More Money Podcast - 131 How to Build Wealth by Changing Your Money Mindset - Kelley Keehn, Author & Personal Finance Expert

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

What's your money mindset and how does it affect how you perceive building wealth? I chat with Kelley Keehn about this and more in this episode. Long description: Personal finance expert and author��Kelley Keehn chatted with me for this fabulous episode of the podcast, and I couldn’t be happier! I love that her mission is to make people feel good about money! Just like she said in our episode, when people feel good about their money, they are better people and thrive in other areas of their lives. I wholeheartedly agree. When you feel confident in your finances, you feel confident in your life. You start making better and longer-term decisions, instead of decisions based on survival or the immediate future. We also go a bit deeper in our interview and talk about the different money mindsets people have. Like how they can either help you build wealth and live a life you want, or they can impede you from experiencing your full potential. I know that my money mindset has evolved over the years, and that’s the amazing thing too. Just because you have say a scarcity mindset, doesn’t mean you can flip the switch into an abundance mindset. Everything is changeable and fixable, you just have to be self-aware and start making small changes to make a big change in the end. Learn More About Kelley Kelley Keehn’s website Follow Kelley on Twitter Like Kelley on Instagram For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/131 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 131 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you so much for joining me for a brand new episode of the show. Super excited about this episode because I am talking to kind of like the it lady when it comes to personal finance in Canada. I'm talking about Kelly Keene. She is all over TV. She's on pretty much every show. She has nine books out. She's the author of nine books. I've never heard of that. That is insane. She was the host of the W Network's Burn My Mortgage television show. She's a consumer advocate for the Financial Planning Standards Council. And she's just a huge advocate for financial literacy, which is why I really wanted to have her on the show to pick her brain and share some

of her wisdom with you. And also, fun fact, she's super, super, super nice. So you are going to love, love, love this episode. But before I get to it, here is a few words about this episode's sponsor. So, you're racing against the clock to wrap up three projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon, all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer. Challenging? You bet it is. But our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it. Let's be honest. The working world has changed. With the growth of the internet, there's never been more opportunities for the self-employed. To meet this need,

FreshBooks is excited to announce the launch of an all-new version of their cloud accounting software. It's been redesigned from the ground up and custom built for exactly the way you work. Get ready for the simplest way to be more productive, organized, and most importantly, get paid quickly. The all new FreshBooks is not only ridiculously easy to use, it's also packed full of powerful features. Create and send professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds, set up online payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to four days faster, and see when your client has seen your invoice and put an end to all those guessing games. FreshBooks is offering a 30-day unrestricted free trial to all of my listeners. To claim it, just go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter Mo Money Podcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Once again, that's freshbooks.com slash M-O

and enter Mo Money Podcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Thank you, Kelly, for joining me on the Mo Money Podcast. I am thrilled to have you on the show. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Jessica. You're so welcome. I wanted to have you on the show because you are an awesome role model, basically, when it comes to money, personal finance, and just being an awesome, stellar rock star woman. I'm so proud. As really want to discuss with you. I would like to get to know you a little bit more in case people listening don't know some of your backstory, even though you've been around for a while and have done a lot of stuff. So were you, like, how did you,

now you're kind of like this, you know, personal finance expert that's always on TV and you have nine books, which is bonkers. How did you, where did you start? Like, how did you get into this kind of world? It is bonkers. It is bonkers. Oh my goodness. Where do I even start? I know. If you went to my really very much in need of an update website, it would say at the top, my mission is for you to feel good about money. And as simplistic as that sounds, it took me a really, really long

time to come up with that because I did not feel good about money for a really long time. So we can talk about that. So that's my why. Because I get it every day, wanting Canadians to feel good about money. The why behind my why is, if you're familiar, if you've ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have. Okay. So you can Google it.

Think of a pyramid. And Maslow was an American psychologist and he basically identified that at different levels in a person's potential life, their ability to be happy increases as they move up. So at the bottom of the pyramid, you're just looking after putting a roof over your head, paying your bills, feeding your kids, stuff like that. That's the bottom of the pyramid, you're just looking after putting a roof over your head, paying your bills, feeding your kids, stuff like that. That's the bottom of the pyramid.

And unfortunately, a lot of people never make it up to these self-actualized parts that are worth fun. But quite frankly, they take money to get up there. So the why behind it is that when people are at the bottom, um, I don't believe that they make the best decisions that, uh, that they would if, if there were more money in their life. I don't think that people are their best spouse, their best mom or dad, their best child, their best employee, their best Canadian citizen. So, um, my mission is for Canadians to feel good about money so they can come up that pyramid. So they're like not always in kind of survival mode. And I guess you're kind of talking about when you are that lower level, you make decisions based off, yeah, kind of survival, which may not necessarily, those are usually kind of short-term decisions, not kind of long-term,

I guess. Yeah. There's a really great book that I love called Scarcity. I'm not sure if you read it or not. And they talk about, have you? No. I will read it right away, right after this. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but Jessica, it's such a good book. And they talk about, I was also on the National Steering Committee for Financial Literacy. So Jane Rumi is the financial literacy leader. And I served two terms and they have another, or I served one term, excuse me, and they have another committee right now. And really trying to address, like, you know, what's on the hearts and minds of Canadians when it comes to financial literacy and all of that. So back to the book about scarcity is that the authors examine, you know, you can have a lot of time, but if you're, something is really weighing

on you, if your mom or dad is having surgery or your child, that's going to suck out your bandwidth. If, right. So it's like time versus bandwidth and and your age you totally get what that means right is that when a person is struggling financially they don't know if they can pay the bills they don't know if they're going to lose their hydro they don't right they don't know yeah they can survive their bandwidth is like gone yeah um and when i say that my my mission is for names to feel good about money and i didn didn't always, I'll just give you a quick backstory. Okay. So I was raised by a single mom, incredible mom, raising three kids, and times were really tough. We were at the bottom of that pyramid. And, you know, she would cry about money, she would worry about money, she did everything right. She never put, you know,

anything on a credit card she couldn't afford to. And she could have definitely done that because times were so tough. Yeah. And, um, you know, she taught us about abundance. We can talk about that. Even at the bottom, there was this abundance and love, but I had a bunch of really wealthy uncles. So yeah, I lived, you know, at the bottom of the pyramid and saw opulence and saw the confidence that came with having money and an abundance of money and all that type of stuff. So that kind of messed me up a little bit. And then something happened when I was maybe around 12 or 13. And one of my uncles bought my mom a house. That gift moved us right up out of that pyramid. We, you know, all of a sudden she has a home that's paid off, free and clear. And I know,

I don't just think and believe, I know I would not be here talking to you today if it wasn't for that gift from my uncle. There's no way, right? There's no way because how would I have been able to come out of that and see from another angle of, um, you know, how to build wealth or all that type of stuff. So I know, I know what's because of that gift. So because of that struggle, and then I accidentally ended up being in the financial industry. Um, and so the, the, the, the quick, um, wrap up to my background is I was in the financial industry for 12 years. A lot of that was managing and handling money in a very high net worth

individuals that have very complex cases. And I realized that people were really messed up about money. Like I had one client who had millions of dollars was in his 80s and lived in Edmonton Alberta and would literally freeze his pipes because he would not turn the heat up enough um in the winter time and he was worth millions of dollars he had no kids no spouse no one to leave the money to but you're too young to appreciate well Well, you probably appreciate, uh, let me not paint any brushes, but I don't even, I've lost the, the in touch with the generation that went through the great depression.

So that's what he went through. So he had that scarcity mentality. And then, uh, I had another client who was a baby boomer who probably had a parent like that and said, I'm never going to live like that. And he made a million dollars net in his pocket every

single year and several million dollars in the hole. He had not one but two Mercedes course cars, he like the courses all that. So I realized, you know, there's these spectrums of having a lot of money, yeah, but not necessarily enjoying it, earning a lot of money, but not necessarily keeping it. So, you know, where is, where is that perfect spot for you to be? And, and, and that's when I decided to write my first book. And then I ended up getting out of the financial industry as you know, somebody advising and for the last 13 years, I've been writing books and,

and working with different companies and the public and all that type of stuff, having fun, you know, helping them feel better about their financial situation. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I love that you talked a lot about just like the psychology behind money, because for a while when I was just kind of learning about personal finance, I really thought it was about the numbers or just about achieving certain things, doing certain things right, taking some boxes. But really it has a lot to do with, like you said, the scarcity mentality, abundance mentality. And even though I was not around for the Great Depression, I'm certainly not a baby boomer, kind of my experience being a millennial that graduated university during the recent recession, it's like almost like I find a lot of people in my kind

of generation have not so much like the Great Depression or anything like that, but we do have more of a scarcity mentality. And that's why I feel like you'll hear so many of us are getting side hustles because we're terrified of being laid off or not being able to find another job because that was the case for lots of us. But it's but it's like also it's not it's not that kind of mid-level it's like we haven't really found that balance we were still kind of like like most of us are kind of workaholics we just work all the time because we're afraid of something happening and just being totally broke and destitute wow wow yeah I mean that's not millennials, but a lot of the ones I interact with. Yeah. Interesting. That's so, it's so terrifying. Like I know too, when I went out to be an entrepreneur,

some days I have to admit, I really envied the people that have these great jobs and had great pensions and had all these benefits that I used to have when I worked at the bank and all that type of stuff. But what's interesting, Jessica, is that I'm seeing some of those individuals now that have had incredible jobs and got a package at 55. And or there was a restructuring at the company. And so yeah, like, I think if, if you have that, that hustle, that drive that whatever at a young age, that's not a bad thing. No, it's not a bad thing. Right? I mean, baby boomers, they had the best of everything. Unfortunately, I'm Gen X, so I didn't get that either. But it is a very tough time for millennials, tough time for everyone, but also the most exciting time I think ever to be on earth.

Like, yeah, it's like you can make like if you want to make money you can do it you can do it you can start a business easily you can raise money you can like uh like I there's zero chance I could have written nine books if it wasn't for the internet if it wasn't zero like not possible so super super exciting time if you see it that way. But yeah, you're right. Nonetheless, incredible challenges for everyone really right now. Yeah. It's just like a time that I think us, you know, everyone really, it's like we have to evolve really, really rapidly. Like I was even just talking to my husband today about, you know, he works in the music

industry and his, the music industry has literally, it's not the same thing it was 10 years ago when he first started out. And it's incredible how adaptable you really have to be. Like there's no like, oh, I just want. And I used to have this mentality that because that's kind of how I saw my parents. They went to school. They got jobs. They stayed at those jobs forever.

And they just enjoyed their money and everything. I'm like, oh, I can do that too. And no, no. No, I think that that's almost like so risky to do that today. Oh yeah, I don't know many people that do that. Yeah, like it would be risky to just be like, yeah, I got a contract and I'm cool

and I'm an employee and I'm good. It's like when giants are falling, like large companies and you're so right. Like I am such a lover of music and I just look at my behavior of how i used to go into an hmv you probably don't know i know i remember hmv right you went to hmv and it was like oh like singles would come out then you bought a single and then when it came out just like blew my mind i spent tons of money yep on it and now spotify like this game changer

game changer game changer and you're like holy mo. And you're like, holy moly. Yeah, you're right. Like if you don't adapt, you die. You just, you die. So it's, yeah, it's tough. It's tough to keep up. That's for sure. And it's, it's not even just our, you know, millennials and people younger than us, Gen Z. I mean, that's a whole other, who knows what, yeah, they're scary. They're like going to be super smart with computers and overtake everything but uh like thinking of like you know a personal example my dad he worked at his company for like 25 or 30 years and he was in the 50s and he got laid off he got a package and he's like what do i do now i've been a graphic designer for this one company for most of my life and so he i

had to kind of be like this is okay i've had to deal with this a lot in my like short career so i'll kind of help you navigate this isn't the end of the world so in his 50s he had to go back to school uh but actually now he's doing you know it's a different career path now he works in the film industry doing kind of background design and stuff like that for graphics or whatever i'm not really sure what it is i don't know how to do it but he does it and uh and now he works on contracts so he's which is so weird for him to wrap his... He's like, but I was on payroll and I had to... I'm like, it is what it is. It's the nature of it. Just roll with it. Exactly. Yeah. It's just going to be so much easier if you roll with it, right?

Exactly. How can you benefit from it? How can you take advantage of it as opposed to, why? Why is it like this? That doesn't help. Exactly. Exactly. So I'd like to dive in a little bit about just like, why do people have these different mentalities of scarcity? Like that millionaire who, it's funny that you mentioned, like he didn't want to turn on the heat. I'm like, I still have that mentality from my parents. They're always like, turn off the lights, turn off the heat unless it's really like, they never turn on the heat. I mean, they livec so it's it's okay it really never gets that cold but even in toronto i'm like it's not that cold i'll just put a blanket on good for you that's that's yeah it's i mean there's there's

frugality and then there's intelligent frugality so let me give you a first and let's have fun with this and see what you think i'm'm sure. Okay. Um, I, I've talked about this on the Maryland dentist show and on the radio show with Herb Roger and, and there are some differing opinions of, uh, of the answers to this. Okay. So let's imagine right now you absolutely want this lamp. You're in the market for this lamp. You're at a store, absolutely picked it up. You love it. It's $'s 50 you're ready to pay the clerk just before you do your friend pops over taps you on the shoulder and says you know what jessica that lamp if you just walked across the street and a couple of blocks you can have it for 25 do you go and get the lamp across the street a couple blocks over right 20 you go quick

calculation 25 that's 50 of course you're going to go and get the lamp. Okay. So you've determined you're going to go and get the lamp. So then a week later, you go and you're in the market for a big screen TV and shopping for this big screen TV. You're getting ready to pay for it. It's $1,175. That same friend comes, taps you on the shoulder, says, you know what, Jessica, if you go across the street and a couple of blocks over, you can have that big screen TV for $1,150. Do you go? Yeah, I probably would because I like a deal. So here, this is what's really interesting. So the moral of the story is it's the same $25. Economics says that we are rational people, we calculate things,

we weigh the pros and cons, and that $25 here is $25 there. However, a lot of people will say they did a quick calculation with a percentage, and they would go for the lamp, but they wouldn't go for the TV. Yeah. So because it's just a couple of, you know, it's like 2%. Why would I bother? So there is that question of, is it rational to go for it or not? But then the question that I had with Marilyn Roger is Marilyn said she would not go for the TV, even though it's the same $25 because her time is a lot. And also felt that the process might have been a bit longer

and negotiated with the TV. So now you see where it starts as something simple. It's $25 in the same example. People start to color it with their background, but you can make more money. You can't have more time.

You know, if you had a childhood where your parents scrimped and sacrificed a lot or didn't you might say I don't turn up my heat but maybe if you had a sibling your sibling coded it differently and said I'm not gonna live like that I'm gonna turn up my heat I'm gonna but I'm gonna live more lavishly and for me I did have that poor kid syndrome when I was growing up. I think again, too, because of the being at the bottom, but staying healthy. And I spent my 20s,

I'm one of the few personal finance people out there that admit that I did everything wrong. I didn't go bankrupt or anything like that, but I really hurt my credit. I really overspent on the parking store cars. I had the stuff, you know, I had the Mercedes, I had the everything. When I was 21, I had the cushion top. Oh yeah. But I was living up with my millionaire clients. I was, I was competing

with the Joneses when I did not have the income to do it. And then one day it hit me and it was in crunching the numbers and I was in the industry and it hit me and I looked at all my stuff and I was like, I am going to be a slave to this stuff for how long? And I calculated it and I'm like, no more. Now I still like my stuff. Don't get me wrong. I am a spender. I have to find ways to curtail that. I wish I had your intelligent fruit. Hey, I spend money too. I spend money too. Yeah. I mean, it's like air. We breathe it. It's like, are we enjoying spending the money? Are we leaving money on the table? Are we not negotiating what we could? It's all of those money mindsets determine if we're even going to bother, if we're going to

even try to figure out a budget, if we're going to read a book, watch a podcast, it's that mental game. So yeah, we need to make money our friend. Yeah. And one thing that I learned too, and it honestly was only a few years ago that it really clicked in my mind was, I was always a cheap person, cheap, not even frugal, just cheap. And that was my kind of scarcity mentality because I never wanted to get into debt. I always grew up knowing that debt was wrong. I guess I got it from my parents, but they never were into debt. I always grew up knowing that debt was wrong. I guess I got it from my parents, but they never were in debt. But they always emphasized that if you don't have the cash, you can't afford it, which is great. Great advice. But I kind of took it to the extreme. And just like, especially the first few years out of university, living on my

own, finally making money, but not that much money. I just, I lived like a pauper basically. Um, and I'm like, I can't live like that forever. It's not, you know, fun. So I kind of realized, okay, it's you, it's not, there's nothing wrong with spending money. You just need to know why you're spending money at which you kind of talked about your why. And also just like spend money on what you value. And I'm like, Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Cause you know, a lot of the things that people were spending, like, I don't really care about clothes. I just don't care. I get them when I need them, but I don't like, I don't care. What I do like is food. So I spend most of my money on food. And I think that's okay as long as, A, yeah, you're within your budget,

you're not overspending, and you just, yeah, make a clear, you know, conscious decision to spend with your values, I guess, in mind. Yeah, I think that's so clear. And I'm also the consumer advocate for the Financial Planning Standards Council. So obviously a huge advocate of using someone like a certified financial planner that's going to sit down with you and say, look, you know, you need to save up for a vacation and take it. Like you need to save up for these things that are important in your life and i

don't know if you've had him on or not but if you haven't a great interview is bruce salary oh yeah i've had him on he's the best isn't he the best he's the best well i've heard bruce speak a couple of times and what i love about him is he says what's your money for yeah like what's your money for if you love fancy cars hey no problem and if you love dining out, if you love, um, you know, vacations, travel, whatever you love clothes, make it your thing, but be clear about it. You also, I call it the buffet of life. You can't go to the buffet and eat everything. You only have this plate. So if you chose to have kids, you chose that's an expense. If you, you know, if you chose a lifestyle that you want to have a big fancy house, that what you took at the buffet like it's also realizing that we just can't have

any everything but then it comes to the day and age that we live in of social media and the insta effect and look at what they have and look at what they're doing and it makes it really really hard to not do that living up with the Joneses. Really, really hard. Yeah, I'd say it's harder now than ever. Because, yeah, everyone is on social media showing their best life, not their real life, just their best life. And just a snippet of their best life. Just a snippet.

Oh, my gosh. And I do it myself, too, because no one else would want to actually see the Instagram of my real life, which is like watching Great British Bake Off every night. So yeah, exactly. So yeah, I can see it's so easy for people to just see, but they have and I used to do this all the time, too. I used to work in the corporate world, I made a decent income, and I would take the subway all the time. And I would see all these people in, you know, the financial district in Toronto with these really amazing purses. And I'm like, how the hell do these people? And I know,

you know, I, I'd walked, I knew what their jobs are. I had an idea of their salary. I'm like, how would they afford these purses? And at first I'm like,

maybe it's me. Maybe I'm being cheap. Maybe I can afford these purses. And then you actually look at the price tag. You're like, no, they can't afford that. And it's,

but you just get in this mentality like, Oh, if normal people are buying that, maybe I can also buy that. It's just a weird, you know, yeah. It's human nature to compare. And when I talk about, and I talk extensively about keeping up with the Joneses for a couple of reasons that, you know, back in that example of that client I had in the time of the depression, which wasn't that long ago. So for all of history, it's only been the last few decades that, um, you know, if in the past, if you were poor, you looked poor. And if you were rich, you looked rich period. Everyone knew there was no faking it. Like my grandma and grandpa were poor immigrants. There was no faking

it regardless of what they wanted to do today with the advent of credit and lines of credit and everything else, you can absolutely look rich. And I think, too, it was such a blessing for me to work at the bank. And even though I didn't do lending, you know, someone would come across my desk that maybe a teller referred to me. And I would open their file or look on the computer system if they had any lending with the bank. Sometimes they would refer someone to me and I'm like, person is like 800,000 in the hole why are they coming to see me as an investment manager and be like oh you know and then the person's telling me they're just about bankrupt but everybody in the neighborhood thinks that they're this or that you cannot I mean I had a, I'll give you a story too. A friend, my husband and I had years ago and he threw this party for his wife. It was over the top. He spent $15,000 on this

party. I remember going with my wedding. That's my wedding budget. I eloped because I'm so cheap. I should have. I literally, after we got married, I'm like, why didn't we elope? We could have gotten the best vacation. See, you spent on something that was important. Yeah, I did value that wedding. I did value that. Don't regret it. So he's 15,000.

I'm saying to my husband, I know better. I've already written a number of books, everything of that sort. I start comparing, going, gosh, we're not doing that well. Or I certainly wouldn't. I don't feel like I've got 15,000 spent on a party for you. What are we doing wrong? Next day, he's in my office. He's crying.

He's like, my company's going bankrupt. And I'm like, why did you spend $15,000 on your wife's party? He's like, I have to keep up appearances. Like people are starting to talk. They're saying that we might go bankrupt. We can't like, you know, and it's like, wow, it's the last shame, the last taboo that, you know, we're talking about mental health. Thank God.

We're talking about, you know, male cancer and getting early diagnosis and, you know, women, thank God we talk about these things, but yet we only talk about money when it comes to having money. So we can't talk about RSPs and TFSAs. This is great. But when it comes to a lack of money, then we don't want to talk about it. Yeah. There's such shame even now about talking about it. Or even, you know, I remember when I was, you know, starting in my career, I was shameful about how much I earned. Who cares? I was earning money. I was making a living. I wasn't in debt, but I was shameful because I knew other people, uh, you know, that went to school the same time I did that graduated

when I did, we're making more. And I was shameful. And I'm like, we need to get rid of this idea that there should be any shame associated with money. Cause you know, as you know, I like to share with people, it's like, everything is fixable, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And it might not be your priority. Like you might, you might be like I want a different lifestyle I don't need to do this or I mean I had a friend who was a partner at a law firm making just about seven figures who said forget it I'm going to Thailand and I don't care and he's kind of out of money ready to like sell hot dogs on the beach and he's fine with that like yeah you know what I mean it's like really getting to that core of when you look at stuff and you look at comparisons it's like are you okay with where you are exactly

when your family okay with where you're going and if you're not so first you need to get there and if you're not get help see a cfp see a non-profit um credit counselor talk to someone do not feel like you somehow have to fix it yeah uh before you go and talk to someone it's crazy but but canadians still aren't reaching out no i'm hoping that you know with people like you people like me chatting about it yes talking about it openly that more people will uh talk about it and think about it because yeah, it's, it's, it's a big issue and it's not just about, you know, people you know, Oh, well I didn't grow up with money or this is just how it is or all my friends are broke. So I'm broke. So it's just the norm. It's like, well, it's, it's not like just like you, you didn't come from money and

look where you are today. Say with me, I came from, you know, modest beginnings and I'm enjoying my life and things are great. So things are, and I don't have a financial, like I didn't start with a financial background. I have a film degree and I just started educating myself about finance. So if I can do it, anyone can do it. What was your passion? What was your passion to do what you're doing in the personal finance world? Sure. Well, I would say it actually did kind of start from that film degree. I graduated, you know, thinking I was going to be a filmmaker. And then I realized, well, it's actually really

hard to be an independent filmmaker and make a living. I didn't want to be a starving artist. And so and I was just really sick of being a broke student and just broke. And so I started reading personal finance blogs and books and realized that getting better at money and earning more and saving more and all those things are achievable for anyone that actually starts, especially the sooner you start, the better, which is why I was really into it in my 20s. And yeah, I wasn't a lost cause, I guess. And that's what really fired me up and then made me want to also share the news with everybody else. It's exciting, isn't it? It is. It's empowering. It's exciting that you don't have to go on a certain path if

you don't want to. Exactly. Yeah. And you can do it. The smallest steps, like I don't have the exact study, but I know I was reading a study recently that even if you don't have a sense your name, just opening up an RRSP or TFSA, that is enough to like, you know, that little juice card you get, you get a couple punches, a couple punches right there where you're like, okay, I did something. And now your subconscious kind of goes to work to help you find the money to maybe put $25 a month away or something of that sort. Then you see it building and you're like, wow, that was effortless. What more can I do? It's just like taking any kind of step towards your prosperities absolutely and kind of going back to what you were talking at the beginning is really figuring out

your why what does money mean to you why do you want to actually take control of your money and for me like once i figured that out i started making more progress than i had in years because i had a mission i had a And without that, you just will never stick to a budget and never kind of do the work. And if you have some issues that you need to deal with, be honest about it. Like, yeah, you know, I've got a poor kid syndrome. And so my tendency is going to be, so then how do you curtail that? Okay. I have to make sure I automate all my savings. First thing it's got to come off immediately. Then I save up for stuff, right? So then when I am buying it, I can feel good about buying it. I didn't impulse.

I saved up for that. I thought about it. I savored it. So when you know yourself, it's not wrong. Like someone can say, well, how can you be like that and be a personal finance educator? Well, that's me. So, you know, you know, you know who you are, you know what your tendencies are, where you might be tempted, where you might not do well, and you trick yourself into getting it done. Totally. Yeah. And there's so many different strategies out there. And what I found too over the years is you'll have to try a few things to see which one really sticks. And it's okay to like do something, it doesn't work and then try something else. That That's okay. And you know what life is going to happen. You're maybe going to have kids or not have kids. Your parents going to get sick. You might get defrauded. You might

have a business that goes down and you do have to file bankruptcy. I mean, life is going to happen. It's fluid. You're going to have major money decisions. It's not something it's like your health. It is like, who doesn't want better health? Yeah. But we're all going to have major money decisions. It's not something, it's like your health. It is like, who doesn't want better health? Yeah. So we're all going to have something happen to our health. So it behooves us to be managing it and be proactive. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I could probably talk to you for like five hours, Kelly, but I will not. I won't do that. Um, before I let you go, where can people find out more about you and get in touch with you? Yeah, absolutely. Kellykeen.com. I promise a new website is coming soon.

Yay. I think on Instagram and Facebook, this is so bad. I'm like Kellykeenbiz. I'm pretty sure Twitter is Kellykeen. I'll link it in the show notes as well. So it's easy. Amazing. Thank you. And then also with the Financial Planning Standards Council, we've worked, they've worked very hard and I've been working hard with them too, to build their consumer website, which is financialplanningforcanadians.ca. We've got tons of resources, videos, articles, get on there, you know, educate and keep listening and watching and reading people like you who are doing such an awesome job making money fun so we can all feel better about it. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Kelly, for for joining me it was a pleasure chatting with you amazing thank you

and that was episode 131 with kelly keen make sure to check her out at kellykeen.com and you spell that uh k-e-l-l-e-y-k-e-e-h-n.com kellykeen.com of course i'll include all this info in the show notes jessicamorehouse.com slash 131 and as you know to check out show notes for any episode it's literally just jessicamorehouse.com slash whatever the number of the episode is um so uh before i let you go there's a few things i definitely do want to share and remind you some exciting things I've got in the queue. But before I get to that, here's a few words about this episode's sponsor. Did you know that one in three Americans are self-employed? Because of the internet, it's now easier than ever to become self-employed or start a small business. That's why I was able to take a huge leap of faith and leave my nine to five almost a year ago.

What started as my side hustle is now my full-time job, and I can run my entire business out of the comfort of my own home. Now, it has not been a walk in the park. I will not lie to you about that. Going from employee to entrepreneur is not for the fainthearted. But what has made the transition so much easier in my life is by using software that really fits my needs. That's why I use FreshBooks as my go-to cloud accounting software. It helps me stay organized. I can pull reports within seconds. I can stay on top of payments from clients. And it basically takes a huge weight off my shoulders come tax time. And what's really cool is FreshBooks just came out with an all-new

version of their cloud accounting software. And they're offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to all of my listeners. If you want to take advantage and try FreshBooks out for yourself, all you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter momanypodcast in the how did you hear about a section. Once again, to try it out for free, go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter momanypodcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Once again, to try it out for free, go to freshbooks.com slash MO and enter Mo Money Podcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. All right, so things I've got going on. Well, number one, you would know what's going on

if you're on my email list. So make sure to go to jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe to keep up with me. But so things going on. Number one, I've got my Millennial Money Meetup happening in Toronto very soon, November 28th on a Tuesday, downtown Toronto. I will be joined by Lisa Zamparo. She will be my special guest. And we are talking about credit, how to use it wisely, and debt. A really, really great event, especially kind of timely, don't you think? Because it's a holiday season coming up. And this is kind of when most people do kind of the

most damage to their wallets and their credit scores. So this is a good, good, good opportunity to learn more about how to be smart with credit. So you can, of course, I'll include some details in the show notes, jessicamoros.com slash 131. But just go to millennialmoneymeetup.com and there will be a button on there where you can buy tickets. You should probably do that pretty soon because I know they're going to sell out in the next probably few days. So make sure to do that. Also, if you're not part of my book club yet, we'll get in there. Basically, I've been started doing this in the summer.

I started with Aaron Lowry with Broke Millennial. And then the next one I did was back in September with Andrew Hellam. We read Millionaire Teacher. And my next one is going to be happening on December 9th. We're reading The Wealthing Like Rabbits by Robert Brown. It's honestly one of the books that I absolutely love, but I recommend it to everybody, especially if you're Canadian, because it is for Canadians. And there's nothing against if you're not Canadian, but I find a lot of finance books out there are American. So sometimes being a Canadian, you're like, oh, wait, we don't have 401ks. What do we have? So this is a really good book for

Canadians. And if you want to join me and everybody else reading the book and the author in person, go to jessicamorehouse.com book club. Of course, I'll include this in the show notes as well, because we will be getting together in my Facebook group and doing a Facebook live with the author. So you can ask your questions live and we could chat about the book and the topics and everything like that. I've got a bunch of other really exciting book clubs coming up in the new year in 2018. So you'll definitely want to get on my email list to find out all that stuff first. Yeah, so what did I say? Okay, we got the Millennial Money Meetup. That's coming up. Book Club, that's coming up. Also, again, this is only if you're Toronto, sorry, but I will be doing a free workshop,

Care of the Toronto Public Library. And it will be all about, you know, how to manage your money as a freelancer, because I certainly know, I know that quite personally now. And also, it's been interesting, you know, going through my own journey and seeing, you know, my husband, he's been a freelancer for 10 years. And so it'll be a really cool workshop. It's free. Again, I'll include some details about that in the show notes. So you can come if you're around. All right, so that is it for me. I do not have a listener series episode for you tomorrow. However, I do have another episode for you tomorrow that you will not want to miss. So make sure to subscribe. If you're

listening on iTunes, YouTube, SoundCloud, whatever, hit that subscribe button so you do not miss it. And I will see you back here tomorrow. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.