More Money Podcast - 068 Getting Your Values & Money Right - Rubina Ahmed-Haq, Canadian Personal Finance Expert

Episode Date: October 26, 2016

Canadian personal finance expert Rubina Ahmed-Haq and I chat about how her upbringing helped her understand how to manage money at a young age, and how her career as a journalist eventually led her to become a popular Canadian personal finance expert and TV personality. Long description:  For this episode of the Mo' Money Podcast, I chat with Canadian personal finance expert Rubina Ahmed-Haq. She blogs over at Always Save Money, but she's been in the finance game for a long time. She started out as a journalist, but after years in the industry she realized her passion was for personal finance. Now, instead of being a foreign correspondent for ABC News, you can find her on almost any Canadian news station as the go-to money guru. Besides talking about her transition from journalist to expert, we also got into why she got so into personal finance from the first place. And it was largely her upbringing that made her so financially savvy. Although many of us aren't included in money conversations as kids, Rubina's family talked about it openly. This helped her get a grasp of the finance basics earlier than most people, and it definitely inspired me to make money an open topic for discussion when (or if) I have a family in the future. We also chatted a bit about values, and how many people and families have values that are out of whack so to speak. We shouldn't be focusing on giving our kids whatever they want, and spending money on them to show them we care and that we're good parents. That is not going to set a good precedent for when they grow older. They need to understand the value of a dollar and the importance of managing it and spending it wisely. That's something I got from living in a frugal family, and honestly, I know it's a big reason why I didn't get into credit card debt or live paycheque to paycheque. Some food for thought I hope. Follow Rubina on Social Follow Rubina on Twitter Like Rubina on Facebook Subscribe to Rubina on YouTube For more podcast episodes, check out the Podcast page. Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/68 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Episode 68 of the Mo Money Podcast. I am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you so much for joining me for another fabulous episode of the Mo Money Podcast. And today I'm very excited. This was a really great interview I did with a personal finance expert, a very well-known here in Canada, always on the TV and talking money. And her name is Rubina Amin-Huck. And you can find her at her website, alwayssavemoney.ca or on Twitter or everywhere. So in this episode, we talk a lot about a topic that I don't think I've really discussed too much in this show, which was really great. It was just really kind of the psychology of like, where are spending habits and our money habits come from? So we talk a lot about Rubina's upbringing and just how that really affected her growing up and how that kind of led

her into business and then personal finance specifically for her work. But before I get to this great interview with Rubina, I want to say thank you to Wellsimple for supporting the Mo Money Podcast and sponsoring this episode of the show. Now, in case you don't know, Wellsimple is the fastest growing automated investing service in Canada. Wellsimple uses smart technology to help you create and manage a diversified investment portfolio, saving you time and money. And of course, since you were a Mo Money podcast listener, you can get a $50 bonus when you sign up at Wealthsimple.com slash Jessica Morehouse. Thank you, Rubina, for joining me on the show today. I'm very excited to finally chat with you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you too.

Absolutely. So yeah, the reason I kind of wanted to make sure you were on the show is, you know, I think one day I was just Googling personal finance expert, And I know a lot had to do with you kind of finding the or realizing the importance of money when you were very young. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a pretty frugal household. My story is not unlike any other first generation Canadian where my parents came to Canada in the 70s and started basically not from nothing, but from very meager beginnings. Had to buy a house, had to save money, had to sort of just get the lay of the land and make their way in this new landscape called, well, for us it was was Toronto, Ontario, but for, you know, the Canadian landscape. And money was pretty tight. Like my father was the only one that worked full time. My mom did a lot of odd jobs, but it wasn't where she was bringing in like a huge income. And he wasn't bringing in a huge income either. So he was really supporting

us. And then, again, pretty typical of many immigrant families, a lot of, you know, times, my dad was helping his own parents out back home. His parents lived in Pakistan and they opted. So money was something that was always a point of discussion, sometimes a point of tension, but always a point of discussion in my household growing up because we always needed to make our dollar go as far as possible. And that was evident in the way my mom bought groceries, the way that my parents paid their bills, the way that our relationship was money. You know, we didn't have how we do now, just go to the grocery store and throw a credit card down

and buy whatever's in the basket. My mom had a very specific budget and she had to stay within it. And if she didn't stay within it, then she had to put stuff back. So that's kind of the way I grew up. And I took a lot of those lessons with me and sort of have formulated them so that they still resonate. Like I still find myself using some of the lessons my parents taught me with my own day-to-day spending. I mean, one of the things was my parents always recommended we do stuff for free because free was good, right? So I still, like now that I have kids, like instead of taking them to expensive amusement parks and, you know, making sure that I spend a lot of money on them, I really do focus on what's happening in the community, what's happening for

free, where can we walk, where can we bike? I still have that mentality. And I feel like a lot of people my age don't. Really, the focus is on let's get our kids out there. Let's buy them stuff. Let's make them happy by taking them to the best everything, which costs a lot of money. So I think that's sort of what shaped my first understanding of what my relationship with money was and how I view personal finance even to today. It is a very personal thing because it's the difference between having something you want and not having something you want. I mean, it literally does come down to, I think, those simple sort of lessons. Absolutely. So you that's really interesting that you say that money was a very kind of open topic for conversation. Or was it like, did you talk

openly about money as a family? Or was it just like something that you observed? No, I mean, money was a very open topic. I'll give you a good example. My in the 1990s. You know, you probably don't remember, but housing prices were really wonky, like sort of what we're going through now where people were like talking about, is there a bubble? Is there not? I mean, this was the early 90s. And then we realized towards the mid 90s that it, you know, things sort of simmered down for a while. But my parents were really interested in selling their home and moving to north of Toronto, Richmond Hill, because they thought, OK, we can get a bigger house and we can get bigger

bang for our buck. But we were really attached to our area, to our friends, very typical kind of teenagers didn't want to leave our schools. And so it became a discussion where my father said, I have $100,000 extra that I can spend. I can either put it into this house and renovate it and expand it so that we can all kind of, we were a family of five, so we can all live here happily and not be tripping over each other. Or we can take that money and we can buy a new house and that house will be brand new and it will be bigger, but it will be in a different area. And we voted on it.

And it was very much a democratic process where we voted three to two. I think it was like my mom and two of us wanted to stay and my youngest brother and my dad wanted to go. I don't remember exactly who voted how my dad really wanted to go. He thought it was a good move. And so money, you know, it was a very specific figure at that time, a hundred thousand dollars. So he took that a hundred thousand and renovated the house and they still live in that house in Scarborough we still go there and now no way yeah so it's it's it's just and we all felt very much a part of it and uh it was very real to us because at 14 years old a hundred thousand dollars is like it might as well be a billion dollars it just was money we couldn't even imagine but the fact that they made us part of that part of that process you you know, today, if I'm doing a renovation, I sort of think back and remember some of the

things I learned about just making decisions with a bit of just taking time and patience before you make big money decisions, rather than getting caught up in, oh, let's just do, you know, these type of ceilings and granite countertops. So I remember those conversations in my house because it wasn't just a case of deciding to renovate the home and make it bigger. Then there was all the extra stuff that we had to make sure that we weren't going to go over that budget that my dad had told us we had. So you were a big part of the renovations and being part of the budget and, what are we going to renovate and what are we going to fix up in the house? Yeah. I mean, it wasn't so much that we were, you know, I think in the end, my parents really did steer the ship. Like they're the ones that were making the decisions, but it wasn't like

our opinion didn't matter. So like if we wanted, like, you know, I was able to paint my room the color I wanted, I was able to make sure that the washroom that I was now going to share with my brother was the way that I wanted it. Like there was little things that we were able to do. But, you know, obviously, they had the final say. And at the time, like, we're not so concerned about, like, you know, some of the expensive finishings that we now get, you know, our friends have this kind of, uh, uh, finishing in their kitchen. We, you know, we don't, we're not, we weren't that concerned. We were more concerned about function. So I want to make sure that this really, you know, this really works for me. So they really did hear

us and made sure that in the end, the house was the kind of house that we all were going to be happy living in. Wow. That's just so awesome. It's not a story I hear that much. Usually the story here is maybe they did have frugal parents or whatever, or they didn't learn about personal finance and how to manage their money until later. But it always seems like everyone's like, oh, we didn't really talk about money when I was growing up. And that's a big issue because if you don't talk about it growing up, you don't know about money until you have to deal with it. And that's when you start making mistakes because you learn from your mistakes, hopefully. But, you know, lots of people, you know, don't have such a great kind of foundation like you did.

And I think hopefully, you know, more people will kind of do what your parents did and really kind of integrate the kids into those financial conversations. I mean, I know my parents did somewhat, but probably not to the same extent as you, but I definitely know if I have kids, that's going to be a big, you know, it's never going to be a taboo subject. They're definitely going to know, you know, how much we make and what it means to save and investing and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think we don't give kids enough credit as to how much they understand when it comes to anything, really. I mean, and that includes money. And that if we openly talk to them about it, then they will understand that there is only so much that can go around. So they might not get the same deep understanding that they will maybe later in

life when they actually go and buy a house. And I'm not saying that that made, you know, anything any easier. It just sort of made it more familiar. I think that's the better way of putting it where I didn't feel so green going into some process like buying a house or buying a car. I sort of already understood some parts that I had to take care of, like understand if I can afford it and how to do the, you know, figure out the payments or whatever it was where some people don't even have that sort of very basic understanding of how to, like if a car is $20,000 and you're going to pay it over five years, like they don't even know how to get their head around that. Whereas I felt like I could really make those kinds of decisions without feeling like I had to ask someone, like I could do it on my own. And that really, I mean, my dad is the kind of person who likes to talk about money. So that helped

to the point where sometimes it's, it's sometimes not a polite, I guess, like people like I like, we don't like to tell him sometimes what something costs, because we feel that he's going to go and tell other people because he likes to talk about money. but it worked in our favor because like I am, even now, like as a freelancer, um, I wouldn't say that I broadcast it, but I have a certain group of friends. I absolutely share what I get paid. I absolutely share what I think they're worth. Like I get people who call me all the time and say this, uh, you know, company called me and they want me to do a six month social media, whatever it is that it, you know, what do you think I should ask? And I feel very confident telling them, okay, I did this program like, you know, two years ago, it's pretty similar. I think you should ask this much.

And same goes the other way around. Like I've, I felt really comfortable approaching and, you know, salary is something that's pretty personal, but, um, I don't think I would have even that, like, I mean, there's, there's couples that don't talk about their salaries, right. So, right. There's couples where there'd be like, I really don't know how much my husband makes or my wife makes, which is really scary. That is scary. That's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's like, I think the most important, uh, like it's, it's just part of being, I mean, cause if someone later finds out you make a lot more than you let on or a lot less than you let on, just makes you feel betrayed. Right. And

then that's a good feeling. Yeah. Yeah. You want to feel like you're on the same page. So talking about that as early as possible is probably, you know, a good thing. No, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that because yeah, it's only, um, kind of into my later twenties, they got more kind of confident to ask some of my friends or co-workers how they made. Usually for the co-workers, I'd ask after I was leaving that job, I'd be like, FYI, how much did you make? Just out of curiosity. But then you kind of get an idea of like, okay, so this is what I should ask for next time, or this is what I should expect. And I mean, it's absolutely important, especially as women, we know we, you know, we want to be

paid as much as men, we want to have that equality. And so I think it's absolutely important, especially as women. We know we want to be paid as much as men. We want to have that equality. And so I think it's absolutely important to know how much you should be paid so you can ask for what you're worth, basically. Yeah, and it's a very delicate line of – it's a very delicate conversation. Exactly. I mean, you still want to hang on to your own marketability. Like you don't want to give it all away so that, you know, you want to make sure that you protect yourself. But how are we ever, especially like you said, as women and as freelancers, it's like, you know, it just adds to the insecurity.

Yeah, another dimension. Right. And I mean, like I had this happen just last week. Like it was a public service that called me. mention. Yeah. Right. How do you, and I mean, like I had this happen just last week, like, uh, um, it was, uh, it was a public service that called me and they wanted me to do a speech and what they were offering was, you know, they were all, they were suggesting I do it for free. And I just, I really, and I had a day where, uh, I had kind of put up with a little bit too much that day. So I think my, my, my, um, my confidence of just speaking my mind was really high. And so I sort of just pounded out an email and I said, well,

you know, I really, I can't do this. Like it wasn't rude or mean or anything. I'm well aware that you can, you know, that reputation can last a long time, but, um, it was very direct. Like, you know, I really, I mean, I appreciate your offer, but doing this for free would, would, you know, I just don't do that anymore. And I, but doing this for free would, would, you know, I just don't do that anymore. And I, that's happened two or three times in the last three months where I've been surprised actually, because some couple of things I was a bit, like I was a bit apprehensive because I really wanted it. But at the same time I did take an advantage of it. And I was like, Oh, if I lose it, I'll feel like, you know, I'll feel terrible. But I put my foot down. And then when they came back and they're like okay and it was

it was you know it sort of is the testament that if you sort of stand your ground and I always say to other freelancers we all have to do it together like we can't you know I can understand in the beginning like I did so much free stuff in the beginning just to get my name out there but and I still will like I I wouldn't, you know, if I was asked to speak to certain groups of people, I think I would do it. Like if it was a charitable organization, but, um, uh, generally speaking, I just feel that, you know, when one says I'll do it for nothing, then it just kind of brings everyone's value down, which is not good. No, absolutely. And yeah, same with you. I have

kind of a circle of people that when there's... And we all kind of know each other. And so if some kind of campaign comes along, we'll kind of be like, hey, did you get offered this? Or I got offered this. What do you think? And it is kind of a weird thing to kind of talk about because A, you don't want to offend anyone. You want to be delicate about it. But you also want to make sure that you're getting paid your worth for your work because you are working hard and, you know, it is tough at the beginning. You will kind of do some things for free or for cheap, but sometimes you need to kind of say no, which sounds hard because I, like I, you know, just have my side hustle. I do have a day job, but my husband is a freelancer. So I absolutely

understand his struggle. He's been at freelance over 10 years. And so he is always afraid that if he says no, or if he, you know, accept something too low or whatever, he's always like, is this going to be my last opportunity? Is this going to be the last time someone ever asked me to work for them? And it's always kind of that panic. And it never is. My brother is an actor. And when I was struggling with trying to figure out how I can approach this one offer and make sure that I got paid for it, because the offer sounded great. And we're having a back and forth on email. And I just wanted to make sure that that line came in. And I can't remember, he worded it so, so beautifully, but I can't like something like the minute you take it for free, you're not worth it. Like the minute, you know, or something, something to that effect where it's like you yourself are just telling them,

yeah, I'm not worth it. Like I totally will do this for free. Like you don't really need to care about me. He goes, but as soon as they pay you, you're worth it. So it's a totally different dynamic. And he goes, and you can, you only do it once and that's it. You can never go back and say, you know, now you have to pay me. He goes, that's it. Like, they're not going to, they're never going to pay you. It's, it's, they're getting it for nothing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get emails like all the time. I actually got one this week that it was some kind of, uh, you know, website that, you know, had a bunch of different offers, kind of like an agency. And they came to me, they had this, you know, campaign and they offered me $30. And I'm like, I'm sorry, did you get the right email here? And I'm like, no, this is my usual rate. And they came back with like $10 more. I'm like, all right, I'm marking you with spam.

I think I was also in a kind of a grumpy mood that morning. And I'm just like, no, goodbye. Yeah, it's a tough, tough thing. So I want to kind of, yeah, talk about a bit of your career,, when, you know, who, what, why, when. What's the who, what, why, when, where, how? Yeah, you got them. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, it's still that approach. I mean, I do a column every week on CBC Radio. This week we're talking about, you know, how are businesses responding to Donald Trump?

So, you know, it takes a lot to Donald Trump? So, you know, it takes a lot of digging and it takes a lot of understanding who's getting behind him. Why are they getting behind him? Who's not? Why are people being lukewarm? You know, if he calls himself a businessman, why doesn't he have, you know, the business community support sort of connecting the dots outside of the obvious that he's like, you know, the kind of person that he is. And so, but then at the same time, like sometimes I'll get called, like, I'm also a spokesperson for PC Financial. So when I do, you know, when I'm working with on a project with PC Financial, like I'll often get asked to give my tips, like how to save money for back to school

and how to, you know, make the most of your grocery shop. And that really comes from my own experience, my own expertise. Yeah. So it really depends on the hat I'm wearing, but I really do consider myself a journalist first where, you know, that's my core talent and that's what I'll always go back to if everything else sort of fell apart. And, um, that's what I'm best at. I mean, I'm really good at, you know, I'm really good at sort of relaying information and storytelling. But it doesn't come from great experiences. It also comes from just having that journalist mind, I believe that that's what it comes from. Yeah. Yeah. So So why did you want to kind of focus on personal

finance specifically? So I've been working as a news reporter for the better part of about 10 years. And I'd done a lot of stuff. Like I had been with, you know, local news here in Toronto. And then I went to Pakistan and I worked there for a while with ABC news because for a while I wanted to do foreign correspondence. That's cool. Single journalist graduate in the world, journalism graduate in the world. Yeah. they all want to do that. So I quickly realized that wasn't the thing. I mean, I still see some of the people I came across on like CNN and stuff. And I think, oh, my gosh, they're like basically in the exact same place where I left them.

You know, they're doing amazing work, but it's such a hard, hard, hard life. And then I came back and I still kind of had that bug to travel. So I went and I worked in England for a few years so I worked for the BBC for a few years again doing like doing like a lot of news and working local like for some reason I kept ending up so I was a freelancer and I kept getting calls from like BBC London which was so random because it's like working for a local station in Toronto and being from London London England yeah it's just people were really confused as to why

I was even talking. And it was, it was great. And when I came back, I worked for the CBC for quite a while and then I went to CP24, but I was getting a little bit, um, I was getting a little lost. I got to say like with what I wanted to do with my career. And I was really, really getting tired of doing odd hours. And people don't realize like how much it weighs on you when you start to miss like weddings and birthdays from your best friend of your best friend. And like how much that starts to just kind of accumulate into a feeling of, um, anger almost. That's the only way to explore. I was like, I just remember the day that I went home and cried and I'm like, I can't do it anymore. Like I can't do every, you know, so it's just,

so I started looking for a beat and that was my first, that was the advice I got was look for a beat because if you find a beat, then it's much easier to do more regular hours and you've got longer deadlines and you're not in this like sort of 24 hour news cycle. So business was my most obvious choice because of what I told you about how I'd grown up. I'd always been interested in business. And so it just so happened that at the time the producer at TSX quit. So I was working at CP24 and the producer at CSX quit and they needed someone pretty much overnight. So they were asking everyone around and nobody wanted to do it because it's business and everyone's afraid of it. So I said, I'll do it. Like I'll do the producing job. I go under one circumstance that

I can do on air as well. And so they said, fine. And so I went down there and that was kind of my life for a while. I booked guests and I would be on sometimes and they would be like, it was sort of just like a little, I ran this little, little studio out of the TSX. And so that kind of got me thinking that this is what I want to do. And I got, I met a lot of like, like I mean you meet like CEOs of companies and it's just really kind of good access to people yeah and like even today I can call and email some people

and they'll totally respond because we we built a you know a rapport over the years I worked there anyway so um so that happened and then the whole TSX sort of they stopped all that production out of the TSX and so like my contract wasn't renewed because there was really nothing for me to do. So I went and did my Canadian securities course because I thought, okay, I have to get some letters behind me or some credentials behind me. And in the beginning, I was doing pure economics and business. Like, I worked at, I freelanced at BNN. I did a pretty long stint with John Moore's show as their business correspondent. And we were talking about, you know, like the latest GDP numbers. We're talking about economic stories, like unemployment numbers, interest rates. Like it was really

sort of core economic stuff. And then I started getting a lot of requests to do personal finance. Like it just sort of snowballed into, oh, could you talk about, um, you know, whatever it was to, to save money, how to save money this way and how to save for a house and how to, uh, make, you know, how to get out of the paycheck to paycheck or, you know, like really practical stuff. And then one day someone started calling me an expert and I thought, okay, this is really awkward because I don't really feel like an expert. But then I, again, went to my little community and asked around and said, like, they're calling me an expert now. And they're like, well, you had so many years under your belt.

They've been calling, I was on Stephen and Chris at that point. And Stephen and Chris was calling me a financial expert, which was really heavy. And so that was it. And then I kind of realized that this was where I was happiest. I still sometimes do some stuff for News Talk 1010 where I'll talk up. I kind of relish it now because it gets me out of my comfort zone because this is my comfort zone, personal finance. So I'll do the business column on CBC and they'll email me a bunch of stories. And sometimes I'll be like, I've been reading this because I have no idea what this is about

because I haven't been up to date on what's going on in the business news because I have been so immersed in what I'm doing personally. But I mean, it's not that unfamiliar to me, but that's sort of how I ended up where I am. And now I'm kind of, that's who I've become, I guess. Yeah, it seems kind of, that's who I've become, I guess. And yeah. Yeah. It seems kind of like a twisty road to kind of where you end up, but that's just kind of life. It's just never kind of a straight and narrow.

And I always like, some people will say to me, well, how do I, you know, like there's so many people now that want to do their own thing online, right? Like they want to become a lifestyle blogger or they want to, and I mean, all of that is great because online is such an amazing community that can propel you so quickly if you get the right audience. I haven't been so, I haven't been so successful online. I have to admit, like my website is not something I paid much attention to. I don't have a massive Twitter or Facebook. I really stuck to the traditional stuff because again, that's what I'm comfortable with. But I, you know, but it's just, it's more finding that you can't just be a lifestyle blogger. You've got to be almost like a lifestyle blogger that talks about shoes. You know, you almost have to have something specific to hang on to so that people come to you when they have that need. Yeah, it can't be too general.

Yeah, I think that being a generalist generally, I think is a bad idea. Good one. Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. Yeah, I know so many personal finance bloggers in Canada, in the United States, and I feel like the longer you're a blogger, the more you realize at a certain point, you're like, oh, okay, I figure, I figured out kind of the recipe to grow my or, you know, go from blog to brand and really change things up is to kind of own a certain space or a certain niche. And, you know, starting out as a generalist isn't just, you know, you can start out as that, but then you kind of have to figure out, okay, but what am I going to, you know, focus on specifically? And, yeah, that's interesting that you bring it up. But it's also funny that you mentioned that you haven't really, you know, taken on the online world, whereas lots of people from the online world are trying to get into your space, the traditional space.

So that's kind of funny. Grass is always green, I guess. I mean, I guess so. And I think like, I just like I've tried, I'm trying now to do these vlogs online. Yeah. And I don't really necessarily think I'm adding value. Like my whole, my whole career has been, I'm not going to do it unless I add value, which has kind of been a roadblock for me because I will not put myself out there unless I absolutely believe I'm going to change someone's thinking or add value to their life or make some sort of mark. Like, I don't want to just do things that go out into the ether and never come. You know, it just, I just don't like that feeling. And I feel like there's so much of that. Like you go online, like I tried to do a little bit of like market research and go online and look. And I'm

like, Oh my gosh, like everyone's just talking about their life. And I'm like, if I'm going to be another human being talking about my boring life, whereas I don't, like, I really think that I'm a quite a normal person. Like I have, you know, I have two kids. Like you couldn't be more like normal than me. Like two kids, a husband, we live like sort of suburbia, like, you know, I'm pretty, I don't really understand how that would be interesting to somebody, although I've been told. That's just what people like though. People like finding people that they like, that they can identify with that are similar to them. So you're probably actually totally interesting to a bunch of people, including all of the listeners

right now. But my thing is I want to take big ideas that seem overwhelming. You know, you hear about it, especially in the business news, and it sort of just goes right over you and distill it down. And I realized last week, I did a column a couple of weeks ago, I did a column on interest rates and how to save money in this low interest rate environment. And is it even worth it anymore? Like just dump it all in a house and you'll be fine. Like what's the deal. Right. Um, and there were people that were asking like pretty, um, simple questions about TFSAs. And I realized like, there's still like, I always think that, Oh, well, like everyone knows what a TFSA is. Come

on. Like that's so easy. But I like, and the, like the other day someone stopped me and asked me, Oh, you know, I really want to do something different with my investments. I was like, okay, well, how are you invested? Like, that's the first question, right? Like, what do you want to do different? They're like, well, it's all dividends. I'm like, okay, what does that mean? What do you mean all dividends? Yeah. So they're like, they're trying to tell me that all their stocks pay a dividend, but they don't understand. Like just some financial advisor somewhere one day told them, you're going to make a lot of money because all the places we've invested you have dividends coming in. And that's all they heard was dividends.

And so it tells me that, you know, this core stuff I'm doing is still pretty important. It is. No, it's funny that you mentioned that because I did a podcast episode recently and I did it and then I went out to dinner with my friend and the episode I recorded was all about how you're paying fees on your investments and how two out of three people don't know they're actually paying fees. And I went out with my friend and I told her this and she's like, I'm paying fees. So yeah, there's some core things that you're like, that's kind of a no brainer for people that I guess are in this kind of personal finance world. But I guess for lots of people, the basics, if you aren't interested and you don't kind of read

blogs, newspapers, or go online and or watch TV or whatever, and are interested in this, you won't ever learn. I mean, we're not taught in schools. I certainly wasn't. And I mean, unless you kind of come from a family that is open about it and will kind of teach you, that's a good way to start. But lots of us don't and they don't learn until they're in their 30s. I still have friends who are my age and they're just starting to think about investing because they're just focusing more and just like surviving in the city and paying off their student loan. Right. I just think that we have our values have somehow shifted to learning more. Like, I bet you if you stop somebody on the street, they could give you the play by play of what happened to Kim Kardashian in Paris, right? They could tell you, right? Like, I just read an

article where it's got like pictures of her getting off the plane. Like even I know too much about it, right? I know too much too. I know too much. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's the problem is that we don't approach our, like the important stuff, which is our money, our family, our, you know, our health. We don't approach that stuff with that kind of interest. We don't really, you know, like we'll sign a mortgage agreement. We're not even really reading the fine print or we sign up to a gym and we're not even really focusing on how we're actually going to get to the gym every day. Like we just do things that we think are good for ourselves, but we're not really practically being critical about

them. So that the way that we're critical, you know, but yesterday, I read this about Kim Kardashian. So today, I don't know why this is happening. So we're able to do it with other things. Why can't we do that with the important stuff? That's all I know. I mean, we deal with money on a day to day basis. It's kind of crazy that so many people don't really understand how to manage it and what all those core principles are about. And I feel like, you know, part of it is, you know, just education. There needs to be more of it. And part of it is just, you know, I think, you know, back in the day, like in my parents' day, they heavily relied on their financial advisor to kind of steer the ship in their

financial journey. And now you can't really do that. I find you need to really take ownership of your money and know as much as you can. And sometimes it seems a bit complex, just overcomplicated and it's math and people hate math, but it's really not. At the end of the day, it's really simple. Yeah, I do. I think that if you really want to take control of your money, you have to manage it yourself. That is my absolute 100% opinion because you can seek the advice of whoever you like because that's a good thing to go out there and ask experts what they think about what you're doing with your money. But in the end, you need to understand it 100% backwards and forwards in order for you

to actually succeed because you'll miss things like those fees or you'll miss things like you'll buy a stock the day after you would qualify for the dividend for that quarter. So little things like, you know, you'll just lose out on or you'll miss a deadline and all of a sudden you won't get a certain break because you're in the new tax year. I mean, people do these things all the time. If I'm like, if you had just known this about your money, you would have made decisions differently. And then you wouldn't have had, uh, you know, you would have just, you would have made a, you know, if that would have been $50 extra in your pocket or whatever it was. But if you do that in little bits and bits and

bits and bits, it equals a lot. And it's just managing your money. It're forced to watch every penny. So many of us growing up have never been forced to watch every penny. So it's very easy to get like, oh, I spent 100 bucks on dinner or I spent this or who cares, I'll do my RRSP later because we have options growing up. And I think that those options have sort of created little situations where even if we fail, we're still going to be okay because we're set up that way. So I think that's part of it. I mean, I've seen some of my own relatives come, new immigrants to the country, they're better at managing money because they realize how hard it is to make it. I mean, I've seen some of my own relatives come to the country, they're better at managing money, because they realize how hard it is to make it. And they're way better at understanding, like they can understand, they have a better understanding of the tax system,

they know how to go and get a course for free, and then land, like they're just so much better at knowing how to get things done without spending a lot of money. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. No, I definitely agree with you on that one. I think we're definitely, you know, privileged in Canada if we kind of grew up in the middle class. I mean, things you can get anything you want anytime. And if you don't have the money, that's fine. It's easy to get credit. It's scary how easy it is. So yeah, that's definitely something that hopefully something changes. Well, hopefully you and me as we continue to educate people about these important things, we'll slowly change the world. Maybe that's a bold statement. Maybe, maybe. I mean, changing the world is a little bit too big for me, a bit ambitious for me. Okay, change our communities. I don't know. Make an impact in our communities. And help people understand that, you know, you're making a certain salary

because of all the opportunities that you were given and that you should be able to take those opportunities and teach yourself better how to manage that money. Like don't expect that the good times are going to roll all the time because people do fall on hard times and then you're thinking, wow, I should have managed better. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for talking money with me, Rubina. It was an absolute pleasure. Oh, thank you so much for having me. And that was episode 68 of the Mo Money Podcast featuring the wonderful Rubina Ahmed-Huck. And make sure to check out her website, Always Save Money.

Check her out on Twitter, on YouTube, everything. She's everywhere and she's got a wealth of knowledge that you definitely need to check out. And make sure to check out also the show notes for this episode where I'm going to put some stuff that we talked about, some important links, more info about Rubina in the show notes at jessicamorris.com slash 68. Make sure to check that out.

And of course, thanks to Well Simple for supporting this episode of the Mo Money podcast. Make sure to check them out at wellsimple.com. They are the fastest growing automated investing service in Canada. They use smart technology to help you create and manage a diversified investment portfolio. And since you're a Mo Money podcast listener, you can get $50, a $50 bonus, guys, when you sign up at WellSimple.com slash Jessica Morehouse. And thank you for listening. Make sure you, you know, if you haven't already, give me an iTunes review. I would appreciate it. And I would give you a shout out on a future episode. So make sure to go out to iTunes and

give me a review. And until tomorrow, I will see you back here tomorrow because I have another listener series episode that you will not want to miss. So I will see you back here tomorrow. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.