More Money Podcast - 1 How It Started: My Personal Finance Journey - Jessica Moorhouse

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to the first episode of Mo Money Mo Houses, the personal finance podcast with a dash of sass. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. And if you're unfamiliar with me or my blog, don't worry. This whole episode is about getting to know me and what this podcast is all about. So I'm going to start from the beginning just to give you a little idea of where I came from and why I'm so interested in money and personal finance and all that fun stuff. So probably like most of you, I grew up in the suburbs. I grew up in Coquitlam, which is a suburb about 30 minutes outside of Vancouver. And although we were never poor, technically, my parents got married young, and they had kids pretty much right away.

Starting point is 00:00:51 So there wasn't a heck of a lot of money to be spread around. We always got everything we needed, but there was definitely times that it was evident that we didn't have something that someone else at school would have. I remember just a random memory popping into my head right now. There's a girl I went to school with, and in my mind, she was like the rich girl in school. She had a beautiful two-story house near school that she could walk to. Her parents had a BMW. And whenever we went to her house, she always had like chips and pop and candy and

Starting point is 00:01:25 basically anything. And it's funny kind of looking back now, like, I don't think she actually was rich. I think she just was, they probably just spent more than they could afford. Because now I know what her parents did. I think her mom was just a stay at home mom. And her dad just had a trades job. I think they just spent their money differently than my family. My family has always been and still is frugal and thrifty and always made sure that they didn't spend money when they didn't need to just in case something happened. And I think a lot of that has to do with their upbringing, quite honestly. Like my mom has three siblings and my grandparents are originally from Quebec and they were a military family. And I think they just always lived very simply and it kind of translated to my mom's life. And same with my dad, he grew up in Northern BC and I think he also had a very simple, you know, small town

Starting point is 00:02:18 life. And that's kind of how they raised me, you know, never, you know, it's always good to kind of shoot for the stars and be ambitious and all that. But when it comes to money, materials don't really matter. It's all about, you know, love and family and friends. And that did kind of put this fire in my belly that I wanted to have what my parents didn't have or they couldn't provide for me. Not that they, you know, I felt, I don't know how to say it in a way that I don't feel like I necessarily needed more to be happy growing up because I was a very happy kid and had a very wonderful childhood. But I just think when I have a family, I want to provide some extra things, some additional things to my kids, if that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:03:16 For instance, me and my sisters, I have two sisters, we never got an allowance. And that's kind of fine. We were just expected to help around the house and that was it. The only money we ever really got was for birthdays from relatives and Christmas. And so for years, I would just save up whatever I got for birthdays and Christmas and try to make that tiny bit of money, you know, sometimes just like a hundred bucks, try to make that last throughout the year. And it was fine, honestly, like if ever needed something, my parents would help me out like clothes or food or whatever. But when it came down to just like buying fun things for me, like candy or toys or whatever, I would have to pay for that. And so I just like started

Starting point is 00:04:00 budgeting, I want to say at like probably age 11, or earlier. I don't know. So I never necessarily, yeah, I didn't need an allowance to be happy. I feel like I got everything I wanted, but it kind of would have, I feel like there would have been less awkward situations sometimes. Like I have these big memories of being a kid and like going in the pool and some of my friends being, Oh, we're going to go to the cafeteria and get some fries. And I like did not have enough money for fries. I had enough money to go to the pool, but I didn't. So I just pretend like, oh, I don't want any. I'm fine. But you know, maybe that's fine. I mean, it definitely helped me become the person that I am today. But I don't

Starting point is 00:04:41 know. It's just something that I kind of don't want my kids to experience, I guess. Now, along the same lines, because, you know, we didn't get an allowance, we also, also because my parents got married really young, they never set up an RESP for us. So we never had a college fund like most kids have. And again, that's fine. It made me who I am. And I'm really proud to say that I'm the one responsible for putting myself through university. I think that's awesome. It's a great feeling to know that not only did I, you know, get into university, do well in university, get that diploma, but I also got to pay for it. It's a pretty remarkable thing. But on the other side of the coin, I know that I was very lucky. I went to a university that was very close to my house, and I lived at my parents' house for five years. It took me to do my degree. Not everyone has that opportunity or that freedom.

Starting point is 00:05:40 Some people have to, you know, they come from a small town or whatever, and they have to go somewhere else to go to university. So that means they have to move, they have to pay for their living expenses, plus tuition and all that stuff. So, and I also want my kids to have the freedom to be able to choose what university they want to go to. You know, I went to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and it's a great school. But I kind of had to go to that school because I felt like the only way I could afford to go to university and pay for it is if I stayed at home. And the other kind of local university was UBC. But it was just a bit too far for me to travel would have been an awful commute for like four to five years. So I chose like the best closest

Starting point is 00:06:25 school for me. I wish, you know, when I eventually have a family and have kids that are going to go off to college that they could not just choose the best closest school, but the best school. And so I want to be able to pay for that for them. I'd still, you know, not just be like, here's a free trip to school. Good luck. Don't fail. I would definitely make it so I'll pay for your tuition, but you have to pay for your living expenses. Because I don't believe that anyone should get just a free pass. I don't think kids will learn about money if they don't have to deal with it, if everything's just paid for them. And I know that because I met a lot of kids like this at university and they were just terrible with their money. They'd make terrible choices because it wasn't their money.

Starting point is 00:07:13 It didn't matter. Or they'd like have their parents' credit card or a credit card that their parents gave them and they just, what would you do if you're an 18, 19 year old on your own for the first time and you get unlimited money? You're going to spend it. You're not going to, you know, save it for a rainy day or to eventually, you know, have a retirement fund or buy a house. You're just going to, you know, spend. And eventually if you do get cut off, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to maybe get a job, start making your own money, but you're going to have those same terrible money habits. You're just going to waste your money. You're going to rack up your credit card. And

Starting point is 00:07:52 what do you think? So I'm very firm in my idea, and same with my husband, that when we have kids, we will pay for their school, but they need to have a job. I think it's a ridiculous notion that you cannot do two things at once. I worked sometimes 30 hours a week while going to school full-time. It made me a hard worker. It made me good at multitasking and understanding that, guess what, life is hard. And it also helped me when I was finished university because I honestly had this ridiculous idea that once I eventually got a full-time job, moved down my own, oh, then I could relax because working and going to school, that was tough. But then, you know, if I'm just working full-time, wow, all the free time I'll have. Yeah, that was before I actually moved out, I think, that I had that idea.

Starting point is 00:08:42 It probably took me about a good month, maybe. Nah, I'd say month, not even more It probably took me about a good month, maybe. Nah, I'd say month, not even more than that, that I realized, oh, wow. Yeah, I have more free time, but stuff's expensive. I need more money. I don't really want to reveal how much I made my first job because it was really, really low. It was basically just above the poverty line. But I hardly made anything and it was really hard to save. So I'll get to this a bit later on in the program. When I finished university, I was actually unemployed for eight months. So during that time, I was a on-call teleprompter for the news. Thanks, Dad.

Starting point is 00:09:27 I got that job through my dad. And it was the most random job I'll probably have ever done. I don't know if I'll ever do something so random. And if none of you are familiar with what a teleprompter does, they are the people that literally scroll the script on the teleprompter machine for the anchors. So when they're talking live on the news, there's literally someone controlling the style, making the script go up. I'm not sure if that is even a job anymore. Because I actually didn't even quit that job. They kind of just phased me out and replaced me with a foot pedal.

Starting point is 00:10:03 How sad is that? Now the news anchors just do me with a foot pedal. How sad is that? Now the news anchors just do it with a foot pedal. But when I had that job for those eight months, I was considering quitting it once I got my full-time job. But then I started realizing how expensive things were and maybe it'd be nice to have a little bit of extra money. And so I'm like, you know what? I'll just keep this on-call gig for the time being to make a bit of extra money. But maybe after six months or a year, then I'll quit. And I kept that job for three and a half years. That's how much I realized I needed a second stream of income, basically, starting out.

Starting point is 00:10:38 Things are expensive. Starting out at zero is no fun. I needed that second job. So I think definitely working and going to school definitely prepared me for real life because guess what? It never ends. You'll always need more than one stream of income. So that's kind of a, I guess, brief glimpse of me growing up and going to school. I feel like I should actually mention what I went to school for because I feel like it definitely reveals a

Starting point is 00:11:05 lot about me. You'd probably think that I would have gone to university for accounting or business or marketing because that's what I work in right now. But actually, I was an artiste. I thought I was going to be a filmmaker or film editor or something like that. And yeah, well, things just don't really turn out the way you plan them when you're like 17, do they? But anyway, so yeah, I went to Simon Fraser for a film and I really loved it. I don't regret my decision to go to film school. Thank God I didn't go to a private film school where it's like 20,000 years or something like that. And I actually got a legit fine arts degree from a really good institution. But five years later, I graduated in 2009. I'm definitely not a filmmaker. I'm actually working in marketing. So it's interesting to see where life will take you. Anyway, so after I graduated, and I graduated in 2009, which you'll

Starting point is 00:12:07 remember was, you know, big time recession, great time to be a new grad, I had, you know, all these dreams of what I would do. And I was very lucky, a professor of mine helped me get this job at the Vancouver Film Festival, which was literally my dream job. Like, are you kidding? Like all these independent movies. I'm really in this, you know, the Vancouver film scene. This is amazing. And I got it. It was just a four month contract job. And it was awesome. It was like a lot of work. And I learned a ton. I'd never worked in an office before that. But it was a great experience. And after that, the contract was over in mid-October. I just kind of assumed I'd get a job like, I don't know, within at least a month. And well, it took me about eight months to find another job.

Starting point is 00:12:56 Probably the hardest eight months of my life, especially since I'd spent five years of my life preparing for this, I don't know, this career, this, you know, I will finally move out of my parents' house, start my real adult life and nothing. I was unemployed, living in my parents' basement for eight months at like 23. And I literally thought my life was over. I was just horrified of what was happening to my life. I just, I'm like, this is not me. This is not real. This is not what I had planned for hell.

Starting point is 00:13:31 But the good thing that did come out of it actually was I had a lot of free time. And I read a lot of blogs and books about money and personal finances. Actually, I'll give credit to my older sister. She's the one who introduced me to the world of personal finance because she was reading a couple blogs. And she's like, oh, you should read this. And I just got hooked. I'm like, this is perfect for me. I'm always thinking, like I was always thinking about money. And I was always so, you know, conscious of my relationship with money and budgeting and making more money. And just it was just always on my mind.

Starting point is 00:14:07 So I'm like, this is perfect. And eventually I after the month period, you know, ended, I got my first real full time job that allowed me to finally move out of my parents house and get my own apartment with some roommates and just like finally start living like a real adult. And I honestly like stupidly thought, okay, yeah, awesome. Everything's gonna be fine. I don't have to read about personal finance anymore. I'm gonna have so much more money. I'm just gonna live my life and have an awesome time. And not soon after did I realize, okay, I guess I've got to keep that tailprompting job. I can't do all that awesome stuff that I thought I'd be able to do. And I guess I'm going to be eating a lot of Ishii Van noodles. It was not an easy first year, I'm telling you.

Starting point is 00:14:57 And I don't want to freak out any, you know, almost new grads out there. But, you know, maybe I'm hoping that it's not as hard anymore. Maybe this was an isolated incident because it was a recession and I had no money when I moved out. I don't know. But it was a hard year. It was probably one of my hardest years. I really wanted to prove to myself that I could be independent in all ways possible, including financially independent. And that meant keeping a second job while working full time and also not spending anything. I literally do, like I need to almost find some of those old receipts so I can see like how little I spent

Starting point is 00:15:36 that year. I remember like I even wrote about this in one of my posts about some of the most cheapskate things I did. One of the things I did to save just like a few dollars, really, but I did this on like a weekly basis was I would get milk and you can get like a one liter of milk at this one grocery store that was in a glass bottle and it costs $2. But if you brought back the bottle, you'd get a dollar back. So it'd be half off essentially. And it was ridiculous. I didn't have a car at the time. So, and this grocery store wasn't necessarily super close to my house, but maybe every two weeks or however long it'd take me to finish the milk, I would clean it and

Starting point is 00:16:15 then bring it back to the grocery store to return just to get that dollar back. Like that's how like every little dollar counted for that first year. But the thing was, even though that sounds kind of awful, and probably no one would want to even think of doing that themselves, it taught me a lot about budgeting and saving and just living off what you need, just buying what you need and not focusing all that stuff that you want, but it actually doesn't add any value to your life. Anyway, so, you know, based on that first year, because my mind was so wrapped up in money and personal finance, I got the bright idea to start my own personal finance blog. And Mo Money Mo Houses was born on, I don't know, December 13th, I think, 2011. And if any of you are wondering how the heck I came up with that ridiculous name for a blog, there's a few reasons. It's like an

Starting point is 00:17:14 onion. There's a bunch of layers. Okay. So the first reason is my old roommate, one of my first roommates, she came up with the idea. She thought it was a ridiculous, hilarious name for a personal finance blog because it's a bit cheeky, a bit silly. And also it references one of her and my favorite hip-hop songs, which is Mo' Money, Mo' Problems. Right? Anybody? Anybody? Okay. And the second is it kind of involves my last name, Morehouse. And I guess the third layer would be I want to include

Starting point is 00:17:47 my last name, not just to kind of have a double entendre, but just because when I grew up, you know, in elementary school, you know, kids used to make fun of your last name. Well, kids used to always make fun of my last name, Morehouse. And, you know, used to taunt me being like, Jessica, you have more houses. No idea what that means, honestly. I don't think they knew what it meant at the time. But he used to always really irritate me just because I'm like, stop it. I don't know. I just have one house.

Starting point is 00:18:12 And I always used to stick in my mind. And I think, yeah, as I grew up, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to show them. I'm going to show them. I'm going to have more houses than all y'all. And, yeah. And, okay, the fourth layer, the last layer, who knew Mo Money Mo Houses had so much depth. The last layer is because I read so many personal finance blogs that a lot of them focused on income property. One of my dreams and still is,

Starting point is 00:18:38 is to eventually own a bunch of properties and be a landlord and make a bunch of money by, you know, renting out places. So having more money for more houses. All right. So that is how I chose my blog's name. And now I'm going to get into a bit about what my blog's about, but what also this podcast is about. It's basically another extension of my blog. I love having my blog. I love having an outlet to write all my ideas and thoughts and whatever. But I do feel like sometimes I need another way to express myself and my personality. I think I am funny. I don't know. And sometimes I don't know if that comes across in my writing. In addition to that, I do feel like my blog is about me and I just talk about me, which I think is, you know, relatively interesting to lots of readers out there. But my podcast is not going to be that. I'm not going to just be talking for 20 minutes by myself,

Starting point is 00:19:36 full on monologue style. I'm going to be interviewing people. I'm going to be interviewing real people that I know, mainly millennials, and talking about real money issues that they're dealing with. Like maybe they're planning an expensive wedding. I went through that so I could totally, you know, give some advice or we could talk about it. They have student loan debt. That's almost everyone I know. They have crippling debt and they're trying to figure out how to pay off their debt, but also how to put money in the bank and start saving for retirement. And yeah, stuff like that. I've got a bunch of ideas,

Starting point is 00:20:10 but I am totally open to anyone out there who wants to give me some helpful criticism, some comments, some ideas that you'd like to hear on this podcast, or if you even have some people in mind that you think would be great to talk to me on this podcast, I would be totally open to that. So if you do want to contact me, make sure to go to momoneymohouses.com.

Starting point is 00:20:35 And on the contact page, there's my email. But feel free, if you don't want to email me, you can contact me on Twitter or Facebook. And I'd be happy to listen to your thoughts and ideas. So on that note, I'm going to wrap things up. Thank you so much for listening to the first ever episode of Mo Money Mo Houses podcast. This is Jessica Morehouse, your host, and I can't wait to share episode two with you.

More Money Podcast - 1 How It Started: My Personal Finance Journey - Jessica Moorhouse

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