to move in the direction I want, which is more of a marketing role, specifically digital marketing, spent like I was in school for five years. I spent thousands of dollars on a degree and it kind of didn't matter because, well, I'm not working in the film industry. So my film degree is a little bit, you know, OK. But yeah, I just never thought after university that I would need to go back to school to get a job. Like, that's just so annoying. It really is. But it is what it is. And do I regret going back to school? No. I think I honestly enjoyed and appreciated going back to school the second time so much

Starting point is 00:26:59 more than the first time. Like, I worked my hardest. I read every single book or article that we were required to read. I actually studied for tests. Oh my gosh. I was so pumped to be in school. It was so much fun. And I know because I did go back to school, it helped me get the job that I have today. And it also honestly helped me a ton improving my own blog. Everything with my blog I had learned on my own, but the stuff that I learned in school really was so applicable to what I was doing on my blog and to this podcast now. How cool is that? It's like everything went full circle in a weird, crazy circle, more like a figure eight or like a weird object that just connects at the end. Anyway, so that is my long story about how I got to where I

Starting point is 00:27:57 am career wise. But I kind of want to talk about some of the life stuff that happened in between. Because I feel like sometimes some of the blog posts that I wrote about my experience, it doesn't tell the whole story. And here's, I mean, I can't give you the full, full story, but I'm going to try my best. So I think one thing that people don't realize that is a big possibility when considering to move to a new city or even new country is the loneliness that you can get. I don't think, and I've told Josh this a lot, especially our first year, because I complained a lot about it. I don't think you understand how lonely you can get when you move somewhere new and you don't know anybody. Anybody.

Starting point is 00:28:51 I mean, I knew a couple acquaintances, friends of friends that tried to, you know, hook us up with new friends from our hometown. But we didn't have any family, you know. And all of our, me andosh's family are all back in vancouver and yes there's skype that yes there's email and other ways to connect but it's kind of not the same as being just being there like i honestly i said i probably talked to my family less in vancouver than i do now but i felt less lonely because I knew they were there. You know what I mean? I don't know. Anyways, so that's kind of a big thing that I didn't expect because I didn't, I honestly, I don't think I ever really experienced loneliness until I did this experience. And I was homesick. I was really, really homesick.

Starting point is 00:29:47 I'd say for a good year, I was really homesick. To the point where I'm like, Josh, you know, this was nice. This was a little crazy kooky thing we did. We need to move back, please. Like this isn't working out for me. I'm not happy. I'm really lonely. I don't think this is, this isn't working out for me I'm not happy I'm really lonely I don't think this is this

Starting point is 00:30:06 isn't what I signed up for I'm glad I hung in there um because things changed I think a lot of the reason I'm more comfortable being here and honestly I will say the second year that we have been in toronto and we're almost onto year three as of uh really soon actually um is year two whipped by year one was the hardest and i'll tell like and it wasn't just because that was also our first year marriage i know really great idea but honestly I tell this to everybody, we grew closer because of this experience. Whereas I know, I'm sure if some other couples did the same, it may not be so nice because it does really test your limits and you're stressed out and you're tired and you're cranky and you're, you know, all these emotions. But it actually worked in our favor, thankfully. On top of being lonely and homesick, I had a lot of, you know,

Starting point is 00:31:12 because I wasn't so busy and didn't have a crazy social life like back home, I had a lot of time to think and reflect, which was good and bad on some terms. Good in that I had a lot of things to write about. So it was great. I always had new content for the blog. I always had new ideas and all that kind of stuff. But I'd also on the other side of that, I went a bit like not, you know, sometimes it's a bad thing when you have too much time to think because then you kind of get into a weird negative mental space that you don't normally go. And so I felt because I was dealing with all this loneliness and homesickness and I wasn't necessarily in the place that I thought I was going to be, I went into kind of a dark place. And I would almost compare it to the same dark place I went to after

Starting point is 00:32:10 graduation when I was unemployed for eight months and just, you know, I'm like, this is not okay. Like I, you know, graduated, you know, thinking that I was going to get a job right away and start my life. And it was delayed by like eight months and I thought my life was over it was almost that same place that I went to and so and I do mention this in one blog post that like I'll put it in the show notes but I feel like no one would even realize it that I mentioned it because it's very quick that I did actually start going to counseling and that's something that I'm absolutely fine talking about because I feel like it's important that people talk about going to counseling. And that's something that I'm absolutely fine talking about because I feel like it's important that people talk about going to counseling or therapy or whatever, because we can't deal with everything on our own. We can't. I'm sorry. Everyone deals

Starting point is 00:32:58 with stuff and sometimes you need a little help or you need someone to talk to you that has a different perspective on things. And so that's what I did. I'm like, you know what? This, you know, is a good time for me to maybe see someone and see if they can help me get out of this dark place, this funk. Because I'm not happy. I was just so unhappy. I was almost thinking about, like, I can't believe I used to think that I was unhappy in Vancouver before we got married when everything was fine I can't believe I thought I was unhappy then because I had no idea that a year after that I would be this unhappy so I did go to counseling

Starting point is 00:33:36 and it did really help oh my gosh I'm so glad I did it. And I would recommend it to anybody who like, it's not even like I had crazy issues. I literally just went because I'm like, I'm not happy. I'm lonely and I'm homesick. And, you know, I have, you know, other issues that I wanted to talk about from my past. But, you know, it wasn't anything dire. So, but that being said, if any of you listening going through something anything no matter what and you're not happy in your situation I do feel like there's just you know life is short and you shouldn't waste your time being unhappy so do something about it and that's

Starting point is 00:34:21 kind of my two cents on that that's all um. But yeah, anyway, so I did that. That really did help me. And then I got, as it were, you know, we went back to Vancouver around this time last year and back to visit family. And we honestly hadn't been back to Vancouver in a year. And it was so nice to see everybody and it was a tremendous trip just reconnecting with everybody and I think one of the things that you know that I dealt with anyways but it is probably pretty common when you do move somewhere else and you don't go back home right away you have this idea that people are going to forget about you they're going to move on with your

Starting point is 00:35:05 lives. They're just not going to include you in anything because you don't live there. And that was always a big fear. I'm like, oh my gosh, we're going to go back home. I know it's going to have time for us because they're going to forget about us because they've already replaced us with new friends. And if they're good friends, they won't do that. And you also have to put in the effort. You know what I mean? Like you have to email them and Skype them and make sure that, you know, you haven't forgot about them and you haven't replaced them with new friends. It's kind of give and take. So something to think about.

Starting point is 00:35:36 All right. So I'm going to wrap this up because I can't believe I've just talked for 35 minutes. I guess I do like to talk to myself or to you. I mean, of course, I'm not talking in a microphone to myself right now in my apartment. But the reason I kind of wanted to do this episode and talk about this is I just need to kind of A, get this out for me, totally being selfish, sorry. And two, because i feel like actually when i was writing a lot of blog posts about my experience moving to a new city i actually got quite a few emails from people that were doing the same thing or thinking about the same thing and i've actually

Starting point is 00:36:16 met a couple people that they've emailed me they're like you know i'm actually thinking of moving to toronto i don't know anybody in the city. I don't really know what to expect. Would you be willing to meet up for a coffee and just chat and give me the lay of the land? And I know some people will be like, are you really going to meet a stranger off the internet? I'm a blogger. I do that all the time. So yes, I did. That's how most of my friends that are bloggers, you know how I met them, became friends with them? The internet. So it wasn't a scary thing for me.

Starting point is 00:36:49 And of course, I told people where I was going to be and had my cell phone and always been in the public space. So I was smart about it. But yeah, I actually met some people that emailed me and just chit-chatted about life and the city. And it was awesome. And I think I definitely kind of put them at ease, hopefully about just starting a new life somewhere.

Starting point is 00:37:12 And yeah, so I guess that's kind of my story. I feel like I talked a lot, but I feel like there's so much more I could explain and talk about, about my situation. But I think I'm going to wrap it up a little bit. I'm going to end it on a positive note. Me and Josh have been here in Toronto doing this new crazy life for almost two years. And that's kind of a cool thing because I swear a year ago, never thought this would happen. And I know I'll probably do another episode similar to this when we've

Starting point is 00:37:53 surpassed year three, because that's that in my mind, I'm like, that's still a little crazy that we're going to still be here after three years, but it's probably going to happen. So if anyone is thinking they need a change, they want to do something, and it doesn't have to be moving,

Starting point is 00:38:17 it could be whatever, I say do it. Just take that leap of faith and try it out. I'm just remembering right now that i promised at the beginning of this episode that i would talk about how expensive this was and i think i just went on a crazy like tangent about life and everything that's in it so i will kind of just like do a little talk about that um and i do think i actually blogged about it but I'm not sure if I gave a final number and how much it actually cost us. So I'm just going to give you a ballpark number, quite honestly, from our move from Vancouver to Toronto. And yes, we tried to be somewhat frugal in that two-week road road trip here and we were living off of just savings for a good like three months or so um in the summer before i started work and josh started

Starting point is 00:39:14 getting like connections and making work or whatever i i i'm gonna ballpark it i'm gonna say we spent like 10 grand that's a lot of money again lots of that money also went to furnishing our new place and we didn't like, yeah, we probably could have done it cheaper and gotten stuff off Craigslist and whatnot. But no, we, I think I was trying to compensate for things that, you know, I'm like, I wasn't working at the time. So I wanted to really kind of nest and make a really nice home. And so I didn't really want to necessarily cheap out on all this stuff. I mean, I'm looking at my apartment right now, and yeah, lots of this stuff is from Ikea. But Ikea sometimes isn't very cheap, just saying, you know.

Starting point is 00:39:58 So yeah, that's something to keep in mind if you're thinking of moving. It is quite expensive because it means furnishing your new place, possibly feeding yourself, clothing yourself, just starting all new. And this may mean also doing all this without a job. So thank you so much for listening to my 40 minute monologue about my journey from Vancouver to Toronto and starting a new life. I'm going to include any blog posts I mention or just blog posts about my journey in the show notes. So make sure you go to momoneymohouses.com slash 10 for episode 10 and for show notes

Starting point is 00:40:38 and all the other episodes I've done so far on the podcast, go to momoneymohouses.com slash podcast. And I just want to say thank you so much again for everyone who's been subscribing and listening and tweeting me and sending me feedback in their Stitcher and iTunes reviews. Super awesome. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. Definitely gives me more motivation to keep on going. So if you want to send me your feedback, make sure to do so. You can email me, tweet me, or give me a review on Stitcher and iTunes, and I'll make sure to give you a little shout out on a future episode. So thanks again for listening. Make sure you check back here next week for

Starting point is 00:41:15 episode 11, where I interview Jordan from the personal finance blog, My Alternate Life. alternate life. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.

More Money Podcast - 010 My Story of Moving Away from My Hometown & Starting Over - Jessica Moorhouse

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