More Money Podcast - 051 Money Lessons from a Money Guru - Gail Vaz-Oxlade, TV Personality & Author

Episode Date: May 25, 2016

The one and only Gail Vaz-Oxlade and I chat about her career as a personal finance guru, TV host and best-selling author. She also shares her top money tips for getting rid of debt, kicking bad financial habits to the curb and leading a more balanced life. Long episode description: This episode of the Mo’ Money Podcast is brought to you byWealthSimple. To learn more about the the fastest-growing automated investing service in Canada and to get your special $50 bonus when you open a new WealthSimple account, go to: wealthsimple.com/jessicamoorhouse. Before I even recorded my first podcast episode almost a year ago, there was one guest I always dreamed of interviewing. At the time I thought it was just that, a dream, but one year and 51 episodes later it’s now a reality! I’ve been a huge fan of Gail Vaz-Oxlade for years. I obsessively watched Til Debt Do Us Part when I was 24, broke and living in a basement with two equally broke roommates. It was her say-it-like-it-is attitude and helpful advice that motivated me to save as much as I could and stick to a budget during those tough years. I am so thankful for her show and books, and I know I wouldn’t be as financially on track today if it weren’t for her. I am also thankful that I got the gumption to ask her to be on my podcast early this year, because I think I got her right in the nick of time! Gail has had a long and successful career as a money guru, and she mentions in this episode, she’s going to be taking a step back to focus on other opportunities. I hope you love this episode as much as I do! And I ardently encourage you to check out some of her helpful resources, her awesome books (Money Talks is a great read!), and join her community on Facebook. And make sure to check back here next week (or subscribe to my email list) for my final episode of the season where I’ll be doing a special solo episode and giving away some prizes to mark my one year podcast anniversary! Helpful Resources & Tools Gail’s Interactive Budget Worksheet Gail’s Wedding Budget Worksheet Gail’s Own Up to Your Debt Worksheet Gail’s Books You Need to Read Right Now Money Talks Money Rules Saving for School It’s Your Money Money-Smart Kids Never Too Late Debt-Free Forever Easy Money Follow Gail on Social Follow Gail on Twitter Join Gail’s community on Facebook Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/51 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to a new episode of the Mo Money Podcast. This is episode 51, and I am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you so much for joining me for this very special episode. I say it's very special because I got to interview one of my all-time dream guests, Gail Vazoxlade. I mean, if you don't know who Gail is, then it's because you've been living under a rock because she's pretty much like Cher. You just need to say Gail and most people know who I'm talking about. She is the author of 13 personal finance books, including Debt Free Forever, Never Too Late, It's Your Money, Money Rules, and my favorite right now, Money Talks. She's also been the host of several TV shows, including Till Debt Do Us Part, Princess, and Money Moron. But before I get to me and Gail's

interview, I'm excited to share that support for this episode of the Mo Money Podcast comes from Wealthsimple, the fastest growing automated investing service in Canada. Wealthsimple uses smart technology to help you create and manage a diversified investment portfolio, saving you time and money. And since you're an awesome Mo Money podcast listener, you get a bonus $50 when you sign up at WellSimple.com slash Jessica Morehouse. Check out the show notes for this episode at JessicaMorehouse.com slash 51 for more information. Thank you, Gail, for joining me on the show today. My pleasure. Great. I'm super excited to talk to you because not only are you kind of the main money guru in Canada, I was telling people that I know that I'm going to be talking to Gail and they know you by the first name. So that's a pretty cool thing. Yes, that's a pretty cool thing. By the first name. That's true. Everywhere I go, people shout Gail. I'm kind of like Cher.

Yeah, I think that's pretty cool but yeah I'm counting on you people I'm counting on you guys to take over from me because you know I'm stepping away from money no what will we do without you no no no because the thing is I've said it and I've said it and I've said it Jessica

and people need to hear it for more than one person because one person saying it all the time, I'm just like a drone now. But still, honestly, you were a big reason why I got so interested in my personal finances. I watched Till Debt Do Us Part religiously when I first moved out and had two pennies to, I didn't even have two pennies to rub together. So I learned a lot from you. I'm glad that so and I'm glad that there is this whole new generation of young people who aren't afraid of talking about money. You know, that's the thing that I'm probably most proud of is the number of people who are now willing to

open up their own personal circumstances and say to people, okay, you know what, I've made mistakes, but here's how I fixed them, and you can too. Absolutely, and I think that's what's really exciting too, and not just because I know a lot of people who are personal finance bloggers and stuff like that, but I think because there are a lot of us kind of out there that are more open, when we enter friendships and relationships, we're more open. So then they feel more comfortable talking about their money. And it's just kind of a ripple effect, I think.

Absolutely. Hopefully. But before we kind of talk about your book, which I've read and I absolutely love and we'll talk about that later in the episode, I want to kind of give some listeners who may be, you know, maybe some of my American listeners or just some people that are just starting to get interested in personal finance a little bit more about your background because you have a very interesting background, how you fell into the personal finance world. So I'd like to kind of chat about that with you. How did you fall into this kind of line of work? Okay, so what happened was I was working for a consulting company,

and they told me if I wanted to make more money, the only way to do it was to go into sales. So I did that, and I puked for a year. I hated cold calling so much. I'd get up in the morning, and I'd toss my cookies and have a cup of tea and go to work. And, you know, the thing is is that what it did, first of all, I was ticked. I was ticked that they wouldn't give me more money based on the work I was already doing. And so I was vengeful in my desire to make the next thing work.

And it was probably putting the anger to work for me that kept me pushing through signing all those letters. I mean, that's where I got, I have a very flamboyant signature. And that's where I got the signature was signing all those cold calling letters, because I would send out 100 of those every week. Right. And you you know when you sit there and you sign a hundred letters you get a signature yeah and it was probably that anger that you know I'll show you that pushed me through it as part of that I want a contract to design an RSP training booklet for a financial institution they were piloting this they had just brought on a new sales force and they wanted to train them. And so they were doing a pilot project around RSPs. And so, you know, they had a control group and they had the group that they trained

and the group that they trained did remarkably better than the group that they didn't train. And so then they tendered out the project for every single product that they sold, and I won the tender. And so I sat there and I wrote product knowledge and sales training material for every single product that financial institution sold. Interesting. Hello, financial education. Yeah. You know, they shipped me their technical manuals, they shipped me their procedure manuals, the legal stuff, and their marketing material, and I gave them what they needed, andlished the first one, got a publisher for the rest, and it took off from there. And, you know, eventually I just threw it all away,

tossed it over my left shoulder, moved to the country, gave up everything for two years. Wow. And sort of disappeared off the earth. And my husband at the time supported me for those two years, and then he lost his job. And it was clear one time supported me for those two years, and then he lost his job. And it was clear one of us was going to have to go to work, so both of us would have to be looking. And I sort of threw my arms open to the universe and said,

okay, so I need a job. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next, so why don't you show me? I got a couple of emails asking me if I wanted to host a TV show. Oh, isn't that nice and convenient? So that's how that all happened. I want that to happen. Like, all right, I'm ready. Come email me. The thing is that, you know, I honestly believe you get what you ask for. I think one of the biggest problems people have is they won't ask. Yeah. So not asking means you are accepting no as the answer. Absolutely. This is one of the things I learned from sales. Okay?

Yeah. You may get 99 no's, but if you get one yes, that's one more yes than you would have gotten if you had asked. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I totally agree with you just because my husband is a freelancer. He's been a freelancer for, I mean, almost close to a decade. And when we moved to Toronto about three years ago, we didn't know anybody here. And he had to kind of start his whole business from scratch. And he learned a lot.

And a lot of it was just kind of putting himself out there and letting people know, hey, I'm available to do work for you. And it's, I mean, and that's kind of how he's built his business. And it's, yeah, it's something that is so simple that lots of people are either afraid to do or they don't know how to do it. And the thing is that it's that fear. Okay. Very often it's that fear. I don't want to ask. I don't want people to think I'm pushy.

Be pushy. Yeah. If you want something, you have to ask for it. If you're not pushy enough to get what it is you want. And I say this all the time about consumer behavior. You go into a bank and you need something. You ask for it and you push really hard. I mean, I remember when I set up my last, you know, I've moved my account several times because I have moved many times.

And the last time I went into a financial institution and they sent me my checks and my checks were all, no, it wasn't the checks. It was my credit card. They sent me my credit card and the name on the credit card was wrong. They misspelled it. And I walked into the branch and I said, and so you will waive the fee on this for a year. And they did. And then they did something else wrong. And I said, and now my account fees will be gone for the next six months. And they did something else wrong. And I said, no, my account fees will be gone for the next six months. And they did. And every time they did something wrong, I didn't just say, okay, I forgive you, because they never forgive us. Nope.

Okay, I said, okay, but you'll have to compensate me for my inconvenience. And every time they did. So the thing is that we have to learn to ask, we have to value the business that we deliver to service providers and producers and say, okay, I am a customer, give me what I want. Now that reminds me recently, I did that with a new credit card I got, I asked them to waive the fee. And it was a bit of a struggle. I'm like, you know, I have a lot of money with you, you can waive the $40 credit card fee, I have other credit cards with you and they did and then i wouldn't they wouldn't have done that i had i not asked you just have to kind of think to ask absolutely

well so how did the so you got the email to start your own show which became a huge hit and you had it for like seven years i did nine seasons seasons of Tildet, almost four seasons of Princess. It was an odd number, so it was weird. It was three and a half seasons of Princess and two seasons of Money Moron. So all in all, I was making television for about nine years. Wow. And you had no experience being on TV before that.

And so, you see, the thing was is that the last time I left money, I left money because I was bored. I thought I had said it all. I had been Chatelaine's financial columnist for eight years. You know, I called Rona up and I said, sweetie, I have nothing else to say. You need to find somebody else now because I've said everything I want to say in the way I want to say it. And now I'm just repeating myself. And, you know, after almost 100 columns, that was absolutely true. Yeah. And so this idea that, you know, it now becomes incumbent on me as a writer to come up with one more fresh way to say something I've already said three times.

I'm tired. Yeah. So I left the city and left behind that whole career but the unique thing about going back to it was that I wasn't going back to just being a personal financial person I was going back to industry I knew nothing about and so I was back on a really steep learning curve and that's what I love I love being on a learning curve. And the steeper the learning curve, the more butterflies in my stomach, the happier I am. So it didn't kind of scare you, but if anything, it motivated you to just conquer that next step. Well, and it was all about, you know, what is it about television? I mean, people just have no idea what goes into making a television show you know every entrance I made through a

doorway took an hour and a half to shoot really yes that 20 seconds took an hour to an hour and a half to shoot because you have to set it up to shoot it one way and then you have to set it up to shoot it another way you have to shoot it three ways and if you get the camera guy in the picture you have to shoot it again and you know you would think after we had done a hundred hi i'm gilboss oxy let me drop my bag and have a quick look around that we would have it down pat but no two houses are the same wow and what i'm kind of curious as like you know i've seen a lot of the episodes you've shot. How did you know what to tell them? Did you come up with all of your tips beforehand? Did you just kind of go in there and see how real or how scripted?

Okay, so it was very, very real. And none of it was scripted because I can't remember lines. So I think it would be next to impossible. Besides which, it changes in the moment. Okay. They just have to say something different. And if you want it to be real, and I think one of the reasons why Till Death was so popular was because it was so real.

It was so obviously real. But what we would do is, you know, the directors would go out and they would shoot what we call B-roll. So they would shoot two or three days with whomever I was working with, and they would shoot what we call B-roll. So they would shoot two or three days with whomever I was working with and they would sort of get the story under their belt. And then we would have a story meeting and we'd all sit around and talk about, okay, what are the likely issues? What are we going to go for here? So, you know, sometimes we were talking about a whole heap of credit card debt, or sometimes there was a payday loan or

sometimes there was no insurance or you know so there were always we went looking for what the issues were and we would come up with some challenges that we thought would bring home the points we were trying to bring home to them and on more than one occasion I would get in and I would do that first interview where I sat down with them and had that very intimate chat. And then the next thing that would happen is we'd all pile into our car because we needed to revamp the challenge. Oh.

Because the challenge we had originally come up with wasn't borne out, none of the information that was originally gathered, because people were very different with me than they were with directors. come up with wasn't borne out none of the information that was originally gathered because people were very different with me than they were with directors directors went out with an agenda i go in with no agenda and so i am like a clean slate for them to write all over and they write different notes on me and so we have to deal with the notes that they've written all over my black board and so very often you know they would say things to me they had never said to the director And so we have to deal with the notes that they've written all over my blackboard. And so very often, you know, they would say things to me they had never said to the director.

And I, you know, never bat an eye. Because this is the first time I'm hearing this. I had no clue this was coming. And I just tell them what I thought. Yeah. Which is why I think the show is so popular. You're very tell it like it is, which is great. is great you're like this is what you need to do and and when i'm watching it too especially watching princess which just like irked me so

much i'm like oh my god come on you have like i watched this one episode recently with this girl who was going in debt because she like hired a private driver i'm like what are you doing wasn't that rich i'm, you're 20 years old. What's wrong? Who has a driver? Take an Uber. I mean, come on. Yeah.

Back then there wasn't an Uber. Oh, well. Take the TTC. I don't know. It just like boggled my mind. She was too good for public transportation. She was way too good for public transportation. That's just crazy to me.

Just crazy. But I don't know. Just by the stretch of shore. Yeah. I mean, she was was entertaining that's for sure one question i am because i do remember a lot like years ago when i was really into tildet and then there was an episode that was kind of um a recap of some people that you'd helped and this is a couple years later like do you have any contact with some of those people or do you know how some of them are doing? Everyone always hopes for the success stories, and they're doing okay. That was done on the web, though.

It wasn't done as a TV show. Yeah, that's right. Because the network would never let us go back and make a TV show, because that's the number one thing I always get, which is why I'm clarifying it, because people will go, what, what, there's a follow-up? There was no follow-up. Right, it was on the web. Yeah, we kept in touch with we kept in touch

with someone the network went back not the network the production company went back and found people that were willing to come back on the air and talk about stuff uh but i've kept in contact with a few not a lot but a few people and you know just like everybody else their lives change too yeah yeah yeah i mean just things happen and hopefully they'll kind of take some of the lessons you learned and roll with them. Well, that was one of the reasons why in the early episodes of Till Debt, the network always wanted me to do the debt repayment plan and the budget. Oh. And so if you watch the seasons one and two, maybe even halfway through three, you will see that I present them with the debt repayment plan and I present them with the budget.

And then I said, you know what? Okay, so these people need to buy into this. They need to do it so they can learn to do it. And so by season three, I think, it's a long time ago now, Jessica. Yeah, I know. By season three, I had them making the budgets and the debt repayment plans, and I was coaching them through what was right and what was wrong in them. But there was an enormous amount of pushback from the network when we started doing that

because the network didn't want anything to detract from my expertness. Right. And it was like, I don't care. You know, like, that's not what this is about. This is about getting these people on their feet. Exactly. Okay. So, you know, but they dressed me.

They even tried to send me to a voice coach. What? Yep. Before we started shooting the actual season one, they hooked me up with a voice coach who was supposed to help eliminate my accent. Why would they want to do that? Your accent's lovely. When she spoke to me on the phone and I said, okay, so I'm not sure why I'm talking to you, but so tell me what this is all about. And she told me and I told her to F off. And then I told them to F off because I thought it was just the height of rudeness. Yeah.

As always, what I said was, you don't want my accent? Find someone else to do this job. Mm-hmm. And then you got the job anyway. Of course. Oh, my gosh. I know. Yeah.

Well, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it. Prove to who? Everyone. So the story starts.

Better Man, now playing in select theaters. Next, I want, so thanks so much for answering some of my questions because I'm a huge fan. I know there's lots of huge fans listening right now. But next, I want to talk about your latest book, Money Talks, which I love. I've been reading it every day on my commute to work and back. And then I've been... It's fabulous. I love it. Absolutely. I just love how... Well, first, I've never read a financial book like this, which I really like the structure of stories that I can relate to, or I know friends that have had those situations. And almost every day after I read a couple chapters, I'll come home and talk to my husband, Josh, about one of the topics.

And then we have a really interesting conversation that we learn a lot about each other that we're like, oh, I can't believe we've never talked about this before. This is probably something we should talk about. So, well, first, what gave you the idea to come up with a book that was basically very scenario-based instead of here's what you should do? Okay, so what happened was I had already written all the process books. I did Debt Free Forever, which is make a budget, create a debt repayment plan, set some goals, figure out how to save. I did Never Too Late, which is all about retirement. How do you figure out where you are and where you want to go and what steps you have to take to get there.

Saving for School was about RESPs and how to use them properly. Money Smart Kids was about teaching your children about money. Little tiny book, very easy for any parent to wrap their head around. It's Your Money is the financial planning book, specifically targeted at women, but if boys read it, their penises don't fall off, so it's okay. But it's targeted specifically to women because women have very unusual timelines.

Their timelines are different than men's timelines, and so the financial planning part of it has to be different, because, for example, when a woman gets divorced, her cost of, not her cost of living, but her quality of life goes down, whereas a guy's goes up. Really? Yes. Women are more likely to become disabled than men.

Men die and women get sick. Oh. Okay, and so there are all these things that set us apart and so we need financial planning that addresses those things. So that's what It's Your Money is about. Okay, so I did all of those things and then the next book that came along, I wanted to write a book for the

generation of people who were just graduating from college or just going into college or university just going into their first jobs okay and so that's how money rules came because it's all the common sense of money so this is the crap your parents should have told you. And if they didn't, here I will tell you. So it's things like renting is not a waste of money. It's things like you have to save. It's things like embrace anticipation.

So there are 272 rules, think in the new edition and um they are all the things i would tell anybody who came to me and said okay so what do i need to know about money you need to know these things and they're not strictly financial they're not process it's not how to make a budget it's that you need a budget okay and so i had I had done it all, Jessica. Yeah, you had. That's like a full-on course load. On all those bases, the thing I hadn't covered was the thing I was getting so many questions on. How do I tell my sister? How do I tell my mother?

How do I get my partner on board? How do I talk about this? How do I make them understand this? Okay? And so I was getting loads and loads of questions on that. And so I pitched it to HarperCollins and said, let me write this book. And the most popular blog on my website every week was the this and that, which was the question and answers. And so that's in essence what drove this last book was all the people who write to me

and say, okay, so you know, my sister said she needed some help. I felt sorry for her. I told her she could sleep on my couch for a couple of months till she got herself together. It's been eight months and she's still there. How do I tell my sister to get off my couch? My mother has just informed me that I am her retirement plan. I can't do this. How do I tell her I can't do this? My child keeps hitting me up for money. I love her. I want to support her. I want her to know that I will do anything. I don't want to give her any more money. I don't think it's helping. What do I tell her? All those kind of awkward situations that will come up in everyone's lives. Except that, you know, you have to talk about this stuff.

Yes. When I did the book tour across the country, one of the things I said to people was, if you're not talking about this with your family, you're part of the problem because you're supposed to keep the secret. I know. It's funny's funny even like I'm pretty open with money me and my husband are open with each other but when it comes to me and my family my parents never really talked about money they they would complain sometimes that they didn't have enough and so that's why we couldn't do certain things but that was the extent of it I

didn't learn about money until I graduated university and moved out and had to figure out how to do money, basically. And I'm like, I don't want that for my kids. And I also want, you know, I have lots of friends who ask me about, how do I do this? How do I do that? And so I think this book is so great because so many people could just pick it up and find themselves in it and find some answers. And so one of the things I've tried to do is model the conversations

people want to have with each other but can't find the words for yes and so from helping your best friend to figure out how to make a budget to telling your roommate you know what you have money for a man and a petty you need to come up with your fair share of the rent and on time okay and telling your mom, hello, just because Susie keeps asking you to bail her out does not mean you have to keep bailing her out. You know you're going to die, right?

And I'm not taking on the job of bailing Susie out, so you better figure out how to get Susie on her own two feet. I definitely know quite a few friends and family members I'm going to send this book to. To be like, FYI, you might like this chapter. In a nice way. Of course, of course.

Yeah, one of the things that actually, like the other day I was reading it and I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to, I probably didn't pick the right time so I probably didn't take all of your advice, but I just brought it up to my husband because he is a freelancer, but I work a nine to five and and so we have very different incomes, how

they come in and out. The results. Yeah, and it's very tricky because I'm obviously very strict with my budget and saving, and he is not a saver. He's more of a spender, though he still doesn't spend crazy, but he doesn't have a budget and he doesn't track his spending, and it drives me bonkers. So I tried to bring it up to him without being a nag though it did come off as nagging which led to a nice eventually it wasn't like the best conversation that started out but it eventually led to a really good deep

conversation that came to like a good root about what we thought about you know how much we make and how we make it and what this means to each other. And then we kind of came to a better understanding of each other, which is awesome. So thank you for that. I think I might have, I think I may have figured out a good way for him to budget because he doesn't know like how much he makes per week or per month. But I told him, well, what I kind of do is I just have a checking account, like, you know, besides all of your bills that you know you have to pay and everything, just give yourself like a certain amount of money that you can only spend every two weeks and stick to that. And can you do that? I'll have to follow up to see if he's actually doing that. Just talk about it. One of the things I tell people who are living on a variable income is you have to get a month

ahead of yourself. Yes. You have to do whatever it takes to get a month ahead of yourself so that the money you earn in March is the money you spend in April. And that way you know exactly how much money you have. Exactly. Okay. But if you don't get there, then what happens is you're always trying to figure out, you know, am I going to have enough to make it till the end of the month? And that's a horrible way to live.

Exactly, exactly. And I think one of the things that we kind of figured out when we were chatting was he doesn't like thinking about money because when he thinks about money, it almost, it's hard for him to focus on his work because his work is very dependent on networking and it's in the arts industry. So yeah, so we kind of came to a, like, I don't know, I think we kind of came up with a

good strategy where he can think about money, but then not think about it all the time. So he doesn't worry about it. Right. And the thing is, is that, you know, when people say they don't want to think about money, here's what I hear. I don't want anything getting in the way of me doing what I want to do. And because one of the things I say to people all the time is that, you know, people look at a budget and they see a pair of concrete shoes and they think to themselves, I'm never going to do that to myself. And I see my budget as something that's very liberating because I know exactly where I stand and I know exactly how much money I have to diddle around with. And so I know which ones are my wants and which ones are my needs. And if there's something I really, really want, then, you know, I might give up two other wants in order

to get that one want. But, you know, it's this whole idea that you can't have it all at the same time. You can have it all. Over time, you can have it all, but there's a timeline involved in it. You can't have it all at the same time. That's just so childish to think you can have it all at the same time. It's funny that you mention that, because I feel like I've seen that somewhere

a couple times recently, and it's just been really dawning on me. It's like, duh. But I i have been and i know lots of people probably my age too are trying to strive for that get everything all at the same time which is impossible and nor would you want everything at the same time that seems very overwhelming yeah yeah that's crazy um so thanks so much for talking with me i have one or two more questions before I let you go. Sure. One is because you do have a book all about kind of helping millennials like me figure out how to do money properly, especially when they don't have much of a basis for it starting out.

What would be, I guess, one or two top tips that you would give for someone who is just graduating university and entering the workforce? Okay, so the first thing is you have to take a good hard look at your student loan situation and make sure that if you have student loans, you're not defaulting to the student loan repayment system, which will have you in debt for 10 years and make you pay twice for that education. Okay, so people are under the impression that the student loan system gives you a deal on the interest rate. It's not. It's not a deal. They are capturing back the interest they did not charge you while you were in school, believe me. And so you do not want to take forever. I say if you have an undergrad degree, you should be getting rid of it in five years or less.

If you have a master's degree, you should be working to get rid of it in seven years or less. And if you have a professional degree, it might take you the 10 years, but then a professional degree is kind of like a mortgage. Yeah. And hopefully there's a big fat income to come along with it. Let's hope so. The other thing is that you need to track your money. Yes. The single thing that will make a difference in people's management of their money is tracking what they're spending and posting it every month against the budget. So you need a budget and you need a spending journal of some kind so that every time you spend a cent, you write it down.

Listen, I have been doing this my whole life. Okay, you ask me what I spent in 2007, I can find the spending journal and tell you what I spent in July 2007. I love that. And the thing is that it keeps me honest. There are times when you are spending a lot of money and so your threshold for spending goes up okay so a few years ago I renovated my front yard okay it was a lot of money that laid out over a couple of months I got to September and looked at what I had spent for the previous two months and thought to myself okay you know what drop in $800 is like water off my back right now.

So I put myself on an austerity plan. I moved an extra $1,000 out of my checking account to savings and made myself live on $1,000 less that month. So I could reset my clock. I call it your set point. Okay, so I reset my set point. It also happened in reverse to me. After my last went into retrench mode to try and rebuild the emergency fund. And I realized like three or four months in, I realized I was having no fun because all I was doing was socking money away. So I put a line in my budget called pleasures. And at the time I put $100 in, it's since gone up, but I put $100 in and I had to spend that money. And so, you know, I buy myself tulips in the spring for, you know, the six weeks it takes for my buds to come up outside. I buy myself tulips once a week. Or it doesn't matter

what the pleasure is, It had to be spent. And so what I was doing was I was resetting my set point. I like that. I like that a lot because then you're allowing yourself to enjoy your money but not going crazy and you know where it's going. Absolutely. And the thing is that life is about enjoying what you can do with your money. And this is something that some

people lose track of. And so, you know, you have to put it back into perspective. Yes, you have to take care of the todays and you have to set a little bit aside for the tomorrows. You have to make sure you have a little emergency fund. You have to make sure you have the right and enough of the insurance. You have to do what you need to do, set aside money for retirement. You need to do the detail, but then you also need to be enjoying what your money can bring you. I had someone call me the other day, and they were in a quandary because they've always wanted a certain kind of car.

Now, I could care less about a car, okay? But this is important to this person. And dreaming about it, saving the money, now that the money is there, there is this quandary because I could use this money for something else or I could use the money for the car. What should I do? And, you know, we talked it through in terms of the lost opportunity for using that money elsewhere versus the

pleasure that would be derived on spending the money for the intended purpose, what it was saved for. One of the questions I asked was, so how would you feel if you drove the car off the lot and 30 miles down the road it was written off? How would you feel about that? And the response was, you know what, it would be okay. And I went, all right, so you're fine. But if what you would do is you'd go, oh, what a waste,

then maybe you're not ready for that. Exactly. So you have to ask yourself good questions, but you also have to remember that the point of earning all that money is to have some fun. Exactly. Don't be afraid to spend it. Exactly. But spend it smartly, if that's a word. Spend it consciously. Yes, consciously. Everybody's idea of smart is different. Exactly. And it's one of the challenges of personal finance is everybody's circumstance is completely different than everybody else's.

And so using generalities never works. And it's a hard lesson for the personal financial arena to get because, you know, what happens is you bring your own bias to it and you, what you want to say is, this is what worked for me, you should do this too, but it may not work for them, because their need, their driver, their motivation, their demons are all different. And so everyone has to figure it out for themselves. However, there are some basic rules everybody needs to follow. You can't spend more money than you make. If you're spending more money than you make, you're out for themselves. However, there are some basic rules everybody needs to follow. You know, you have to, you can't spend more money than you make. If you're spending more money than you make, you're headed for disaster. You have to save something.

If you've accumulated any debt at all, you need an actual debt repayment plan as opposed to throwing money on it every month and hoping to God it goes away. And you need to take care of the what-ifs. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and once you have those down, you're pretty on the right track. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. I was actually telling a friend the other day, we were talking about money on the subway, and I'm like, what is something that you would like to learn more or something that you just feel like you don't have a handle on?

She's like, oh, I just, I don't know how much I should save for retirement. I'm really worried I won't have enough to retire on. And she's 30. I'm like, you know, I think you're okay right now. It's really good that you're thinking about retirement, but I don't think you need to worry too much about the dollar as long as you are,

you do have a plan and you're saving something. Well, you know, and so the guidelines that I use for people is I tell people if they're in their 20s, if they start in their 20s, they need to save 6%. If you start in your 30s, you need to save 10%. And if you wait until you're in your 40s, you're going to have to save the RRSP limit of 18%. Exactly. So start early enough so you only have to save 6%. Yeah, I'll tell her that.

I'll email her right after this. I'm pretty sure she did start saving like right when she was like 22. Yeah, there you go. You know, that's when I started. I opened up my first RSP when I was 22 years old. And, you know, it's like I've always just been conscientious about making sure I slide a little something, something aside for the future. Exactly. And for me, yeah, I think I started kind of planning for retirement at about 25.

And because I do that, I don't really worry about the future because I'm like, well, I've got a plan and I'm setting money aside and it'll be okay. That's exactly right. And it will be. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me, Gail. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you, ma'am. You're welcome.

And go off and change the world, okay? I'll try. Thank you. And that was episode 51 of the Mo Money Podcast. Make sure to check out Gail's fabulous website. It has a lot of great resources, budget helpers, anything you can think of at gailfazoxlade.com. I'll also include some links and things that we talked about

in the show notes for this episode, which you, of course, can check out at jessicamoorehouse.com. And of course, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, this was brought to you by the awesome Wealthsimple, the fastest growing automated investing service in Canada. And if you want to learn more about them and how you can start investing today, well, all you have to do is go check out the show notes or visit wealthsimple.com slash Jessica Morehouse, where you will get a special $50 bonus when you sign up.

And one last thing before I let you go, as I mentioned a couple of times on this show, next week is my one year anniversary of the Mo Money Podcast. And it's also my birthday week, which is pretty cool. So I'm going to be doing a special solo episode and also be doing a couple giveaways. I'm going to be giving away a couple awesome prizes. So make sure to check back here next Wednesday for that episode. And if you just want to make sure you don't miss it, either subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to my mailing list at JessicaMorales.com slash subscribe. See you back here next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.