More Money Podcast - 056 Life, Success & Moolala - Bruce Sellery, TV Host, Speaker & Author

Episode Date: September 14, 2016

For this episode, I chat with a truly wonderful man, who is so full of positivity and financial expertise, I can't believe I booked him for this interview! I'm of course talking about the one and only Bruce Sellery. He's a TV host, author, speaker and business journalist who makes money easy to tackle and kind of fun. In this episode, we talk about his successful career and how it all came to fruition, how he got to become a published author, and what the most important things everyone should know when it comes to personal finance. This episode of the Mo' Money Podcast is brought to you by WealthSimple. 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. Bruce Sellery is seriously a delight! I was so nervous about contacting him because I'm definitely a fan and just love what he's doing in the personal finance space. But Bruce being the genuine guy that he is, got back to me right away and was such an amazing guest to have on the show. In this episode, we chat about his career, and how it started in the corporate world, led him to become a founding member of BNN, and then eventually a published author, TV host, public speaker and personal finance expert. If you haven't read Bruce's books yet, I highly recommend them. As I mentioned in this episode, I just love his tone in his writing. I don't know how he does it, but it definitely reads like you're best friend is talking to you and just makes money something fun to tackle with his guidance. What I didn't include in this episode is a long conversation about dessert. He mentioned apple fritters as his go-to sweet, and for me I'm all about the cupcakes. And I couldn't believe he'd never been to Bakerbots Baking in Toronto before, then again I've never seen an apple fritter there. Bruce's Books You Need to Check Out Moolala: Why smart people do dumb things with their money (and what you can do about it) The Moolala Guide to Rockin’ Your RRSP Follow Bruce on Social Follow Bruce on Twitter Like Bruce on Facebook For more podcast episodes, check out the Podcast page. Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/56 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, happy Wednesday and welcome to episode 56 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host Jessica Morales. Thank you so much for joining me for season three of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm so excited to share this episode. I think, yeah, Bruce was absolutely, Bruce Celery is my guest for this episode. He was the first person I contacted for season three and I was super, super nervous because in my mind, he's kind of a big deal celebrity, if you will. And I've seen him speak before. He was a speaker at the Canadian Personal Finance Conference back in 2013. And that was actually the first year I moved to Toronto. And I was new to the city know, trying to kind of get my grip. And I, you know,

was familiar with some people in the personal finance community here. And I went to the conference. And he was one of the best speakers I saw. He was freaking awesome. He was a always stayed in my mind. And I yeah, want to see if he'd be able to go on my podcast because why not and he got back to me right away. Super awesome guy. And he was such a delight to talk to. So this episode is going to be a big treat. Now, if you aren't familiar with Bruce, he is a personal finance expert. He's a business journalist. He's a TV host. He's a professional speaker and a bestselling author. So he's kind of done a lot of stuff. And we're going to get into all of that in just one second, because there are a few words from our

sponsor for this episode, Wealthsimple. Thank you so much for sponsoring this episode. If you're not aware already, Wealthsimple is 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 of course, Mo Money podcast listeners get a special $50 bonus when they sign up at wealthsimple.com slash Jessica Morehouse. So make sure to check them out. Also, they have a really cool blog. I was just scrolling on there the other day and they had one with Kylie Jenner. So I don't know how they got her on there, but definitely worth a little look-see on their blog. So without further ado, let's get to the interview with Bruce. Thanks, Bruce, for joining me on the show today.

Totally my pleasure. I'm very excited to chat with you because, well, not only do you have two awesome books, but you've got a wealth of wisdom and I'm excited to to chat with you because, well, not only do you have two awesome books, but you've got a wealth of wisdom, and I'm excited to pick your brain. All right. Ready to be picked. Okay, great. So let's first, I'd love to know more about you. I feel like you have a very interesting and diverse story about how you came to be this personal finance expert.

So let's kind of go from the beginning. I know you studied commerce in university. You went to Queen's University. I did. Yeah. And so what was your kind of game plan in university? Where did you see yourself? I was completely conflicted. And I think I will live, my lifetime angst will be around my career. And I really had to kind of sort myself out in university because I was both this business school, keener, beener guy. And then my extracurricular was the Queen's Weekly Television Show.

And we produced this show on cable 10 and I was the assignment editor and I was a reporter and I was an anchor and I was so earnest and serious and graduating. I thought, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to go into pursue the TV dream or am I going to go, you know, kind of do the business thing? And I got an offer to intern at Procter and Gamble summer of third year. And then I got a full time offer. And I thought, well, what do I do? This isn't the dream, but it's a great gig. And it's an enviable gig. And I eventually went and I loved it. I was there for five years. I had a great time. I did all sorts of things. And then I went on my find myself trip in Central America. Oh, really? And took this book

called I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was. And so there I am sitting on the shores of Lake Panahatchewan in central Guatemala reading this amazing self-help book. And the question that it posed was if you could do anything and knew you would be successful, what would it be? Am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Yeah, go do what you want. So I'm in reading this book and I immediately, the thought pops into my mind and I'm like, oh, yeah. Cause clearly I want to be on TV. Yeah. That's what I want. And I have no question about that. So once you take the fear of success out of the, out of the equation, you take that out. So this question just takes that out. What do you want to do? Well, I want to be on TV. So I called my best friend

from the airport in El Salvador and said, as soon as my plane touches the ground, I'm going to deny that this conversation ever occurred. But what I want you to hold as a sacred ember is my dream to be on TV. And she said, all right, got it. I will safeguard that secret ember because I knew that as soon as I landed back in my real world, the whole idea would seem completely ridiculous. Why would you leave a great job with a pension, direct reports, money? Like it just makes absolutely no sense. So I got back and six months later, it took me six months to get my personal finance sorted out and all that kind of stuff. six months later, it took me six months to get my personal finance sorted out and all that kind of stuff. Six months later, I resigned and, uh, wrote a resume that had nothing

related to broadcast on it, except for I volunteered at universities and, uh, pursued that, that career. So that was really the ripping off of the proverbial band-aid to pursue the dream. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love that just because I could relate to that so much. Yeah. You said you went to Central America. Me and my husband went to Thailand.

We had our wedding date set, but we went on kind of a pre-honeymoon a few months before that. We went to Thailand for three weeks, and that was kind of my three weeks of what do I want to do with my life? At the time, I worked in advertising sales, and that's not where I wanted to be. And I not I didn't read as like as profound a book as you I found this book called If You Want to Cry, Go Outside. It was kind of about just taking control of your life and your career and stuff like that. And yeah, I read it. I'm like, yep, I think we should move to Toronto. I think we should do something crazy and just do it and really just focus on our careers and what we actually want to do. And I wanted to work in marketing. He really wanted to jumpstart his music career.

And so that's what we did. And yeah, it was scary coming back. We're like, are we stupid? Are we dumb for like selling everything, quitting our jobs and moving away? And we didn't know anyone in Toronto. Was there some ganja in that pad thai? I know, it's like, what did we, something in that pad thai.

Take this back. And my hunch is it turned out for the best for you. Yes, yes. Three years and yeah, we're really, really happy here. And my career is good, his career is good. And yeah, it's best decision, scariest decision, but best decision we could have made for ourselves. And the crazy thing is I ended up with a job within six weeks.

Okay, we weren't that lucky. I couldn't even believe it. So I had a whole plan. I got a Procter and Gamble marketing plan. This was, I was as aggressive on my career plan as I was on the marketing plan for Pampers, which was the brand I worked on.

So I did this plan and then I met a whole bunch of people. And this woman, you know, she was a very successful producer at the CBC and she went out for coffee and we sat down. Here's coffee. Hello. It's great to meet you. I'm starting this new show on, um, on CBC news network. And I'd like you to be a, um, chase producer on the show. And, and I looked at her, I was like, I don't know

what you just said, but you can't say that yet because I need to tell you why I'm great. And I'm great because of this. And I'm great because of this. And I'm great because of this. And I did this. And I accomplished this. And I am really good at this. And my strengths are this. And I could see her just kind of like her eyes glaze over and her smile.

And I know this guy's a lunatic. But I needed to say all that. And I kid you not, 20 minutes later, I had done my full pitch. And I paused to take, 20 minutes later, I had done my full pitch and I paused to take a sip of my coffee. And she said, I'd still like to offer you the job. Oh my God, it's not supposed to be this easy. I'm supposed to be like, I don't know, selling pencils on the street and here you're offering me a job. So it's, my timing was good. I got that job and I worked a whole bunch of different places before, um, 12 months later,

what's now BNN launched. And I was, yeah, that is so cool. So you were one of the founding members. Yeah. Yeah. So we met at a hotel. We didn't even have a studio. Wow. And it was, uh, it was, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. Our first studio was at Jarvis and Carlton in downtown Toronto, and it was full on Hookerville. Intravenous drug users. There was a pigeon in the studio once. And we'd be inviting these CEOs to come, and our address is Jarvis and Carlton. So you just hope you don't get shot on your way in the door. You'll be fine.

And then a year later, we grew up and we moved to a much nicer studio, and I was there for nine years. I was the bureau chief in New York City. I launched a documentary unit. I did a workplace show. It was great. I loved my time there. I tend to love where I work. Like that's kind of my thing. Like a very passionate person. Like you wouldn't do something that you wouldn't love. I can't see you doing for long periods of time. If it paid well, I would probably do it for a little bit. It's hard to say no to a good paycheck, right? Yeah. So you kind of found your passion in TV and journalism.

What kind of made you go from that aspect of your career and kind of shift it to more of the personal finance, helping kind of individuals tackle their personal money problems. I'm going to give you the practical answer and the philosophical answer. Yes, please. Which would you like first? Oh, whatever you like. All right. So the practical answer is my now, well, I guess we're married at that point, but my husband got his dream job in Calgary. So we commuted for three years, me flying to Calgary. And it worked. It worked. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a long time. We actually still commute between Toronto and Calgary, but we, I lived there for five years and then now we're commuting again, but it's fine.

Yeah. Um, the, so practically I needed to move to Calgary because I wanted to have a kid and we have to be in the same city to have a kid. That was just, I mean, you can commute once you have the kid, but to get the kid, the adoption agency doesn't do a great home study when you actually don't live together that's a problem so I moved to Calgary and then um I was like what am I gonna do and what the insight that I was sort of circular circling around was why is it that smart people do dumb things with their money? Like why did that doesn't make any sense? Because you would think that if you're doing dumb things, you must be not an intelligent person. And I had this friend of mine from business school,

call me up and ask me a question, a basic personal finance questions that you and I could answer. Well, falling down drunk in the bottom. Well, like we would just like to think so yeah everybody not know the answer to that she didn't know the answer to that and so I thought okay that that's the thing smart people do dumb things with their money what am I what could I do about that so I organized this workshop in a local community center and I charged everybody like 100 bucks that we we donated to charity an entrepreneurship charity for students. Because I know how to design training. I can design and deliver training. I've been doing that for years. So I started these workshops and it was amazing. It was a really transformational experience because my approach is quite different. It is not a

knowledge-based approach. It's an insight-based approach. Very, very different. So I did these workshops. I got a book deal with what's now Random House. The book came out. I got a show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it was all of a sudden just kind of all, I'm a revisionist and a deluded optimist. So in hindsight, it all just happened. And there were rainbows and unicorns dancing through the streets. But it was hard and awful. It sounded like you had a hustle. Yeah, you're a very passionate person and you can kind of make it sound like things happen easy. But you worked hard and you hustled and you networked and you did what you needed to do for sure.

I'm a hustler. Yeah, absolutely. I know how to hustle. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's really, that was what led, it was the insight that led me to personal finance. And also that I felt like there was something I could provide that wasn't out there already. And there's a lot of great, I mean, this is your world. You and I live in the same world. There's a lot of great people out there, but I felt that there was something different that I could add in the insight realm and also different in the tone realm.

Yeah, absolutely. And I can tell that just from reading your two books. There are a lot of personal finance books out there that kind of teach the same principles, but it's all about how you teach it. So I found, I really like your personality and your approach because it's very, I don't know, comfortable. I feel like a friend know, your personality and your approach because it's very, I don't know, comfortable. I feel like a friend is talking to me. And I think that's really helpful. That was the idea. In fact, when I wrote the first draft, I sent the first draft to six people.

And I said, just read it and tell me what you don't understand. But also tell me when you don't hear my voice. Yeah. Because I like all of us can get into jargony jargers, jargonson sometimes, and just speaking in a way that doesn't actually make sense to people. It's not how people talk. And I got this incredible feedback from, from people to say, I have no idea what you're talking about here, or where are you? Why are you not talking to me? Tell me a story. Exactly. So it was really helpful. Yeah. But never, never read a book. It's the worst thing ever in the history of the world. Don't do it. I kind of want to though. It sounds kind of, it sounds like a cool accomplishment.

I mean, how cool is it to say that you wrote not one, but two books? It is. It's a great accomplishment. It is. But it's very hard. It's really hard. Yeah. Really hard. Yeah. I get that. I mean, I find it hard to write blog posts. Yeah.

It's like 700 words. Yeah. And I struggle. I'm also a polar, polar, polar, polar extrovert. Oh, I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. It's abundantly clear.

My six-year-old is quite hilarious. So she is very much like me. And so we're riding a tandem bike coming home from swimming. That's adorable. She does, as she always does, she just says hello to people. As we're like bellows at the top of it. Hello, hello. She could strike up a conversation with a dish towel and that's so perfectly so

that's kind of me too and so the solitary nature of writing a book was really hard and it like how long did it take you to write your first book well i still have the notes from the meeting i had with a publishing person in 2001 The book came out in 2011. So I really, I got the deal in, I want to say June of 2009 and submitted the manuscript basically a year later. I think that's about right. So it takes, it doesn't have to take that long. And people who don't work with a traditional publisher, if you're doing a self-published book it can be much faster um but the bottom line is you're writing 60 to 70,000 words those words do not fall from the sky like rain drops you gotta like work for those words and you probably write 120,000 to get the 60,000 that you want in the book what i don't understand because it's like

how do you know how to write a book if you've never written a book before? Did you do research on how to write a book? Like, how does that even happen? Oh, no. I was blessed. First of all, I was blessed with an amazing editor. She's just, she was just, I just want to smooch her. The memory of that relationship was so amazing. And so she really, she basically said, it's all in you. We want nothing other than you. So it wasn't like I was trying to find a voice or a style. I was just to do it in my own way. Now, I will say I am a very organized thinker and an organized project manager. So she said, I am the only author that has ever come to her with a work back schedule. She's looking at it going, I know what that is, but it's not usually

something that the author shows up with. But I needed that because I didn't know the phases. I didn't know the difference between a substantive edit and a line edit and a copy edit. I don't know what those things are. So putting them on a work back schedule, she was able to say, listen, okay, so here's from here, once you submit the first draft, then it takes me this amount of time to do the substantive edit, then it's going to take about this amount of time to do for you to do the changes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I just approached it like a big project and broke it down into manageable chunks. It was still incredibly painful. So why did you write a second book? Oh, my God.

Do you know? Well, here's what happened with the bloody second book. I was going to write a very short little RRSP thing. And I was just going to kind of self-publish it or I didn't even, wasn't really clear what I was going to do. So I talked to my editor and I said, oh yeah, just, you know, I'm doing this little RRSP thing. And she said in the loveliest, nicest way, remember we have right of first refusal. It's like, oh my God, I didn't even think of that. So I had a contractual obligation to give them the right to refuse.

So I sent her what I had, and she said, first of all, there's a book there. It doesn't have to be a short thing. There's actually a whole book there. And second of all, we want it. Oh. Oh. Now you got a book. Oh, my God.

I can't believe I'm doing this again. This is a terrible idea. But I did and it was way, way, way easier the second time. Yeah, because you knew what to expect and how to do it, right? Yeah, yeah. Do you think you'll write another one? I don't know. Here's why I don't know.

For me, my personality type and my skill set, it takes everything for me to write a book. What's easy is television. What's easy is video. What's easy is radio. Like those are things that are really, really easy. So given where I am in my career, I've got a foundation laid and I don't need the book to put me in the public sphere like I did with the first one. So now I'm on City Line. I do City Line. I'm the City Line guy. I can do that.

And I don't mean to be obnoxious about it, but those relationships are already formed. Because there's no money in books. There's no money. That's what I hear. The whole thing is hilarious. My advance, I think, was $10,000. And so, you know, and I earned out my advance and then some, but maybe I made, I don't know what I made, maybe 20 grand, which it was a year of my life. Yeah. It's like you, you can't live off that. No. And, and I make, uh, you know,

when I do a keynote, I make substantially more than I would ever make in a million years writing a book. So, you know, I don't know. How's that? Never say never, right? Never say never. I would never say never. But it does make sense that you're more kind of, um, interested in doing TV and radio. Cause that does kind of um interested in doing tv and radio because that does kind of fit your personality and i think you should go with that just because lots of people aren't comfortable they're more like especially personal finance most of the bloggers i know are incredible introverts and are terror like they'd be terrified to ever be on tv or anything like that yeah so you've kind of got you know something special where you're actually totally fine

you know being on camera and talking about all that stuff on the fly. Not many people can do that. I was in at CBC today and I do what's called CBC radio syndication. And what that means is I do all of the weekend shows in the whole country in an afternoon. So I sit in a booth with no windows and you hear a click and it's like, hey, it's Halifax. And I do the interview with Halifax and then they hang up and then click, Hey, it's Vancouver. And then I do the interview with Vancouver and I do this whole thing. So that's great. I go to do the Toronto one, the one for Ontario. And the host says, you know what? We've done this topic recently. I'm sorry. We

should have let you know, but we didn't. I said, that's fine. I don't mind. That's great. Um, but I'm happy to do something else. And they said, well, but what, how would you prepare? How would you prepare? And I said, I don't need to prepare. Like, what do you want to do? I'll just do it. So I had to do another bunch of cities. And then I came back and she said, worked up this whole segment about a, who knows what, and I just did it. But it's the, it's the way that a writer could look at the clock and someone would say, your deadline is 60 minutes and you need to have this thousand word newspaper article done in 60 minutes. I would burst into tears and run for the medicine cabinet and swallow a bottle of Tums. But someone who's worked in a deadline newsroom in the newspaper world would be like like, clickety clackety, clickety clackety send. Yeah. So it's just really you develop competency in what you weigh what you're good at, but also what what do you do? Like, how do you what do you do?

And there's things for everyone listening to our conversation. They go, Oh, yeah, I could totally do that. Like, no big deal. I could I could cook for 10 people without even thinking about it'd be no big deal. Whereas another person would be in tears and having a whole bottle of Tums. Absolutely. So I would want to talk a little bit about Moolala. So you have your company, Moolala. Yes. Let's talk a little bit about that.

When did that come about? I started that really with the workshops, but I didn't know what that would actually mean. And I have, I actually kept. Where'd you come up with the name anyway? I love it. Just came to me. Really? It's one of those ones.

It just came to me. And then, you know, I would sort of talk about it. And I have this one friend from my BNN days and she said, it's magic. You need to trademark it. Yeah. And it needs to be your book. It's gold. So, yeah, yeah.

And people, they, some of them don't know how to pronounce it. You pronounced it very well. Some people are like. Moolala. It's like Moolala. Moolala with them. There we go. Some people mispronounce.

And I get introduced for when I do keynotes all the time. And they introduce them. They're like, Moolala. No. No. No. No. No.

But so I didn't know what the business model for me was going to be. I had a very clear mission. And my mission is to inspire people to get a handle on their money so they can live the life they want. So there's my mission. It's very, very clear to me. But what does that look like? What am I actually waking up and doing? And how am I making money from that? So I talked to probably 70 people, business leaders, journalists, pundits, people who did this, but in other areas like cooking, leadership, exercise, whatever. And I kept all those notes. So I have all these notes of what's the model, what am I actually doing? And now it has become like, I actually know, and I know the split of business and all that stuff. I do three things. I do media, I do speaking, and I do financial literacy consulting. And those there's a huge

ebb and flow. You know, the year I did the Oprah Winfrey show, that was a big piece of my income. These days, most of the media that I do is is for PR and because I love it, but it's not. Those are not the mortgage payments. No, let's go. I'm curious now, since we've kind of, you know, thank you for sharing your story. I thought that was very, very enlightening. What I'd love to know, since you have been in this industry, this business for so, so long, and you have so much intel about personal finance, what are some of the most, I guess, you know, your book is about, you know, why do smart people do dumb things? What are some of the most common dumb things that people do that there is an easy fix for? The number one thing, and this is going to sound really meta, but it's not.

The number one thing is people are oblivious. They just are oblivious. And if they simply paid attention, they would have a seismic change in the results that they have. Because we just don't pay attention. So, you know, what gets measured gets managed. And people do not pay attention to their money. And, you know, so let's take investment fees, for example, mutual fund fees. People, we know, I've been talking about this for a decade. So the knowledge is not new that if you're in a high fee mutual fund, your return is going to be clawed back by a real, in a really significant way.

People don't pay attention. They just don't pay attention. So there are some really big things that make a profound difference and little things that don't make much of a difference that people obsess over. Like, oh, I saw that there's a sale on Tide at the superstore, so I should make sure I do my grocery shopping there, even though the Safeway is right around the corner from my house. I don't really care where you get your Tide from, because you're going to save two bucks on a bottle of Tide. What I really care about is that you don't automatically renew your mortgage like a robot. Because in all likelihood, the institution that you borrow from, and maybe it's a big five bank, is going to send you that renewal letter and they are not going to give you the best rate. And the difference between

3% and 4% is enormous. It's an enormous difference. And people don't think about that. They are not conscious about that. And they think, oh, it's fine. I love my banker. I love, it's great. Sometimes they don't even sign the document.

It just renews automatically. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Like, I feel like some people focus on, like, the micro, the little things, but not so much the big things that actually cost them a lot of money. Yeah. I had this woman in one of my early workshops and she had this light bulb moment and she was just like, it was like a hallelujah conversation. She said, I could tell you to the penny how much I have spent on cosmetics for the last five years. And my basement apartment has been vacant for a year.

Yeah. So there you have left 12, they say it's a thousand bucks a month, $12,000 on the table. Like you flushed it down the toilet. And hooray for you, you know how much lip gloss you have consumed. Yeah. I mean, it's important to track your spending for sure, but I feel like, and that's just one of the things that it took me a little while to kind of figure out once I kind of got, you know, really understood about budgeting and saving and all that stuff. Then I started, I'm like, okay, well, what's next? Making more money. And I think that's kind of a thing that people forget about. You don't, you can make more money that, you know, beyond just your, you know, full-time job or whatever?

Yeah. I'm actually a contrarian. I don't believe it's important to track your spending. Oh. I think it depends. I think it depends because sometimes it can get a little crazy and you'll be like, where did all my money go? And if you tracked it, then you would know where it went. But I'm just saying, wait, I don't like to track my spending, but I know I should. Well, maybe you should or maybe you shouldn't.

Here's an alternative approach. It is called the Sustainable Spending Model, and it is A, B, C, Analyze, Brainstorm, Change. So tracking involves tracking your spending over the course of time, and it's just kind of what you always do. You always track your spending. When I hear people tracking their spending, it's like something that you do, like eating healthily, you know, like they do that all the time. Instead, I would recommend people analyze their spending and get right into it. Look at where's the money going for three months? What's coming in? What's going out? Look at it, look at it, look at it. And then brainstorm some ways to change your spending. But big ways, not little ways. Because I don't care about your latte. I care whether or not your rent is $1,000 versus 1300 bucks. I that I care about, because that makes a significant difference. And then change, change two or three big things. Change your career, change your apartment,

change your car, change something that's going to be material, get rid of your landline, get rid of your cable, change something significant so that you can find your way back to living in a place of abundance. And tracking, it's very difficult to be in a place of abundance when you're tracking every single penny that you spend. So really maybe a good strategy is tracking so you can have the data to analyze and then with that data, come up with a plan and then you may not have to spend as much time on the tracking. Yeah. Like kind of what I, like we're, me and my husband, we try to experiment because we're, well, I'm the Uber nerd and I make him do it. But we kind of experiment with different ways to like, you know, tracker spending or budget or whatever, just to like, maybe if we do this, maybe we'll save more money or whatever. And so we're doing this tracking or spending thing.

But beforehand, usually what I do anyway, is I just, I have a budget and then I just give myself, I allow myself this amount of money to do whatever I want with. But I don't really track what I spend it on and it's worked out fine. It's great. So I'll probably go back to that method but I just want to try something new. But I like your method too. Yeah, it's just simpler. It's simpler.

It's also more realistic because one of the things that makes me bonkeroo is when when people like us personal finance, people say, start by making a budget. Like, yeah, that's perfectly fine advice. No one is going to do it. Yeah, almost no, almost no one, you might be the exception. No one's gonna do it. So why give advice that you know, full well, no one is going to take it's, why give advice that you know full well no one is going to take? It's insane. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. So I would rather give people advice than they actually could do. They could do that.

And one of my models is a nutritionist that I hired when I lived in Calgary. And she's amazing. We did do a short-term bit of tracking on eating so that she could do the analysis, brainstorm some ways to change it, and then commit to a couple of changes. Because I love my dessert. I know, yeah. Love it. And she said, you should absolutely have your apple fritter. That's fantastic. But do you need the crappy slab cake that someone brought in to mark a colleague's birthday? Like, no, I don't. I hate it.

So with Abby, we quite often go to ice cream places that she loves that I don't love. Like those chains, the frozen yogurt chains where the quality is gross and I can't believe that I don't love. Like those chains, the frozen yogurt chains, where the quality is gross, and I can't believe that I'm letting her putting those petrochemicals inside her poor, delicate body. But she loves it, and so far there's been no data that says there are carcinogens in there.

So I let her have it. I'm sure it's fine. I mean, I grew up on McDonald's. I'm still alive. It's okay. But I don't, I'm not tempted. If we go to Baskin-Robbins, I'm not even going to pay attention to her or whether or not her needs are met because I'm having a double rocky road on a sugar cone.

And I'm doing that every day if I can. Oh, yeah. Because I love – Yeah. I know what you mean. There's two bakeries like a block from my house. Rattler. Rattler.

You've got to move. It gets dangerous. I walk by it every single day, like twice a day. It's dangerous. You need a new route. I don't know what you need to do. You need a practice whereby at a certain block, you look right. Yeah. Not see the bakery on your left hand side. I know. It's very tricky. It's very tricky. Well, do you have, okay. Before I let you go, I'm going to give you another, one more chance. Is there any other kind of crucial advice that you want everyone to know? Yeah, I, I, well, here's the thing that I, I know you have a lot,

I always start with the question, what is your money for? I always start. So any, it's the, where the books start. It's where I start in a keynote setting. It's where I start in conversation because having a context for money is what it is going, what's required to alter your behavior. It gives you your motivation. It helps you judge your behavior as to see, seeing whether or not your behavior is consistent. And society is telling you what your behavior is consistent. And society is telling you what your money is for. It's telling you that your money's for stuff. And it's telling you that your money is for retirement. Those are the two most dominant messages. And for most of us, we're

like, I don't really know what the money is for, actually. But we don't take a step back and think, well, if it's not for what society says, and it's not for what my parents said, and in my case, my money was for survival, and my parents were very focused on, you know, money's for survival. You can't buy that. Oh, my God. Rinse out that Ziploc bag. Yep.

So I then decided that I get to create what my money is for. And the context I created is my money is for adventure. Adventure, adventure, adventure. So we do all of this boring, stupid, silly stuff to manage our money. And we just had three weeks with Abby in Vietnam and Thailand. Oh, that sounds awesome. You know, and it was awesome. And this summer, like, we don't really work much in the summer.

And it's not like, you know, I'm not Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. We just make real choices about what our money is for and what we do and how we manage it. So our car in Calgary is a 1997 Honda CR-V. Like who has a 1997? And people, I have received the comment from a number of people over the years like, you really should drive a nicer car. Because, you know, I have received the comment from a number of people over the years like, you really should drive a nicer car because, you know, it sends a message. And I'm like, yeah, I know the message it sends. I love that message.

Yeah, it's like I'm spending my money somewhere else. Sorry I can't take your call. I'm in Vietnam. Exactly. Because I drive a 1997 Honda ZRV. Exactly. So really answer that question. And that gives you so when you feel like I don't want to, you know, or work the extra shift, I don't want to manage my temptation

around stuff. I don't want to I don't want to because we're kind of all four year olds at heart. Here's your answer. Because it's adventure. It's family, it's choices, it's freedom, it's beauty, it's prestige, it's whatever it is. It doesn't matter. Have it be your own answer. But that then is what will provide the motivation in those dark days when all you want to do is eat apple fritters all day long. And that was episode 56 of the Mo Money podcast with the awesome Bruce Celery. Make sure to check out his website, moolala.ca for more info about him. Also check out his books. They're freaking awesome. You can buy them. They're also at the library,

but you'll definitely want to check them out. I, of course, have read them and I love Bruce's tone. Like he's just, he just makes it fun. He just makes money fun. So definitely check them out. I, of course, have read them and I love Bruce's tone. He just makes it fun. He just makes money fun. So definitely check those out. And of course, visit the show notes for this episode, jessicamoros.com slash 56. If you're ever keen to check out the show notes for any episode, it's as easy as going jessicamoros.com slash whatever the number of the episode is. I made it very simple for you. So make sure to do that. I'm going to include some info about this episode. There's some kind of fun things that I cut out of the episode. And I also am going to include some useful links and resources and things that you'll want to check out. So just go there, jessicamorris.com slash 56. It's that easy, people. And of course, thank you again to today's episode sponsor, Wealthsimple. Don't forget, they're the fastest growing automated

investing service in Canada. You're going to want to check them out if you're interested in kind of taking control of your investments, doing it online and being smart with it. So make sure to check them out. And of course, if you want to sign up with them, you will get a $50 bonus as a Mo Money podcast listener. All you have to do is go to WellSimple.com slash Jessica Morehouse. And before you go, I hope you enjoyed this episode enough to leave me an iTunes review. iTunes reviews, I love them. I will give you a shout out in a future episode. Also, it helps me become a little bit more searchable in iTunes. So other people who are maybe looking for some, you know, great interviews about money or looking for some advice and tips, they can find me a little bit easier. So show me some love. If you

don't mind, it'll take you two seconds and I will say thank you maybe next week. So until tomorrow, because I have another episode for you tomorrow on my listener series. I will see you back here tomorrow. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.