More Money Podcast - 130 Listener Series - Empowering Yourself through Financial Literacy

Episode Date: November 16, 2017

I chat with podcast listener Alexis Kienlen about how she empowered herself by ending the mystery banking cycle & teaching herself about money management. Long description: This is why I love when podcast listeners reach out to me to be part of my Listener Series. Because sometimes they end with me saying that it felt like chatting with a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while. My listeners are amazing! Anywho, this interview is particularly timely as November is Financial Literacy Month and my guest Alexis Kienlen shared how learning about personal finance changed her life for the better. Like many millennials, she graduated hoping to follow her dreams and become a journalist. But, things have changed and it’s not as easy to earn a living and work in journalism. Realizing that she didn’t want to be broke anymore, she started reading blogs, listening to podcasts, reading The Globe and Mail and even reading Personal Finance for Dummies. Now, she feels so much more in control of her life and her future, and it all came down to taking the time to educate herself so she could start making informed decisions. Way to go Alexis, I can’t wait to see where you end up in the next few years (hopefully a published author and new homeowner!). For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/130 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 130 of the Mo Money Podcast, and sadly, the last listener series episode for season five of the show. Holy geez, season five, it's almost over, guys. A couple more weeks left of interviews, and then I'm going to take a little bit of a break for Christmas time, like to do that, just kind of recuperate and rethink and prepare some awesome new episodes for you guys for next season, season six, which will kick off in January 2018. And already I've recorded a couple super special episodes that you're going to love. And that's all I can say. That's all I can reveal at the moment.

But anywho, this particular episode, I talk with Alexis Kynelin, and she's amazing. We have a fabulous conversation. Again, even though this is the last Lister Series episode for the season, I'm still always taking more people who are listening to record with me. Does that make sense? I feel like I don't know English as well as I think I do. Anymahoo, if you are listening and you want to be part of my listener series, I am always taking more listeners. That is what I'm trying to say. So feel free to shoot me an email, Jessica at JessicaMorehouse.com. Tell me your story, why you'd like to be part of the show, and share your words of wisdom, your personal finance journey with everybody listening to the Mo Money Podcast.

And we'll see if we can get you on the show. And important, before I get to this particular interview, I have a few words about this episode's sponsor. Support for this episode comes from Credit Card Genius, the only tool that compares over 50 features of 150 Canadian credit cards using math-based ratings and rankings that respond to your needs instantly. Now you can get rewarded faster without all the headache. Visit creditcardgenius.ca to learn more. Once again, that's creditcardgenius.ca. Thank you, Alexis, for joining me on the Mo Money podcast. I haven't done a little

listener series recording for a little while, so I'm glad you reached out. I'm excited to kind of get to know you a bit more and your story and everything you have to share with everybody listening. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be on the podcast. You are so welcome. You're so welcome. So let's start. I'd love to get to know a little bit about you. Where are you from and what's your story? How did you get into learning more about personal finance and embedding yourself? And how did you find me? Well, okay. So I'm an agricultural reporter full-time. That's my day job, but I'm also a full-time writer. So I've written...

Okay, first off, what is an agricultural reporter? I'm a journalist. I had journalism training. So I went to Concordia and did my journalism training. And then every single journalism job I had, they're like, could you write about agriculture? Farming. I'm like, I don't think I've ever read an article about that. But again, that's not really in my wheelhouse. So how did you start writing about that? If that wasn't like, I'm assuming you're not a farmer?

No, I didn't grow up on a farm at all. I'm from Saskatoon. Yeah. I kind of I have my first degrees in race and ethnic relations, international studies, actually. Oh, wow. So but I always wanted to be a writer. So then I went to journalism school later. And then I was kind of working as a journalist, you know, doing other writing things on the side and stuff. And then it was just kind of like, I really like doing agriculture, because you get to be outside, you get to work with farmers, you get to learn about food and it's just kind of relationship focused science focused and so then eventually because the journalism scene is a little bit scary in Canada just because there's so many job cuts I was kind of like well I'm

going to specialize and it's not something I ever planned to do but that's what I ended up doing. Yeah that's a smart idea. And then so what happened with my financial journey was I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail, as I do most weekends. And then there was an article, it was during the, when the Alberta economy was suffering a couple of years ago. And there was an article about how people had very little savings in their savings accounts and how you can be affected if you lose your job. And you were quoted in the article and I was like, okay, well, you know, this is interesting. Looked you up and started listening to your podcast and kind of that led me to following other people. And now I get all these emails in my inbox

and I was reading personal finance for dummies and all those kind of things just to learn more. That's amazing. So why do you find that that article, because you said that you kind of, you know, would read the Globe and Mail pretty often. Why do you find that that article really kind of hit home for you? I think it was also

just because of what was happening in Alberta. Like we were really seeing the economic slump. People were talking about losing their jobs. My dance studio was suffering because fewer people were enrolling. There was all kinds of things that you could actually see around. And I don't know if it was my age or something, because I'd read lots of stuff. It was just, that was like the one that hit home. And it was the one where I was kind of like you know I have the equivalent of three degrees I've lived in other countries I'm an intelligent woman I can learn more about this I'm tired of what my my banker calls mystery banking oh what's mystery banking it's like when somebody when you go in and you don't really understand what's happening.

Yeah, I think that's like most times people go into the bank, I think. Yeah, whereas you can go in and you can be really empowered and you can say like, this is what I'd like to do this. Does this make sense to do? What's my interest rate on that? And so they're not just moving the money around. You actually feel like you have control. Which I think is something that only in recent years people are starting, and it could just be the shift in what's going on with the financial industry or banks. But I feel like when I was younger and with my parents, when you went to the bank, you, the reason you went there, the reason you had a financial advisor at the bank was because they were supposed to advise you and guide you and help you and educate

you. And I kind of feel like that's not so much the case anymore. You kind of need to know all of the things before you get there. Otherwise, they may make some decisions that you may not understand that may not actually be right for you, but you don't know because you don't understand what they're talking about and so on and so forth. And I've absolutely, you know, I still remember when I was in my early 20s, I didn't know what the difference between the savings and checking account was. And the bank didn't tell me, like I had to do my own research to figure out what it was. So I totally understand mystery banking. I think it's, you know, hopefully, you know, more people, you know, especially our age are kind of taking that, you know, initiative to kind of, okay, well, I don't like mystery banking. I don't like going to the bank and feeling like an idiot. I

want to know what's going on. And, you know, unfortunately, you have to do a ton of research and yeah, like start listening to podcasts and reading blogs, reading the news and educating yourself because we never got that foundation when we were younger in school or by our parents necessarily. I also found one thing confusing as a Canadian is that too, we get a lot of American media. So like, I'm like, what, sometimes when I was reading financial stuff, I'm like, what is a 401k and do I need one? And then you wouldn't necessarily know that that's like, you have to, I really found that I was later on going to Canadian sources because I'm like, well, that's not going to necessarily help me. I know. And that's kind of the confusing and annoying thing. I mean, there's in general,

personal finance is very similar to what's going on in the States. But yeah, if you're talking about, you know, you know, taxable accounts and just taxable accounts and just their whole financial industry is so kind of crazy to me. When I went to this big personal finance conference, FinCon last year, they have this big area where there's a bunch of booths with all these different banks

and financial services and so forth. And it was really cool because there were so many cool apps and stuff. Most of them do not exist in Canada just because the financial industry is so different. And what I didn't realize when I was talking with this one guy at this booth is they were kind of showing me this app that would help you narrow down what bank you should go with because there's apparently thousands of banks in the U.S. Which I'm like, I had no idea because in Canada, there's like a handful and that's kind of all you got. Whereas in the States, there's like thousands and like that is so trippy. That is so crazy. But yeah, I totally agree that we get so much US news. It can kind of get confusing

and also just lots of financial books, especially that I've read. They're from American authors that talk from their perspective. So you kind of have to also know what's the difference between a 401k and RRSP or whatever. It can be kind of overwhelming. Yeah, absolutely. So after you read that article and then you started getting more into personal finance, what are some of the things that popped out at you that you were like, wow, I can't believe it. Didn't know that. And some of the things that you started to change in your own life to, you know, better yourself. Okay. What did I, what did I do that? That's a good question. So I started savings, more savings. Um, and then I got more into, uh, something led me to

minimalism. So I started like, I just have always been a bit of a minimalist and I'm like, do we need that? No, we don't need that. Does someone need like to have a huge, so I got more into like reading about minimal, minimalism and following that and like, do we really need this? Do I really need this? That kind of thing. What else did I do? Did read a lot of like personal finance for dummies and stuff and started learning what the terms were. And just really some really basic stuff went into my financial advisor and was like, okay, can you explain this and what's happening with this? And what is a TFSA? And, you know, can I lower the interest on my MasterCard or

something? Can I get less interest? And she's like, oh, actually yours is really low. We're going to, she's like, most of them are higher now. So we'll just kind of keep this and hope it, just questions like that. I'd go in and try and do some of that things. One of the things I think I did was take out a loan because I had a lot of credit card debt. So I took out a small loan so that I could pay off the loan and not accumulate the interest. So that was one of the strategies that I did. I set up mint so I could track where my money was going.

I stopped buying books as much like on my credit card. That was, I would just buy stuff on my credit card and be like, well, and then I'm like, you're paying more for it. Like it feels like you're not spending anything, but you're paying every time you use your credit card and you don't pay it off, you're paying more. Exactly. Exactly. So do you feel like slowly you just became a little bit more aware and conscious of what was going on with your money, which I think is a thing that most people just have no clue. They just don't think about it because no one really talks about it. Yeah, exactly. I did. And I felt more empowered. And I mean, I made some mistakes along the way.

One of the mistakes I made was I went to South Africa and then I got a concussion actually, which is like the craziest story. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I, I got, um, I was on the hop on hop off bus in Cape Town and a palm tree hit me in the head. What? And I was with friends and I was like, I had my glasses on. So I was like, Oh, and I've hit my head before. And so I was like, what's happening? You know, I was like, am I okay? And then I felt okay. I was just like, sure.

We went up on Table Mountain and stuff. And then about a month after I got back, I was still getting headaches. And I was like feeling out of it. And I was like, oh, I'm just jet lagged. Oh, I'm reverse culture shocked. And then eventually I went to a doctor and they're like, there was, it was a whole, it was a whole process, but I went to someone and they're like, I think you have a concussion. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So during that time too, like I couldn't, I also freelanced to earn extra money, so I couldn't do that. So I was kind of, I hadn't saved up enough to account for that kind of thing.

To prepare. Going on a trip and that kind of thing. So I really wish that I'd saved more before I went on my trip or spent less because budgeting, well, I don't really regret that, how much I spent in South Africa because I might never go back. Yeah, yeah. But I kind of wish that I managed the money a little bit better because I, no one expects that they will be. No. Well,

yeah. Like you said, I think most people never, especially when you're young and you're healthy, you don't expect something like a medical thing to happen to you. You just don't, especially if you've never had anything like that happen to you. And so it's, yeah, it's one of those things that you just have to prepare for. And that's why, you know, whenever I, you know, get someone that signs up for my Get Your Financial Life Right Challenge, just, you know, free 10-day email course, part of it is, you know, knowing how to be properly insured. And most people are like, I've never even thought about insurance in terms of personal finance. You kind of just think, oh yeah, I know I need car insurance and probably home insurance,

but that's about it. But there's lots of different... You have to know, are you insured when it comes to your health? Do you have this and that? And most people just never even think about it. But because they don't think that any of that stuff could happen to them, or even setting up a will, most people are like, well, I mean, I'm pretty young, so I'm probably not going to die. It's like, yes, the likelihood is less than if you're older,

but you can't predict when you're going to die. So you need to have those things in place and be prepared. Well, the thing with me is I'm like, I did my will a couple of years ago because what happened to me was I became, I've become sort of like this will advocate and I'm always talking to awesome well because I I had I went through like a really sad period where about five people in my family died and it was just like two years of death like not yeah some of them weren't really really close to me but it was just like constant death and so and I would hear stories at my dance studio and stuff where people would be talking about you know like my mom didn't have a will and so we had to go to court over her condo and so I actually met my lawyer like I was asking legal questions if you can believe this on Twitter oh really yeah and so someone's like ask that

lawyer guy yeah my Twitter's my lawyer's handle. And then he's like explaining to me that if you just make out a will with a will kit, you can make a lot of serious mistakes. And then, so what I did was I ended up like calling him and meeting him. And I said, also something I'd been kicking around was that since I'm a writer and I have a lot of intellectual property, I wanted to get that included in my will. Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. He looked it up and he'd never done one before. And so he did it. We consulted and I have two friends who are also handled my literary estates. Not like I'm Neil Gaiman or Stephen King or anything, but they also are in charge of that aspect. So I got that written in there too.

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I feel like it is the best, absolutely worth all the money because it's not cheap necessarily to get a will. Usually I think average is like $1,000. Oh, really? I mean, yeah. I mean, it depends obviously where you are. I live in Toronto, so it could be a little bit more expensive. And also me and my husband both got wills, so that's part of it. And then we also got power of attorney and stuff like that. But I mean, I felt so like a weight lifted off my shoulders once we got all that organized. And yeah, similar to you, we both experienced death in our lives in different capacities. And luckily, the people that we had in our lives that did pass did have very organized

wills. But still, it was a lot of work for the executors. And we saw all the work that they had to do. And we're like, we definitely want to make sure even though we're still young, we don't have that many assets compared to when we're probably going to be in our 50s or 60s. It's important to just get that done and out of the way because you never want to yeah pass away without any kind of indication on like what your wishes are or where any of your stuff is because that has just got to be you know just such a it's a hard time you know regardless yeah and it's also like some people have like in one situation I know um their mother had like 15 bank accounts or something she's sending money to various places.

And so they had to close and deal with all that. Exactly. And when you don't have like a list of everything and you have to kind of just, you know, scavenger hunt and try to find out where things are, like that is just not a fun thing to do. Oh, some people say like, I should, I'm always like, you don't have a little what?

And then they get the little lecture and I'll send them my lawyer's card. So, oh good. Well, you know what? I think that's kind of the best thing. Cause sometimes most people won't, they'll probably read about this or hear about it, but until they kind of hear from someone they know, they probably won't really take action. And that's the thing for me. It's like, I knew that I had to do this or even get life insurance. I knew I had to get it, you know, it done, but it honestly wasn't until I until I, I mean, it was a few years back now that I interviewed Preet Banerjee for my podcast. And he's like, you don't have a will. You don't have life insurance. What's wrong with

you? I'm like, oh my gosh, now we need to get it. Just see that one person. Yeah. There's also, what was I going to say that I was, oh yeah. And there's some of the things that I did that I was like, good job me. but I didn't really know at the time. Like for some reason, when I turned 30, I'm like, I'm going to be 41 in a few days I never thought I should do in my 20s. It's like an RSP is always like one of the first ones. I don't know why. Yeah. And I was like, well, I'd need to start an RSP. And I like, you know, barely knew what I was doing, but I went down to the bank. I'm like, I need to start one. And I started putting 50 bucks. And so now I have a bigger contribution as my money goes up, but I'm like, well, at least you started then. Good for you. Exactly. And I think what I've been realizing as I've gotten older, I can't believe how fast

the years go by. And even when you're like, oh, I'll start it next year. No, no, no, no. Literally start it tomorrow because you will be surprised how fast a year will go. And you're like, oh, crap, I still didn't do it. Well, it's one of the things that is interesting to me too is that the feeling that people are like well I deserve or I need this they're like I need to have a ten thousand dollar granite counter granite countertop or something and I'm like no you don't and there's also things that we talk about like my partner and I talk about um we've talked about how some people are like, you know, they have a $30,000 wedding and we're probably going to get married, but we're not going to have that. We'd rather, we're like, you know what? We could go to Rome like 12 times for that. And I know we'd rather do that because traveling is our, is our passion. You know,

we kind of like to try and make some smart financial decisions to do the things that we want to do. Have a house that is not huge and that we're comfortable. Not massive. So we just kind of look at those priorities. What are our priorities and our values? Absolutely. Learning and writing more books and that kind of thing. No, you hit the nail on the head.

And I think that's something that when it comes to personal finance, that is kind of the most important thing people need to do is really look at what are their priorities and what are their values. And sometimes it's hard when you were in your 20s because you're still figuring out who you are, what you want to do. But as you get older, it becomes more clear. And yeah, totally recommend not getting a huge place because as we realized, we were in a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto, very tiny, but it was great because there's no space to accumulate stuff. So when we moved into our two-bedroom townhouse, it wasn't that big of a deal. But even still, it's not a very big place by any means, but we still had to fill up some of the space. So I'm like, I couldn't imagine buying a

house and having to spend all this extra money to fill up that space. So that's another thing I think lots of people don't realize that the bigger the space you buy, the more stuff you have to buy to fill up that space. So if you don't need that space, don't bother. And most of the time, you just, you adapt to the space that you're in, you know? Like I love a big space. I love going to my parents' house. It's huge. It's awesome. But also it's a lot of work to clean and maintain. It's expensive. There's no way I much prefer, like you, spending my money towards my values, which is also, you know, travel and experiences. And learning things. And learning things. Exactly. I mean, the times I'm in school again, I've been to school so

many times, but it's like, I don't regret it. Yeah, no, that's what I was. Well, as someone who's got like basically three degrees, I've been to school a lot too. So, and I was like, I'm still like, okay, what classes can I take? I'm going to pay down some of my debt. And then I'm like, well, I want to learn this and where do I want to go and yeah and then you just also like the things you learn during your life like one part I was just like I'm gonna I'm just gonna write and my parents are like well how are you gonna make a living oh I'll just sit and write novels and be poor and then like I was really poor in my 20s and yeah because I've always had some parental support and help and that kind of thing. But I went through a period in my 20s where I was just really flat,

broke and underemployed and couldn't get a job living in Vancouver, which is a hard thing. Been there. Been there. And then it's like, okay, I can't. And at one point my dad said, Alexis doesn't have, she's not really, being poor is not easy for her because like some people can handle it. But I actually found it made me so stressed that my creative work suffered. I was hustling, trying to get, like I was doing a lot of freelancing.

So I was always trying to get the journalism pieces out. And I didn't really write like short stories or poetry or anything. Like right now I'm not doing as much freelance work either because I'm working on a novel. And when you write for a living, you only have so much more time, so much time in a day to write more words. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally feel you. When I was also broke in my 20s in Vancouver, which I think is a typical story for most people that live in the city. I was so anxious and stressed out during, especially that first year when I was just trying to build up my nest egg from zero.

And I have this thing in the back of my head. I'm like, I never want to go back to that feeling or that person. I hustled. I can't believe I kind of lived on such a tiny salary, but I'm so glad that I did live really frugally and didn't get into debt and did my best because I never want to go back to that. Yeah, being poor sucks. It's not fun. And I was not really creative and I didn't really take risks that year because I was afraid of like you know something happening and me not being able to afford it and then you're also your health sort of suffers too like yeah I left Vancouver

I mean I just got to for from a breakup too so that that was part of the whole thing from Vancouver to Grand Prairie which was quite the the jump but yeah but then it was like also yeah like my health was really bad and stuff and then so when I got full-time work working at the newspaper in Grand Prairie because it was just all of a sudden I had money coming in I was able to be more independent I actually felt like I was on vacation for the first bit because I was just like money's coming in my health's getting better I'm out of an environment where I wasn't you know I was my heart was broken so it was good to get out of the environment where my heart was broken yeah that's was good to get out of the environment where my heart was broken.

Yeah, that's also sometimes you have to take a move. I mean, I know we wouldn't be, me and my husband would not be where we are right now in life and just financially, if we hadn't decided to leave Vancouver for Toronto and make that move. That's just, sometimes you just have to leave where you are and start anew somewhere.

Like that's sometimes just the answer is leaving. Except for sometimes it's not because like I moved. Sometimes not. Yeah. I moved like eight times. What was it? It was eight times in 10 years at one point because I was an intern. Oh my gosh.

So I ended up going a lot. I did a lot of overseas stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah. So like I interned and they sent me to Indonesia and then Mongolia. That's awesome. It was amazing. I would really recommend it. But that was another thing that probably in some ways, like I don't regret it, but in some ways that didn't contribute to me having a large financial

nest egg because I lived on an internship and lived overseas. But in some ways, like I didn't have what other people have because I'd chosen that experience. Yeah, absolutely. So it seems like you've had a pretty interesting and full life, an interesting path. Yeah, definitely. But it sounds like right now you're kind of like in your kind of ideal, you've kind of found your rhythm and you kind of know where you're at. I'd love to know, you know, maybe some of the kind of just bits of advice you would like, most key bits of advice you'd like to give other listeners that maybe have a similar story to you. And what are some of the things that you hope for yourself in the future, next five, 10 years?

Well, I'd like to finish this novel and get it published so I'm really close to that that that's exciting yeah so I'm just I'm just finishing up and then I'm going to look for agents so that's kind of I've never been agented before because ones aren't so hopefully agents there's a couple circling around on social media so hopefully one of them will pick me up. So that's kind of what I'm working towards in that area. Awesome. Awesome. What else? Well, I'd like to continue. I'd like, yeah, I would, I would, I really like the one, the one thing that one piece of advice that has stuck with me that I don't know if it was from you or

from whoever else was like, pay if you have debt, pay it down and build savings at the same time. Yeah. That's something that I wish I'd done. There's probably a bunch of other people, but I do tend to say that. That's one that I really wish I'd done more of. And that would be one that I would really. So then also my partner and I are, well, we're waiting for his condo to sell. And fortunately, we're not going to be evicted or anything, but we're making plans to buy a small house together. So we're really excited for that because we can have a garden and a dog. And so we're just kind of playing the waiting game with the selling.

But, you know, it's not a forced move or anything and yeah just we just kind of wish more people would be looking at the house because we can't understand what's happening why I know don't understand we're like maybe it's the market and then you could drive yourselves nuts yeah exactly um what else what else am I thinking about yeah I just continue saving for my retirement I guess of course more traveling hopefully um There's a lot of places after going to South Africa, there's a lot more places I was like, well, you know, I really have to go to China and I try to finance most of my travel by winning awards or bursaries. Nice. Hey, that's one way to get extra money. That's the kind of thing that I like to do is just try and get someone else to pay for some of the cost of it.

So most of my international trips, I think it was five that I ended up getting some kind of internship or bursary or something. Cool. Well, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. So it sounds like you've got some cool things in the works, travel, buying a home, kind of settling down.

Yeah. Well, and also healing my head because concussions are pretty, I hadn't, I'd never concussed myself before, but you can have, it usually takes i i didn't know any of this stuff before i got concussion but it can take about six months to heal from one and so you can have problems like dizzying and fatigue minus the symptoms are kind of freaky like you cannot get light sensitivity so you'll be sensitive to light yeah one of the other things um that can happen to people is uh i found like one of the things that happened that i didn't realize it was happening until later was text was blurring so i mean that's not happening anymore but I still get fatigue and headaches so yeah I just

also I can't do too much right now because I'm one of those people who's really ambitious and kind of quick driven yeah they're like I have to think sometimes I'm like am I gonna do this no need to just rest yeah yeah no yeah like you said like uh I know a few people um and I actually helped like uh produce this podcast and they did an episode actually specifically on concussions about people who uh you know work in kind of a professional atmosphere like lawyers and stuff and how it could really affect their lives and their career and i had no idea so i wish you all the best because sometimes it can you have lifelong effects on people well Well, Andrew Daniels, who does Family Money Plan,

he also had a severe, like a really severe concussion. Oh, really? Yeah. He wrote a blog post about it. And I kind of like, when I read it, I started crying because it really, for me, he was playing hockey and he's like, yeah. And I just was joking about concussion. And then I was driving along and my vision started to narrow and uh he was he was saying too that like there yeah he had headaches and he was but so his post was kind of about getting yourself set up too so that his his wife was able to do a lot of things because he just had to lie there a lot yeah yeah that's no joke that's for sure well thanks alexis for chatting with me. It was like talking to a friend I haven't talked to in a while. That's good. That's a good thing to hear.

Absolutely. Well, I'm so glad you reached out and we were able to connect. This is a fun listener series episode that we got to do. So thanks so much. Thank you. And that was episode 130 with Alexis for my listener series of the Mo Money Podcast. Thank you so much, Alexis, for chatting with me. And if you listened, loved what you listened to, and you're a listener of the Mo Money Podcast, and you want to be on the show, well, guess what? You can totally be on my show. As part of my listener series, I'm always taking new people to be on my show.

So just go to jessica at jessicamorehouse.com to shoot me an email. Actually, you know what? Better yet, go to the show notes. I'm going to include a bunch of details on, you know, what it means to be on the show and, you know, just things you need to know. So go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 130 for the show notes for all that good stuff. I've got a few important announcements, but don't go away. I just have a few first a few words about this episode's sponsor. A big thank you to Credit Card Genius for supporting the Mo Money podcast. If you're not aware, they are the only tool that compares over 50 features of 150 Canadian credit cards by using math based ratings and rankings that respond to your needs instantly.

Now you can get rewarded faster without all the headache. If you want to find the best credit card for you, make sure to check out creditcardgenius.ca to learn more. Once again, visit creditcardgenius.ca to learn more. Okay, so what are the important announcements? Well, a huge one. And hopefully this has not gotten you too late because tickets are already selling out, which is, you know, awesome. I am doing another of my Millennial Money Meetups in Toronto.

It is Financial Literacy Month, November in Canada, in case you don't know. And to celebrate, I'm doing one of my meetups in Toronto, right downtown. And I'm also going to be joined with a fabulous personal finance expert. She's a financial strategist and a CPA. And she is fabulous. And I've known her for a while now. So I'm really glad that we can collaborate and her, you know, join me for the meetup as my special guest. Her name is Lisa Zamparo. And the theme of the event is debt and credit. And a big thank you to Manulife for sponsoring this Millennial Money Meetup. Without them, well, I wouldn't be able to afford to put on this event and only sell tickets for $10, people. And what you get for that is obviously the best time of

your life. But also there's appetizers, there's drinks, there's gift bags, and just like a great opportunity to, you know, meet me, talk to me, and network with other money nerds in the city. So if you want to buy tickets before they are all out, because I'm only putting out 40 tickets, and last time I checked, we're like halfway gone. Just go to millennialmoneymeetup.com. There should be a button on where to buy them. Or if you just want more details, again, you can just shoot me an email or tweet me and I'll send you that link in case you forgot. So hopefully, I'll be able to see some of you listening at my next event. That would be super, super cool. But if not, that's okay. I'll be back here next Wednesday with another episode of Mo Money Podcast. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.