More Money Podcast - 176 How to Build Wealth by Investing in ETFs - Som Seif, Founder & CEO of Purpose Investments

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Episode 176 of the Momenting Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse, and I'm so excited to have you with me for another episode of the show. Got a great episode for you. And in case you're wondering why my voice is so raspy, well, man, I just got myself a cold now, didn't I? I've been working pretty damn hard the past couple months, and I think it just all kind of came to a head. And I got a cold on my way to Ottawa this weekend because I had a speaking engagement at Carleton University. And oh, man, it was... I mean, I had a great time in Ottawa. It was amazing. I also was lucky enough and able to do kind of an unofficial meetup with some of my wonderful podcast listeners. I posted a photo on

Starting point is 00:00:52 my Instagram if you want to check it out. Also, of course, there to speak to a wonderful group of students at Carleton University about post-grad game plan, what you should know about money after you graduate, things that I wish I knew, mistakes I don't want other people to make. So it was an amazing time in Ottawa, but I feel like I didn't really get to see too much of Ottawa because when I wasn't either at that meetup or doing my speaking gig, I was just in bed watching Harry Potter or something. I just, yeah, I could not get out of bed. And of course, luck would have it, right after my speaking thing at Carleton, me and my husband got back into our car. We stayed a couple nights in Ottawa, but that night we just wanted to head back home. And so we

Starting point is 00:01:36 took the long four-hour drive back to Toronto and completely lost my voice. So it was the weirdest experience to like, I don't know, I guess I talk a lot, probably, because I wanted to speak so many times in the car, and I couldn't, because it just hurt too bad, and there was nothing that would come out. Being silent for four hours is not as easy as I thought it would be. So anyways, so that's me. That's what I've been up to. But luckily, I did not have a cold when I recorded this interview

Starting point is 00:02:05 with my next guest, Sam Saif. He is the founder and CEO of Purpose Investments. And if you're like me, you probably fly Air Canada, you'll always see his ads, his wonderful Purpose Investment ads. So I definitely kind of fangirled a little bit. But he is basically just the perfect person to have on the show to really get into the nitty-gritty to talk about investing. And I've been getting lots of feedback from you listeners to get more people on the show to talk investing. So I know you're going to love this episode. But before I get to this episode, just a few words from this episode's sponsor. This episode of the Momany Podcast is supported by Copower Green Bonds.

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Starting point is 00:03:31 there's a limited supply of green bonds left. If you're interested in investing this year, don't miss out. To learn more, visit greenbonds.ca. Once again, that's greenbonds.ca. Thank you, Sam, for joining me on the Mo Money Podcast. I'm excited to chat with you. Great to be here. I don't know if you know this, but I don't know if we actually met, but I remember the first time I saw you speak, and I think it was about investing, was I think it was back in 2013.

Starting point is 00:03:58 You spoke at one of the first Canadian personal finance conferences. That was a long time ago. You know, it's one of my favorite things to do. You know, I get busy with a lot of things in my life, but being out and talking to investors and speaking about both the principles of, you know, kind of bias and investing, but also individually just thinking about, you know, the things that we should be doing right and focusing on it. It's just one of my favorite things. And so I always tell the team here that if I could spend, I could kind of restructure my schedule and have other people run everything and I could just be

Starting point is 00:04:35 out talking to clients and to market, it would be one of my favorite things and the best jobs in the world. Yeah, definitely. Well, I feel like, yeah, at that point, I really had no idea about anything about investing. So like, wow, that guy sounds smart. Fast forward a couple years. Now I can actually have a conversation with you about investing. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm glad that helped you with some foundational work. Yes, it definitely gave me some homework. Like I need to look into whatever the hell that guy said. Also loving your Air Canada ads. Every time I know a flight, I see your ads. You know, it's funny. You get branded a fair amount on this one. It's a very effective advertising. It is. But I now go around and everyone calls me the Air Canada guy. And so I have to sort of start to explain that I'm just the actor in the advertising and they kind of let me run this company thereafter.

Starting point is 00:05:31 But yeah, now I kind of just every time I see your ads, I associate you with Air Canada, which I love. I don't know. It's a good thing. The Air Canada guy for me. So for people that may not know who you are, maybe they're new to the kind of the financial space, I would love to kind of get to know you a little bit more and just kind of your background, how you were are able to now be I swear when I was doing some Google searches on you, there's one article and the heading was you're the king of ETFs. I don't know if you know about this, but that's a quite that's quite the nice title. So how where did you start? How did you get to this point in your career?

Starting point is 00:06:06 So I mean, you know, go back. You know, I'm an immigrant to the country, but, you know, kind of had really strong ambition in my life to make a mark and went into engineering as an undergrad and then decided I didn't want to be an engineer. And, you know, originally I actually wanted to be an architect. And, you know, and that principally, it does come back to some of the things I've done in my career. But, you know, I love the idea of building, creating, you know, innovation and driving change. And so that's where I think a large part of that desire

Starting point is 00:06:38 for architecture came from. But, you know, what I did out of post-university was I joined an investment banking dealer, RBC, and really started to drive an awareness and a knowledge towards financial services as a whole. And I got to know the financial services industry very intimately, the asset management industry quite well from a client base. And then just got that itch. I was 28 years old and sort of said to myself that, you know, I didn't want to be a banker for life. And so I decided, okay, well, what do I want to do?

Starting point is 00:07:15 And, you know, one idea came to me that let's go build an investment company. And I'd never run a business before but but i had really interesting vantage point i had covered um a number of the largest asset management companies in the world and got to know the space intimately in the mid-2000s and i also had covered uh barclays which ran the iShares or back then in canada the iUnits business. So, you know, one of the first ETF players and kind of really saw the trends towards indexing and ETFs in general and kind of got a little excited about the opportunity. And so I started my first company, Claymore, and kind of jumped out on my own and built this thing. And it didn't, like I i'd have a lot of history but uh thought um you

Starting point is 00:08:05 know i think there's a better way to do this and and so what led to kind of the the business plan on on it was around the time that i decided to leave um you know i was really struggling with as much as i love the principles of indexing and etfs struggling with was you know i didn't like the way the market cap indexes were created. And so I was really kind of of the view that there's some principles here that are important, but I don't like the model. I came across a wonderful research report in 2004 written by an unbelievably important person to me. At the time, I didn't know it, but it became a strong friend and mentor, a gentleman named Rob Arnott. And he built it basically on this idea of non-market cap weighted fundamental indexing.

Starting point is 00:08:51 And it was an idea that he built a research report around from the academic perspective. So I honestly read this report as a geeky engineer and said, this is it. And I picked up the phone and called Rob Cold and flew down to Pasadena. At the time, I didn't really appreciate it, but Rob was a pretty big thing. Flew down to Pasadena and the rest is history. Came out of that day with real clarity on the future of investing and the future state of how to build an investment company. I started my first company that way. Wow. That's pretty impressive. I know you just said it in a very like, here's a summary of kind of like how that all started. But I'm like, that's not many people could just like, and then I just

Starting point is 00:09:28 started an investment company, no big deal. And it was one of the first ETF companies. And then you eventually sold that company to BlackRock. Is that correct? That's right. So Claymore was, you know, it wasn't as easy as I just outlined it. But in the end was a really wonderful success we we um you know again you don't you don't think about these when you start a business but we help change an industry quite meaningfully and i think we're seeing today more than ever the the effects of the change that we created uh and um you know but but ultimately after a number of years as we grew to about eight billion in assets in seven years.

Starting point is 00:10:06 So the fastest in the industry. And then I had a partner in the business, a financial partner. And after a number of years of just discussions, it just made sense. They wanted to get liquidity and it made sense to sell it. And it was hard for me because I built my baby and was really passionate. To me, if you Googled me, I would actually, I wouldn't, if you Googled me, I wouldn't say I was Mr. ETF. I'd say I was Mr. Claymore more than anything else. That's what my identity was. And so it was a hard thing to sell. But what I learned through that process was a really important education about when you do something really special and you're smart and you

Starting point is 00:10:42 can kind of, you know, build great credibility, you can go back and do it again. And that's how I built my new company, Purpose. When did you start Purpose? And what did you want to do differently with this new company? So it's a really great question. So I started it close to about a year after the sale. And you can probably guess why that happened. But I took the year off to really stop and think. But one of the things

Starting point is 00:11:08 that when I decided to do this, I have a strong sense that you shouldn't just go do something and slightly iterate around it. You got to go out and say, can you really make a big difference? What Google likes to term, can you 10x something? And in our industry, 10xing is really hard. But I felt that we need to do something meaningfully because I'd already built Claymore and that company would now existed and it's now owned actually by such an impressive organization, BlackRock. And so I had to do something that was really even more impressive. So the big thing that I learned through the years, as much as, you know, I kind of use that example of, you know, meeting Rob Arnott and kind of thinking about indexing.

Starting point is 00:11:51 And, you know, when I started naively my first company, I assumed the role of an investment company was go out and beat the markets, you know, build investment products that could beat the markets. And so I did. And I said, okay, how do you best beat the markets? Well, you know, if you do the mathematics on it, you come up with a strategy that is disciplined, takes the best of active and passive together, and has a, you know, an attractive low cost fee against it. And by doing those things married together, you can, you know, over time, slowly migrate towards the top quartile and top decile performance versus benchmarks. And we did that at Claymore. It was really powerful. But, you know, when I realized we went through, you know, my business some of the really great performing funds over five years

Starting point is 00:12:47 and seven years we went down with the markets in 2008 and nine the same as the market so if the market was down whatever 35 percent we were down 33 percent and you know some money managers would argue that hey we beat the market but my opinion, we made clients really uncomfortable. We had people selling at the wrong time emotionally, buying at the wrong time emotionally. And what I realized was I didn't really do anything important for the end customer. I created a product, but I didn't really help the customer meet their long-term goal. And so I said, if I'm going to do this again, I'm going to focus on helping meet liabilities and acting and thinking more like how a pension plan thinks, which is let's help people build

Starting point is 00:13:38 better long-term portfolios, focusing on risk management, focusing on yes, returns, but really helping people focus on what it is they're really investing for, which is they're trying to invest to meet some goals, some liability, some outcome. And I think as money managers and manufacturers of mutual funds and ETFs, we have an obligation to think this way and help advisors and investors kind of build better portfolios. And that's what we've been doing in purpose. But at the same time, to do that with the same kind of core fundamental belief system we had before, which is a really strong discipline, investment strategies, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:16 kind of keep costs low and, you know, at the same time, you know, be extremely transparent with our customer base. And so we've done that. And it's been an amazing experience in building this again over the last five years. Yeah, absolutely. So I would love to get your thoughts because you kind of talked about how you don't necessarily believe in or subscribe by the idea of like, you know, indexing, which seems to be be kind of a becoming more popular, which I'm a big fan of just because it's a big leap from people, you know, doing actively managed mutual funds paying really high fees, still not really having a clear idea of what they're investing in. So with all these kind of robo advisors, or more information about how to actually buy ETFs yourself through a discount brokerage, so people can kind of become DIY investors, what are your

Starting point is 00:15:04 kind of thoughts on just this trend? It feels like it could just because I'm in a bit of a bubble, but I feel like more and more people are kind of understanding a little bit more about investing and specifically like this index strategy. And what were your kind of thoughts on that? So first and foremost, please don't get me wrong. I love what the principles of what indexing have done for the consumer and for investors. And I have built a large part of my thesis on the same principles. But what makes it really powerful is the fact that, one, they have some discipline around their investment process and so set of rules. And so they don't let emotions of investment management kind of dictate.

Starting point is 00:15:44 They're diversified. But also that they keep their costs really low. And, you know, you touched upon that point, which is against high-cost mutual funds, against high-cost advice models and things like that. You know, most investors, the odds are stacked against them, unfortunately. You know, and, you know, no question, optimizing and reducing fees is a very important thing. That said, though, I also believe that we need to step back for a moment and have some perspective. And so one of the things, so just as a side point, so, you know, you may not know it, but I co-founded a firm called Wealthsimple. So I really do believe in strong, diversifiedified portfolios i don't think i knew that you co-founded well simple so that with a gentleman named michael katchen and believed in the vision

Starting point is 00:16:33 of of how do you create an unbelievably important um kind of uh service for uh consumers who want to both start investing but also long-term want to be engaged in the markets, but don't need necessarily a full heavy advice hand. I think advice is extremely important. And one of the things that I've always believed is that do-it-yourself investors actually oftentimes struggle to do it. And so having a guided portfolio strategy,

Starting point is 00:17:03 whether it's with a full service advisor or with a robo, is actually something that's really important. And so we built that business on that basis. So I really fundamentally believe in this. It costs are important to all of those models. But I also believe that you have to have the perspective of time. And so what I mean by that, you know, the last 35 years in investing have been an unbelievably lucrative period for me, for investors. And it has also been a very and that's driven because, as many people may know, but many younger people may not, is that interest rates in the 1980s were in the high teens and have precipitously come down to, you know, at some points close to zero, as you know,

Starting point is 00:17:49 and have slowly been starting creeping up. But effectively, we have some of the lowest interest rates in history of hundreds of years today. And so that period of the last 35 years has benefited from an amazing declining interest rate environment, which has sort of helped self-correct all different types of risks and market corrections and things like that. Whenever we've had a bad time, markets kind of, you know, interest rates helped get people back on the same page because interest rates got cut

Starting point is 00:18:20 and equity markets went back up, you know, post-2000, post-2000, all the rest of it. And so for that reason, indexing and optimization of fees has been the best and most optimal way to invest in that trailing environment. The problem is that when you look at a time today going forward, our view is that investing is going to become more difficult. And, you know, what I mean by that is, you know, the beta markets, the long indexing is actually going to start to really challenge because when I look at first indexing in bonds, fixed income, you know, fixed income is one of the most difficult and challenging parts of the market today. And I think that most people are going to really have unfortunately low and bad returns from fixed income

Starting point is 00:19:14 over the next five to 10 years. Mainly because of interest rates being so low and also the risk of bonds relative to the return not being attractive. And then the other side on equities, although equities generally over the long period do perform well, we are at a time when equity returns are, you know, at the tail end of one of the great bull markets, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:38 nine-year bull market, we're in our 10th year. And, you know, I'm a reversionist, and I believe that future returns are going to be dictated by historical returns. And so therefore, if you believe that we're coming off one of the great historical returns of equities, you know, my future expected return in equities for the next 10 plus years are likely to be dampened. And so, together in a balanced portfolio, what most people would think is like a 60-40 portfolio or balanced portfolio, most people's returns over the next 10 years could be quite depressing. And so, yes, optimizing for fees and all that is great, but it still isn't going to get most

Starting point is 00:20:19 people to the return that they need. So I just think that investors need to have the discipline of thinking like an indexing investor What should people do, I guess, to kind of counter this? How can they kind of maybe protect their investments? Well, first and foremost, I think it all comes down to, when you say protect investments, I think more about structuring properly. For any investor who's not in the stage of at retirement or really really close to retirement your number one focus right now should be in accumulating wealth through savings and so what does that mean um you know from the day you get your first paycheck or if you haven't already uh you know start with your next paycheck is creating a systematic savings program from your paycheck to a savings and investment

Starting point is 00:21:27 account. You should do that as regularly as every paycheck, and if you can, even more. The younger you are, you should be trying to save 15 to 20% of your paycheck. If you start later, you should be saving more, unfortunately. And so that's a very simple, basic thing. The second thing you should do is then with the money, what do you do? Well, that's when you go, you work with either a online wealth advisor, like a robo platform, like Wealthsimple or other, or you go to a advisor, if you have a large enough sum that you can start with an advisor, you know, that is a full service advisor. advisor if you have a large enough sum that you can start with an advisor that is a full-service advisor, or if you have the confidence, you can start on your own and build your own portfolio.

Starting point is 00:22:13 And in building that portfolio, what you want to focus on is, again, cost, make sure that you've got an attractive fee. And what I mean by that is you don't want to be paying 2.5%, 3%. Anything that's in the sort of one percent or less is quite attractive and range bound. That's sort of what you should kind of generally expect. And then the second thing is you should be focusing on portfolio construction. And so just like any other thing, you want to buy fundamentally good assets. You know, so if you buy ETFs, you know, understand what the underlying strategy does, how we invest the money. You know, for example, you know, don't just aimlessly buy an index because it's, you know, it's cheap. Go and understand, hey, you know, what is, if I put

Starting point is 00:22:58 a dollar into this, what does that dollar actually invest into and how does it invest? And would I, if I was running the same thing myself, invest the same way? Ask yourself those questions. And I know it's a bit of work, but, you know, again, this is your money. You should care. And so, you know, my view is that you want to pay attention to these things and, you know understand it and my thesis today is that as i said you know i think that a passive portfolio in the its most simplest form uh will actually have some some challenges ahead uh but you can get very close to the same um concept of investing in really strong investment products low cost but but you know kind of adding in some thinking around fundamentals or active thinking around fixed income specifically to help kind of navigate some of the risks that you'd normally featured in the Globe and Mail, and you were kind of talking about this idea that you believe eventually in the future ETFs may become obsolete.

Starting point is 00:24:10 A lot of this had to do with kind of the popularity of cryptocurrency and just, you know, we don't even know what's going to happen in the future with cryptocurrency. Do you want to speak a little bit about that and what your kind of thoughts on that are? I think that's very interesting, very like future thinking. Yeah, well, I mean, I get, I think that that was somewhat misquoted. Oh yeah, probably. It was a very good clickbaity title. I'll tell you. So let me kind of step back and explain what I think is the way I think. I'm a forward thinking person. I always am a big thinker. I try to envision the future state of any business, of any markets. And as I talk about these issues, I think about the five-year forward problem

Starting point is 00:24:55 is not what does the last 10 years look like because that already happened, right? So one of the things that when I started Purpose, I've been always pushing my team on is, what are the technologies and what are the innovations that are going to make ETFs obsolete? Are you going to improve upon the work that ETFs have done against mutual funds, for example? And so, as you know, or maybe some of your listeners know, ETFs were created not by mutual fund companies. Traditional mutual fund companies in the 1990s, you know, the Fidelities of the World and the, you know, Franklin Templetons and in Canada, the CIs and, you know, the big, big, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:37 players, you know, they were happy and fat, you know, managing big active mutual funds with big management fees. And a bunch of outsiders, you know, players like Barclays and State Street and Wisdom Tree and, you know, my company, Claymore. You know, these are the firms that on the outside looked in and said, hey, we can come up with a better model. And they created the ETF structure. And today, you know, ETFs, of course, are an optimal model for investors and are being utilized by, you know, all types of investors, institutions, retail, everybody. And it's been amazing. And now, you know, call it 30 years on, the mutual fund companies have started to act more and launch ETFs and recognize the structural advantage and use them. So, you know, it's great, but it wasn't invented by the incumbent. My argument has always been to say, for that same reason, as an ETF company today ourselves, you know, like whatever is going to be ETF 3.0,

Starting point is 00:26:39 the next iteration, the thing that's going to kind of make our product even better is not likely going to be invented by ETF companies. It's going to be invented by outsiders, people who are looking in and saying, I can do that better. But as an innovator, I've always sort of said, we need to be thinking about this and we need to be the ones who are open-minded to the fact that we may not have the best optimal model long-term. And so I've been stressing this to my team. And so, you know, we constantly are in search of that kind of vehicle or that structure that's going to help.

Starting point is 00:27:13 And we have ideas of what that is in the future and all the rest of it. But that's how we, as a firm, stay on top of our toes and as opposed to back on our heels. One of the areas that I've been, call it curious about, and I started to, you know, just like most people, you know, two years ago, when I heard the word Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, I was, you know, very passive on it. I'd kind of dismiss it. I'd say that this is just some kind of fad or scam or whatever it be. But, you know, when I actually started to, you know, recognize that I

Starting point is 00:27:46 actually knew very little about it, but I started to do some research on it and I started to get fascinated about the technology behind it. You've probably heard of it, of course, how we know is blockchain and blockchain technology. And I actually started to recognize that there's some really amazing, profound elements to that technology and so um you know i kind of pushed my team to step back and say guys like there's something here that could be interesting but it's still years and years and years away but the idea of it could could have a profound impact on some of the principles of how money management could be changed and i'm not talking about currency, cryptocurrency stuff and managing cryptocurrency. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking

Starting point is 00:28:28 about the settlement and technology of blockchain that allows you to effectively run products and potentially manage money even cheaper than we do today, which is very, very unique, again, to help reduce the cost to clients. And so we started to pay a lot more attention to it. In the last year, we became even more curious about it. We made some investments ourselves into certain areas and technology players. And then about six months ago, nine months ago, we made a decision that we needed other people to, we felt that everyone should have a seat at this table. And so we actually created a vehicle uh called ether capital that um we assembled a really profound and amazing group of partners uh to uh to partner with us on to really go out and give people in the public and an access

Starting point is 00:29:20 point what we think is um the blockchain technology opportunity over the next five to ten years and uh and we created ether capital as a as a very unique startup technology company and it trades on the on the exchange uh in canada uh and it's the first pure play um ether ethereum based uh vehicle in the world so very unique concept and um but but to to that point um you know we we think that um there's going to be many different iterative technologies out there that could be disruptive to management, to ETFs, and to help investors even do better. And, you know, as a firm, we're focused on how do we help drive that change and lead that change as opposed to always being, you know, kind of waiting for somebody else to do it. Yeah. Sounds like some exciting things, scary slash exciting things to the future. And I

Starting point is 00:30:12 think kind of like the big message I'm kind of feeling from our conversation is it's important to, of course, know what's going on right now, but I guess keep informed. Like investing isn't one of those things that you know it all and then you can just live your life. You kind of have to continue to inform yourself because these new things keep popping up. It's incredible just how much has changed in the past 10 years in terms of investing. Lots of the investing books out there you can't use them as a guidebook anymore. You have to do your own research these days. I disagree with a couple of things

Starting point is 00:30:45 there. I don't want to make anybody feel like it's scary and all the rest of it. I actually avoid that. What I would say is this. Look, there's a couple of core principles that are really important. So first is that investing isn't hard. You need to kind of set a set of rules for yourself. And what I mean by that is, what is it you want to be as an investor? So, you know, great example. If I'm 25 years old and I'm a professional, maybe I'm a lawyer,

Starting point is 00:31:17 you know, over the next 30, 50 years of my career, I'm going to make my money not by investing, but I'm going to make my money not by investing, but I'm going to make my money by being a great lawyer. I'm going to be, you know, my career, I'm investing in my career is going to basically help me increase my salary, my income, and then my savings rate. And then, you know, more and more of my savings is going to go into the markets and I'm going to compound that. The kind of lack of perception there is that most people think that they get rich by investing. And what actually it is, you get rich by kind of having a discipline

Starting point is 00:31:52 around saving and investing in your career and yourself and your opportunity of increasing your kind of long-term incentive and constant compensation and opportunity that way, and then having more of a savings. What investing does is augment all that. And then having some rules around how you kind of invest is very important. So, you know, one of the biggest risks in investing is not the markets per se. It's actually you and me as individuals.

Starting point is 00:32:18 We are emotional and we make bad decisions. We chase trends. We get emotional when things are going down. We listen to our friends at the golf course. We get caught up in insecurities and regrets. When we buy a stock at $100 and it goes down to $50, we think that I'll wait till it goes back to $100 before I sell it. And oftentimes that never happens. And so there's a lot of biases in that. And so one of the things about having a discipline about investing

Starting point is 00:32:51 is that it can help you avoid your human cognitive biases and stick to a set of rules. And that's what, by the way, indexing and advice help you do is avoid those emotions. But the other part of it is that, you know, investing is not something that is new, like meaning there are, like when I talked about, for example, the last 35 years being different, very exciting for investors and making people, you know, really great lucrative returns. You know, when I go back a hundred years, returns also have been very

Starting point is 00:33:22 strong for investors, but there's also been many periods where it's been challenging and they go through stretches and, you know, and they're different types of experiences. But the core principles of how to make money, you know, 100 years ago, 50 years ago and 30 years ago, ultimately remain the same, which is buy, you know, strong fundamental assets that perform well, keep your costs low, and build a diversified portfolio. This is the kind of things that when you talk about reading important books and stuff, I actually believe that every investor should read Benjamin Graham's books, understand these types of principles, because those are the types of things that help you actually understand what investing is all about, how to make money and, you know, why you do it. And then the rest of it is actually how you decide to execute on it. Whether you buy ETFs or you buy active money management, you find an advisor to do asset management for you or whatever it be. And I think it's all about the discipline, the rules, and the fact that you're

Starting point is 00:34:26 doing it that matters more than anything else. And then the rest is how do you construct your portfolio and how do you achieve your long-term goals? Absolutely. And just experience and taking the plunge. I think especially when it comes to young people, young investors, even if they have lots of this information in their mind now, it's hard kind of just taking that first step. But like you said, you know, it's important to start young. That's the best time to start. So you just have to just do it. Do it.

Starting point is 00:34:54 Exactly. And actually, you're right. I mean, the hardest is the first step. But once you get into a routine and you actually set up your savings account structure so that it basically deposits from your check. And I always say the first job you get, you should be doing it in your first paycheck. And then if you haven't started already, do it on your next paycheck. And just start it. And start with something that you think you can manage and then just keep pushing yourself to save more and more.

Starting point is 00:35:20 And a 20-year-old starting should always be at the sort of long-term savings rate of about 15% of their check. And as time goes on, that will increase the later you start. So if you started at 22, you should be at 15% for your whole life. If you start at 30, you should be probably in the 25% range for the rest of your life. I mean, and that's the unfortunate thing of just missing compounding for a long period of your life. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I feel like I could talk to you for another hour or so, but I'm not going to do that to you. I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me

Starting point is 00:35:54 and sharing your wisdom. I know a lot of people are going to get a lot out of this episode. You are a wealth of knowledge. I'm excited to see where Purpose Investments and your new venture, Ether Capital, will be in the future. Thanks so much. Thank you for your time. It's always a pleasure. And that was episode 176 of the Momentum Podcast with Sam Saif from Purpose Investments. You can find out more information about him and his company at purposeinvest.com. And of course,

Starting point is 00:36:23 you can check out the show notes to learn more about the topics that we talked about in this episode at jessicamorehouse.com slash 176. And make sure to come and check out my website, jessicamorehouse.com. A lot of great stuff on there. I've got a blog, guys. So in case you want to read, listen, I've got lots of great info on the blog, share videos, and a lot of news and information. Speaking of, I'm always doing new things, which is why I have such a hoarse voice because I've been working myself too hard. But if you want to be in the know of all the things that I'm up to, or contests I'm doing, or events I'm doing, or all that stuff, make sure to get on my email list

Starting point is 00:37:01 at jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe. You will not regret it. Okay, I've got a few important things to share, so please do not go away. Here's just a few words about this episode's sponsor. This episode of the Mo Money Podcast is supported by Copower Green Bonds. What's in your investment portfolio? Like, seriously, what kind of companies are you investing in? You may be surprised and, well, not exactly thrilled to see that you're investing in companies that don't actually align with your personal values. Here's one way you can change that.

Starting point is 00:37:33 CoPower Green Bonds. A way to invest your money to fund renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in Canada. CoPower was founded in 2013 with a single mission. To unlock capital for climate solutions by empowering Canadians to participate in and profit from the transition to a low-carbon economy. If you're just as concerned about climate change as I am, this is one way you can do something actively about it, while also earning high returns for your financial goals. I'm talking 4 or 5% on your investment. Want to learn more

Starting point is 00:38:06 and get started? Then visit greenbonds.ca. Once again, that's greenbonds.ca. Okay, so first things first, very important. This week, my Canadian friends, is known as Credit Education Week. So Credit Education Week runs from November 13th to 16th. And basically, it is just a way to promote financial literacy awareness, but specifically with the topics of credit management, debt management, all that kind of stuff. And every year there's a new theme. This theme is money mindfulness, which I love. Just a friendly reminder, we all need to not just be better at money, we need to be more mindful with our money. We need to be more conscious consumers. So if you're finding that you're having some trouble with your finances, you're always over shopping,

Starting point is 00:38:58 overspending, all that kind of stuff, take a minute, think about it. Be more mindful. Do you need this? Is this something that you need? Is this just a want? Is this something you can afford? Is it not something you can afford? And then if it's not something you need, if it's not something that you can afford, put that debit or credit card back in your wallet and just walk away. Just walk away. Or go to cewc.ca for some more information about Credit Education Week. I think you'll get a lot of info from it. There's also lots of free events happening this week. So all that information is on that website. But since I also mentioned Financial Literacy Month, that is also, you know, this is

Starting point is 00:39:37 why November is my favorite month, Financial Literacy Month. There's some great things going on this month. A lot of great tools that are kind of being launched or promoted more. So this is really a great time to really hunker down and look at your financial life and see how you can improve it. We're gearing up for December, which is like prime spending time. And then we're back into the new year, January. And why not start working on improving your life before the year instead of just setting those goals as New Year's resolutions, why not start working on it now? And one place that you can find some more information about a financial literacy month. And in case you're wondering, I guess kind of the theme for financial literacy month this year is invest in your financial well-being, which I love.

Starting point is 00:40:19 So there's a lot of great information on the Government of Canada's website, actually. So if you go canada.ca, I mean, it's a really long URL. So if you just Google Financial Literacy Month, honestly, that'd probably be easier. But you can find a lot of great info about Financial Literacy Month on there. Also, I want to share that the Millennial Money Meetup that I've kind of been talking about for the past couple weeks, it's going to go down on November 27th in Toronto. It is officially sold out. Sorry, guys. So if you didn't grab your tickets, you can still register to get on the waiting list because some people can't make it. So I can release their tickets to you. So that's always something you may want to check out. Just go to millennialmoneymeetup.com for more information on that. But what's really exciting is Bisco is the sponsor for that event, the Financial Services

Starting point is 00:41:11 Commission of Ontario. And they just launched a new part of their site all about retirement planning, which I think is amazing. Because especially as younger people, we don't even know where to start. We don't know lots of the questions to ask because retirement is so far into the future. So if you go to bisco.gov.on.ca slash retirement, there's really great information on their website about retirement planning, pensions, and just setting yourself up early for that kind of financial success in the future. So I know you're going to love it. All right. That is it for me because I can't speak anymore. My voice is going. It's going. But I'm going to see you back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode. Can't wait. And if you would be so kind just to take

Starting point is 00:42:03 two little baby seconds to give me an iTunes review, I've got a couple that I've been saving to do some shout outs for for next episode. So if you want to get those in and get a shout out for me next week, well, please spend two seconds and give me an iTunes review. Let me know what you're thinking about the show. I would really appreciate it. All right. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you back here next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.

More Money Podcast - 176 How to Build Wealth by Investing in ETFs - Som Seif, Founder & CEO of Purpose Investments

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