More Money Podcast - 222 How to Save $13,000 Per Month - Gordon Stein, Author of Cashflow Cookbook

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

I can’t believe we’re already celebrating Season 10 of the Mo’ Money Podcast, which is why to kick off this new season I wanted to share a special episode that will hopefully inspire and motivate you to take a good look at your spending and see how you can save some money with minimal effort. The perfect guest to talk about this with me is Gordon Stein, author of Cashflow Cookbook. In his book he shares 60 different ways you can save between $25 and $900 per month! If you add all of those ways up, you could save $13,000 per month total! You know the old adage “A penny saved is a penny earned”? Well, it’s true! If you can find a way to cut down on costs or save money on things you’re already spending money on, that means there’s more money leftover for you to put towards your emergency fund, a future vacation, or your retirement investments. And what’s great about Gordon’s book and the tips he shares in this episode is they are all fairly simple to implement and don’t require you to live like one of those people featured on TLC’s show “Extreme Cheapskates”. Because at the end of the day, you probably don’t want to live like an extreme cheapskate, and I sure don’t either. That kind of life, in my opinion, isn’t sustainable for the long-term. But the tips that Gordon shares are, and can save you a ton of money over the course of years and decades. Also, don’t forget, I’m giving away a copy of his book! To enter to win you just have to visit jessicamoorhouse.com/contests. For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/222 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the Mo Money Podcast, Season 10. Season 10, guys. New decade, Season 10. I kind of like how everything's an even number. I like that. It makes me happy because I'm a type A and these things make me happy. Hi, guys. Welcome to Season 10 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm excited to have you here. You're going to learn a ton of things, all things money, Mo Money, really. And for this season, we're going to kick it off with an episode I think is a great kind of, if you need just like kind of a little kick in the pants to be like, hey, we need to start a budget and we need to

cut back. We need to do better with our money, but what's an easy way I can do it? And what are some things that I can do right now, like this minute, this moment today? That's what this episode's about. I am interviewing Gordon Stein. He is the author of the book Cashflow Cookbook. And if you're so inclined, you can find his book at cashflowcookbook.com as well as Amazon and wherever you can find books. But if you go to his website to grab your own copy, you can save $5 because he's giving me a special promo code. So nice of him for all Mo Money podcast listeners. And the promo code is Mo Money. So use the promo code Mo Money. You save $5. Cashflowcookbook.com is where you can find it. And as you may have guessed from the name of his book, it's written

kind of like a recipe book, which is kind of cool. He just has so many amazing ideas on how you can save money. He talks on the podcast about some of the different ways. And I believe he also said in the podcast that every single way that he shares, you know, tips and tricks about how to save money, uh, things to cut back on or find deals on everything will save you at least $20 or $25, basically a good chunk of change. And again, all of these things are things that anyone can do. Now, this is obviously kind of specific to Canada, but he said he's coming out with an American version very soon. Very exciting. But I feel like lots of the stuff that we talk about is for anybody in any country, you can do this. And hopefully it'll inspire you to kind of be a bit more creative when it comes

to your money. I feel like sometimes we get on an autopilot and don't really think about, hey, I'm spending money on this. Is there a way that I can save like a few dollars? Because, you know, these things add up and they can end up, you know, over the course of years or decades be hundreds or thousands of dollars. So anything we can kind of do tips and tricks, you know, why not do it, just do it. So I'm very excited about this episode. But before I get to that interview with Gordon, I just have a few words to share about this episode's sponsor. This episode of the Momany Podcast is supported by ShopTaker. You know what I've been dreaming of having ever since I moved into my townhouse over three years ago? A new fridge.

The old one I've got is ancient and hideous, but I'm one of those people who cannot in good conscience buy a new appliance until the old one stops working. That is, unless I find a crazy deal. But who has time to regularly check retailer websites to see if there's suddenly a sale or a price drop? Thanks to ShopTaker, no one needs to anymore. ShopTaker is a free must-have app for your computer and phone that enables you to save items from over 4,000 online stores like Amazon, Costco, Sephora, and Zara to one place and get notified the moment they go on sale. It also scans the web for coupon codes at checkout and automatically applies them to your purchase. In short, if you shop online and like a deal as much as I do, you should try out ShopTaker by visiting jessicamorehouse.com slash shoptaker. And that's spelled S-H-O-P-T-A-G-R. So go on,

join the over 1.5 million members and sign up to ShopTaker today. Just visit jessicamorehouse.com slash ShopTaker or find the link in the show notes for this episode. Well, thank you so much, Gordon, for joining me on the show. Oh, pleasure to be here, Jessica. Yeah. So I feel like your book has been out for a little while and it's been on my to-do list to get in touch with you to get you on this show. So I'm glad I can finally have you on the show, especially to kick off the kind of new year, which I'm very excited about. It's called The Cashflow Cookbook. Before we dive into all the greatness of your book, can you kind of share a little bit about your background and what brought you to eventually write this book? Yeah, I'm a 35-year executive sales marketing operations. I've been at companies

like IBM, Dell, Apple, and Rogers. But I've always had large teams and typically younger people. And they've often said to me, hey, can you tell me a little bit about how to manage my money? I'm finding I can't make ends meet. You know, what advice do you have? That sort of thing. So I had that on my mind. And then I had a crazy fluke thing that happened that got me onto the idea for the book. It started with a funny idea about savings on car washes.

And a friend had commented on a car wash receipt of my console for $13. She said, you know, why would you spend money on car washes? And he pointed out this idea of using an SO Extra card and saving up the points and getting a free car wash. So I thought that sounded awfully onerous. And then somebody else had pointed out the SO Speed Pass, which is just a little thing that goes on your key chain, and you pay for your gas connected to your credit card. So then I was collecting these points, and it was actually an easier way of paying for gas,

and I haven't paid for a car wash in about three years. So that kind of got me going. I thought, gee, that's interesting because it's, you know, $25 a month, and I got one for my spouse at the time, $50 a month. Then I got onto the discounted home alarm monitoring. And so then I said, gee, there's, you know, $75 a month, but it was all so easy. And so that got me going in a list. And then it became a spreadsheet.

And then I started tracking, hey, what would it mean if you took all these ideas, took that free cash, invested it 7% over the course of your career? And the answer is millions and millions of dollars. And I thought, this is just too good to let it go. And it was an angle on personal finance I'd not seen. And that's how Cashflow Cookbook got started. Yeah. What I found very interesting, obviously, I really like that you kind of have this different way of telling stories and kind of displaying information in kind of the form of a cookbook, which I think is fun. Because sometimes, I mean, you've probably read as many personal finance books as I have. Sometimes they can get a little dry. So you want something to spice it up a little bit. But I really liked going through your book. It did seem kind of like,

it's not one of those books that you necessarily have to read chapter by chapter. You can kind of flip through it and see which parts are like, oh, I want to focus on that. Because it really kind of dives into pretty much every potential bill or expense or part of your life you're spending money on. And then here is a different way to think about it. And here's a different way that you may not have thought that you can save money on, which again, yeah, I haven't really seen that really. Like you can search all day long for a blogs, but you'll have to find, you'll have to look for something very specific. This kind of goes through everything that you could probably think of, which I thought was very interesting, especially like, I feel like this time of year, we're in the new year now. A lot of people are like, okay, it's the new year.

I'm going to look at my budget, maybe refresh it a little bit, see where I can cut back. This is a great starting point if you're like, I have no idea where to start. Yeah. So I think what's interesting with Cashflow Cookbook is a lot of people talk about this idea of cutting back and it's onerous and then they get into budgeting and that leads to some squabbling within a partnership. And the whole idea of cashflow cookbook is don't budget. My view is go through all of your recurring expenses, use the ideas in cashflow cookbook. And the whole notion is minimal effort, minimal sacrifice. So I believe there's different ways of doing things and just being more mindful in the

purchasing. But with all of the tricks and techniques in there, there's ways to save thousands of dollars monthly. Again, minimal effort, minimal sacrifice, and not about budgeting. Well, when you say budgeting, because I've heard that before from a couple other people, like, I don't like budgeting. I don't believe in budgeting. And I think it probably means because we have different definitions of budgeting.

What do you mean when you're like, I don't believe in budgeting. It doesn't work. What does that mean when you say that? Well, I think a lot of people attempt to set up a budget and they have categories for spending and often cases where there's a couple involved. And then what will happen is, you know, something will come up. You know, the kid loses his hockey gear and you don't have a category for that. And then the roof leaks and where's that going to go? So I think a better approach is step one, carve out some money that's going into your

TFSA, your RSP, all of those kinds of things. So it's not even in the picture. And so then you've got savings covered off. And then what you do is you really focus on these monthly recurring expenses. And in the book, there's an idea or two for just about, I'm sure, every category of recurring expenses, a way to do it smarter. So you make that change. And let's say that change saves you $75 a month. Right away, you increase your mortgage payment by $75 a month, you increase your TFSA, your RSP, or for my American friends, your 401ks, etc. So if you do that, you're constantly improving, you're constantly getting better. And I think the biggest thing is to really track your wealth. By that, I mean your net worth, what you own minus what you owe.

So I think when people start looking at that number, then they think about everything else differently. And I think it's more powerful than budgeting. No, I agree. I feel like for so long, especially when I was just getting into personal finance, people would talk about budgeting nonstop, but it wasn't very prevalent that they would talk about the importance of tracking your spending so you know where your money's going and the net worth portion. I don't know why, but for me, with my personal finance system that I do with my husband, the net worth is my favorite part because sometimes we're both self-employed, so our incomes vary month by month. Our expenses are kind of vary month by month.

You've got your variable expenses, and groceries are always different, and this kind of stuff. And sometimes it feels like we're not making any progress. And then we put in all of our stuff for the net worth, and we're like, we're up, we're doing well. This is great motivation to keep on going. Yeah, I think a lot of the problem with budgeting is, we're up, we're doing well. This is great motivation to keep on going. Whereas, yeah, I think a lot of the problem with budgeting is if you don't do those extra things, if you don't track your net worth, especially, it will just feel like you're not doing any good.

You always kind of feel like a failure. At least that's how I used to feel when I wasn't doing that other kind of portion. So I agree. I think it's so important to track your net worth. Do you recommend kind of doing it regularly, like monthly, or some people say that they only do it yearly. What's your kind of recommendation? Well, I think when people get started really getting active and mindful and personal finance, I think it's a great idea to do it monthly. And I actually think it's great for a couple to do it monthly because then everything's in focus and all of their decisions are going to be sharper. There's less squabbling about money, but you're actually making progress. So, you know, if you think about losing weight, you know, what's the advice people

always say? We've got to weigh yourself every day because then it becomes mindful. You're thinking about it all the time. And so if you want to build your wealth, track your wealth, you know, not so much the budgeting, but it's to your point, okay, the roof leaked and this happened and the kid lost his hockey gear or whatever. But by the end of the year, holy cow, our household is up $74,000 of net worth. And the next year you pick up another $102,000 as debt goes down and investments grow. So I think that's exactly the right idea. And I think a lot of people too forget that net worth isn't just about how much you have, it is how much you owe. And when you're tracking your net worth, you get to also track your progress with your debts. And that can also be a really helpful motivator. I know a

lot of people, you know, will put their debts in their budget, but they won't necessarily track the month over month progress of it. And I think, especially when you are dealing with, you know, a variety of debts or a lot of debt, it can seem just impossible amount that you're never going to make, you know, any progress with or climb to the top with, so to speak. And when you do that, like, you know, with my financial counseling clients, I'm like, we need to track your debt as well. That is a very important component. You know, a lot of people are like, Oh, I just don't feel like I did very well this month. I'm like, well, let's look at the numbers and those numbers don't lie. And then you could be like,

no, you're actually making progress. We're getting there. And then there's that really exciting moment of when your debts are completely paid off and your net worth is completely... Or when your net worth gets into the positive finally after being in the negative for so long. Well, a lot of people have credit cards. They have four or five credit cards. They kind of don't want to look at the bill. They got $2,000, $3,000 on each of them. Well, that might be $10,000 of debt. So when you do this net worth, you have all the credit cards lined up and you have all the mortgages and car loans and everything else.

And then you can actually see what's happening and what's changing month on month. I've got on cashflowcookbook.com, I've got very simple templates people can download. They're free. I don't sell emails to the Russians or anything. Yeah. And then they can track it and they can see how they can get started. Exactly. It's so important. And yeah, I find with a lot of people I work with, they've never actually laid their stuff out. They actually have never looked at how much is in all

of their accounts and how much debts they have. They've never put it in writing. And I'm like, it's a very simple thing, but it's not easy to kind of digest sometimes. Like you said, a lot of people want to just bury their head in the sand, which I know sounds easier, but in the long run will not get you anywhere. So what I like especially too is you're not just talking. And again, I feel like a lot of people talk about budgeting and cutting your expenses. You also talk about, well, when you cut your expenses, hopefully it's not just so you can make ends meet. You'll have kind of a surplus of money. And then it's important to

have a specific plan, either putting that more onto your debt if it's expensive debt or investing it or putting it into savings. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? So people kind of maybe wrap their head around like, where should they put that surplus of money? Sometimes I think a lot of people are like, I don't know what step to do. What's the right thing to do? Well, I think people do a lot of hand-wringing over things like TFSA or RSP and do you pay down the mortgage first or whatever. And by all means, take a look at it. And some of the things are, there's lots been written about, you know, you could pay down, you know, make your RRSP contribution, use the refund to pay down your mortgage, those kinds of notions. I think by far the more important thing is just get going, get started.

And, you know, if you're in Cashflow Cookbook, I say, hey, are you a debt person? If you've got a lot of debt and you're really swimming, that's probably the place to start. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So, you know, you take the book, Cashflow Cookbook, or you go to the blog and you pick a blog article, pick one thing and, you know, use that thing to save $50 a month or $75 a month. And these are all things you aren't going to miss. And then as soon as you get that money right away, increase your automatic, you know, do you have a company RSP plan as contributory? In other words, the company kicks in, maybe you haven't maximized it. Well, that's certainly the first place to start. There are

people missing out on all this free money. So, or a company stock purchase plan, where'd that pay down? So you take that $75, immediately you make the change. So just as an example, let's say someone calls and renegotiates their cell phone plan, and those are eminently negotiable things. So, you know, you get off the phone and you just save $75 a month right away, go make that change. So now all this stuff is happening automatically. You know, you're saying, well, you can't afford another $75 a month. Well, yeah, you can because you were giving it to your cellular carrier.

So now you're going to use it to build your own wealth. Then to your point, Jessica, you start tracking your net worth and you start seeing those shifts happening. Then you go grab another idea and you implement that one. And then it gets fun. It gets exciting. And you're moving to a world where you're not bound to your paycheck and you can go and realize your dreams. Exactly. And yeah, I like that you kind of shared that. It's not just about cutting things out. It's about, okay, we all have cell phones. We need the cell phone. How could we reduce that

expense? So many people I talk to don't realize that you can renegotiate and not just your cell phone, but your insurance plans. I mean, so many people don't realize that you can renegotiate and not just your cell phone, but your insurance plans. I mean, so many people don't realize that, you know, you can switch providers before your term ends because you may still save quite a bit of money if you go to another provider that has a, you know, a cheaper offering. Most people don't realize that they can do that. Or even with their mortgage, they just let it auto renew. But it's very simple that if your term is coming up, shop around, see if there's a better deal to be had. You can save thousands of dollars. Well, you know, I think that's it exactly.

And it works on small things and on larger things. So in the book, the minimum I set was $25. So there's no ideas in the book that will save you less than $25 a month. But they go way, way up. An interesting real-life example, I've got a home I'm renovating. And so the chimneys needed some work. They were old and crumbly. It's a home built in 1938. So I needed to get the chimneys relined. So I called two, three different places. The pricing was very consistent at an incredible $350 a foot. To get these chimneys working would have been $20,000.

So I made one more call and found somebody highly recommended on Google. And so he says, yeah, yeah, no, we can do that. So the total is $1,400. It's a simple process. But just this business of shopping around, because a lot of people don't shop around, whether it's a small thing. You can so quickly check things now on Amazon, and you can look at Amazon reviews, Google reviews, Angie's list for contractors, et cetera.

And just a little bit of research like that, in my case, that was a savings of about $18,000. One more phone call. Yeah. And I think people realize, because kind of like you mentioned at the beginning, you at first thought, you know, saving on car washes, that sounds like a lot of effort. I guess sometimes it is just about finding out what is the easy, like what is the actual strategy to make it easy? Because sometimes it does seem difficult for some things. Like I have friends that are really into, I guess not so much savings, like typical savings, but like points.

Like I've saved so much money because I used points or whatever. I just, for me, the kind of energy and effort I have to put into doing the points game is just not my jam. But I do like, I much more rather put my time into calling around or shopping around online. That makes more sense, even though that might be more effort, quite honestly. Well, it is. And you know, I think to me, there's kind of three gears on this thing. So one is kind of where people are. And they typically don't, to your point, they don't put effort in it. They don't know their net worth. They don't know what they spend. They just want to avoid the whole thing. And when I do speaking

engagements, one of the first things I say, hey, you know, put up your hand if you know your current net worth. And, you know, I might see in a room of two, 300 people, I might see a hand or two. Most people just don't think about it. So, you know, getting a little bit more aware is a game changer. And then doing these steps in Cashflow Cookbook or other sources where you get a little smarter and you reduce these recurring expenses with no effort, no sacrifice. And I call that second gear. Third gear is really this whole frugality movement. And you've written some great pieces on being frugal and spending less track than you're spending. I think that's all spot on. But the people who back in first gear, they don't want to change anything. They don't want to give up anything. And so the idea of Cashflow Cookbook is, hey, here's the way to make the savings without giving up anything.

But then I think there's an equally important point, maybe even more important, that you know what? You actually have a better life when you have less stuff. That is so true. And I watch Marie Kondo, her shows and all. And so this business of tidying up and life is just so much easier if you can just reach into your closet and grab a shirt without having to fight your way through a bunch of stuff. But, you know, if you really go and put your, when you watch Marie Kondo and she's, you know, slashing people's closets and, you know, they throw out all these, all this junk or it goes to a charity or whatever. But when I look at those bags going out and I'm going to call it $50 a clothing item, sweaters, pants, whatever, and it's all moving out.

Well, people paid $50 an item at retail, and she's got all that stuff stuffed in bags. If you actually do the math of what's getting given away, and people then they just keep buying more stuff, but they're not really saying, what do I need, right? So get me a little bit more mindful. It's not like you're losing lifestyle, you're gaining lifestyle. And it takes a little while to get onto that. But, you know, when you have things, those things need thing accessories, and they need thing maintenance, and they need thing covers, and they need thing storage, right? So, you know, if you just prune down your possessions, not out of any weird, you know, monk-like behavior, just because it leads to a better life. And then, then things really start to accelerate. Yeah. Financially. Yeah. No, I totally agree. I feel like also,

this is a great time of year to really take stock of what, what do you have in your home and what do you actually use? I, I don't really like doing it like the spring cleaning kind of thing because I feel like no one actually does that anymore, but just like any time of year, really. But take stock of what do you actually have in your home. For me, it's actually kind of great that I live in a not big home in the city. So we have limited space. So that means we actually have a very, you know, we're very limited to what we can actually bring into our home, which I think is great. Because then I'm like, we can't, we don't have space to buy that.

So we can't buy it. Or if we buy something that we really want and, you know, it just makes sense for whatever living, you know, like recently I bought an Instant Pot. But because I bought an Instant Pot, the only reason I did is because our rice cooker died. And that seemed like a good, you know, this can make rice and some other things. And it takes about the same kind of square footage, maybe a little bit more. It's quite big, actually. But for me, it's like, we're going to get something. We have to also get rid of something. And yeah, and then of course, there's the whole environmental component that I think we also need to remember, not only are we spending so much money on stuff that we don't need and

filling up our homes with all this stuff, but also it does have an effect on our environment, people. So let's just also remember that. Do you need that thing? Possibly not. And could you buy it cheaper used? Probably. Well, it's interesting you say that because one of the things I found in writing Cashflow Cookbook is that being green and being healthy and being financially astute, they often go hand in hand. So, you know, there's a lot of talk, for example, about veganism. And I wouldn't call myself a vegan, but I certainly eat a lot less meat than I used to. So when you do that, it's unbelievable the difference to the planet. It's unbelievable the difference to your health.

And you could probably take out about 30% of your grocery planet. It's unbelievable the difference to your health. And you could probably take out about 30% of your grocery bill. It all goes together. So there's a lot of power with this business of being green and healthy and financially fit. I know. Isn't that lovely? It's not that... When you realize that, you're like, well, there's so many great benefits besides just the cash savings, which I think is so important.

I want to dive into some of the great tips that you do have in your book. I'm not going to give everything away, but you want to kind of share some of those. Let's kind of start with maybe just that something very small and easy someone can do to save even just a small amount of money that they can do like tomorrow. What's something kind of top of mind that you're like, anyone can do this? Yeah, I think the first one is, you know, we already touched on it, but I think it's such a simple one is you put in a call to your,

you know, cable, TV, internet, wireless. These things are very negotiable. You don't need any kind of fancy scripts or anything else. Just call them. And I think it's a great idea to give them a call every six months. And yes, you're going to have some hold time.

You're going to listen to a lot of bad staticky music. But once you get through, you're going to have to repeat your information six times. But once you get through, you just say, hey, I'm really fussed about this. I'm looking at some other providers, a lot of money. Can you just go through? I'd really appreciate your help. There's no need to rant and rave and swear or anything else. And I do that a couple times a year. And I've yet to

see someone who didn't come away with at least $25 a month in savings. They want your business. And hey, you know what? Let's reward them with the loyalty, but we need them to stay on their toes and we want to make sure we're getting a fair deal. That's a quick one. You can do that right off the bat. That's almost guaranteed $25. When you're kind of preparing for those calls, I know it's important to kind of have some numbers like this provider provides this kind of deal. What can you do for me? Is there any kind of special places

that you do your research to see, to get that kind of information? So at the ready, if that, your cell phone company is like, well, sorry, this is all we can do. And then you're like, well, here's my rebuttal. Yeah, I don't even, I think people make this way too complicated. I don't, I don't do any of that.

And I do everything in the book I've done. I do it all myself. I do everything that I talk about in the book. I think you just call, you know, particularly if you've got, you know, some people will have a vacation property and they've got teenagers and cell phones. So it's a big bill. So if you call

and say, look, and a family, et cetera, it's not unusual people spending $300, $400, $500 a month when it's all done. And when you call and you say, hey, look, this thing's $525 last month. Can we just run through it? Love your help. And just appeal for their help. I don't think you have to know what's the deal of the competitors or anything else. You're probably not going to get a rebuttal. As soon as you mention the name of a competitor, you're going to go to their retention department, and they'll come up with something better. And, you know, Jessica, people say, oh, gosh, I don't want to call and be on the phone for an hour.

Okay, look, let's say you save yourself $50 a month. That's $600 a year, and that savings will run out for, let's say, a couple years. That's $1,200. Let's say the phone call is a half an hour. So that's earning at the rate of $2,400 an hour after tax. Most people don't make anything even close to that. So it might be the most important thing you do with your half an hour to give that a bit of a tune up. Yeah, not bad to do it on your lunch break. That's what I usually do on my lunch breaks. You know, back when I was working at my last full time job, that's what I'd spend my time on. I would be that person. Or I remember there's this one time that I bought this very expensive winter coat and I really liked it. And then a rip kind of happened. I'm like, what? This is only a

year old. This was expensive. I looked into it and I don't think a lot of people realize this. There is like warranties on so many different things that most I don't think a lot of people realize this. There is like warranties on so many different things that most people don't take advantage of. And so I just had to call the company. It was arduous. I had to call them a few times on my lunch break, but eventually they said, okay, just go to this store. There'll be information that they were sent and they will fix it to you for free. And yeah, they fixed my jacket. So I wanted a free jacket, but you know what? I'll take a free fix of a jacket because still that would have cost me probably like 50, if not more dollars to fix myself. So it's just like those little things that yes, you're trading time. But I think in the end,

it could save you quite a bit of money. And I know there's some other things in your book that I really enjoyed. Like these are things that I've been doing for years. But I think a lot of people sometimes you need a reminder that these are things you can do, um, you know, for saving on some of your like housing bills, like changing out your light bulbs for those led bulbs. I've done that for so long and it's like such an easy little thing to do to kind of lower your electricity bills and also getting a thermostat where you can actually control the temperatures, you know, during the day and during the night. We have one.

It's not a fancy one, but it does actually lower the temperature at night. So we're not using as much, you know, heat because our bedroom is quite warm with our comforter and stuff like that. Little things you can do. It'll take five minutes. Yeah, no, I think that's great. And there's so many around the house. There's ones in terms of groceries. There's ones in terms of groceries. There's

ones in terms of dining out that make a big difference. Even just, you know, it sounds crazy, but getting into more frozen fruits and vegetables, really significant difference. When I do some pricing around on that, that's a savings of 30 or 40%. So using some of the tricks in there to really dramatically pull down your grocery bill is another whole area. One of the ones that was most interesting to me when I did all the research on the book was clothing. And it takes about 7% of the typical Canadian budget gets spent on clothing. But we only ever wear 20% of the clothing that we buy. And come up time and time again in the research.

So a great place to start is on clothing. And so if you think about what do those numbers look like? So somebody who, let's say, if there's a household income of $100,000, that means they're spending $7,000 a year on clothing on average. But they're only wearing $1,400 worth of clothing. So $5,600 a year is spent on clothing that never gets worn, ever. And then where does it end up? It heads out to the yard sale at five cents on the dollar if you're lucky, and that's before the Hagler's get there. So getting more know, getting more mindful there, I think, is a really great place to go. The other one that really shocks me is when you drive around the city and pretty much any city in Canada,

and you see the growth of these beautiful storage places, self-storage places, and some of them are gorgeous. I want to move into a few of them. They're back. In the old days, there were these orange door things out in the middle of nowhere. And clearly, it's big business. And I think George Lockers are great if you wanted to invest in one, i.e. owning the business. But from a personal perspective, you know, we're just such gatherers of junk. And if you, you know, you drive around in a suburban location in the summer,

everybody's got their three-car garages with the doors open. It's full of baby strollers. Oh, yeah. Just look at my parents' garage, full of stuff. It drives me crazy. But then they run out of money, and then they go get a storage locker for $300, $400, $500 a month. So let's have a clean-out day day and let's get rid of the stuff.

And if you've got baby strollers in your garage and your children are off at college and university, that may be a sign that they need to move on to another home. So let's get rid of the storage locker. Let's get some shelving in our homes and let's move all of our gear back home, or better yet, get it donated and just go with a simpler lifestyle. And so taking out a storage locker, let's say $500 a month, that's a remarkable difference. That's half a million dollars over the course of your career of incremental net worth. It's huge. Yeah. I don't understand the storage locker thing.

But I am that person i think i'm the anti hoarder of things i can't stand clutter and so i am always getting rid of stuff so for me i'm like i could not imagine spending money on paying a monthly fee of a couple hundred dollars to hold my stuff if it's in storage you don't need it you don't miss it so get rid of it just get rid of it i i even saw this commercial lately that was definitely targeted to millennials about like, oh, but it made kind of storage look cool. It's like, we'll take your stuff and put it away. And then when you want it back, that's cool. We'll bring it right back to you. I'm like, why do you have stuff that you have to put in storage and then, you know, come out of storage

and then, you know, all the time the time. That doesn't make any sense. You don't need that stuff. I guarantee if it's not in your home, you don't need it. That's exactly it. I think this whole thing that a lot of people miss is the difference with these recurring kinds of expenses. Things that show up every month, those are the ones to really go after. So if you save $10 on a frying pan on sale, that's nice, but it's $10. Those recurring monthly things are powerful. And the math at 7% is 10 years is 173. So what I mean by that is if you could save $100 a month on something over 10 years, you take that money, invest it at 7%,, you'd have $17,300 of network.

Over 20 years, that is $52,000. And it goes up to $100,000 after 30 years. So these recurring expenses, that's the area to really focus in on. And this is also so important too, because I think you've probably been seeing this too. Every TV network around is launching their own streaming service of their stuff. There's like Disney Plus now and all these other things that are popping up. And before it was great because it was like, oh, there's just Netflix and oh, okay, there's Crave too. Oh, there's Amazon Prime too. Okay. But now there's like 10. And so I've been talking to so many people. They're like, it's basically becoming what cable used to be. You're going to be paying like $200 a month for all these streaming services. So I'm telling you people, if you're listening, you don't need five different streaming services. Pick one, maybe two, but don't. Because otherwise it's just the same deal as cable. And we're trying to get away from that. And there's no way you can possibly watch all of that TV. There's no freaking way. And you know what? If it's something that you

really enjoy and you take good advantage of, fabulous. And go enjoy your money by all means. But things that are coming out of your account monthly and it's all these things you get signed up for. Most people don't even go and do an inventory. For most people, sit down with your checking account, your credit card, and just circle all these recurring things. Are you actually using it? Are you getting a benefit out of it? And if you are, great, enjoy.

Then is there a cheaper way to do it? And if not, enjoy. But then let's remove those things that you're not actually using. Which kind of goes back, and this is a theme that I've been seeing a lot more, and this is something I talk about too, which I love. Instead of thinking so much as spending money is bad because I don't like the negative narrative. I don't think it's helpful. I don't think it's working, especially for millennials. It just doesn't work for us. Having a different mindset and being more mindful and buying things

or spending your money that is aligned with your values and also things that you can afford. That's a way better and more sustainable way, I think, of figuring out where should I spend my money. It's like, okay, well, if lots of the things that you're spending your money on aren't making you happy, don't add positive value to your life, then cut it out. You won't miss it. It won't feel so painful when you do get rid of whatever service it is. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me. I know lots of people are going to get a lot out of your book. It's a great, like I mentioned, way to get started. If you're not sure where to cut back, well, one great way is just to track your spending to see where your

money's going. But also, this has a lot of great things that I would have actually probably not thought of or I needed a reminder of. I'm like, oh, right, I should do that. I should take a look at how how can we reduce our monthly amount on this? I haven't, you know, done that for a while because we get into autopilot and things are on auto renew. And then we're like, oh, well, I just paid for another year. Now what can I do? So I appreciate you writing this. I can't believe you had this all in a spreadsheet. That's amazing. It was a big spreadsheet. I bet it was. I bet it was. I bet it was.

Where can people find more information about you and grab a copy of your book, Cashflow Cookbook? Yeah. So a great place to start is at cashflowcookbook.com. So my blog's on there. I've got a whole deck of blog posts I haven't written. I'm in the midst of moving and getting married shortly and all kinds of things. So I've been a little behind on my blog posts.

But I've got a whole deck of new ones. There's about 30 up there, more to come. Cashflowcookbook.com. You can also get the book right from the site. It's also available on Amazon. You can get it as a Kindle edition. And so far, the Canadian edition's out and I'm in the midst of working

on the American edition for the book. Oh, amazing. What is the big – just curious, like what is a big difference between Canadian and American? Do you see a lot of big differences or – In terms of how we are with our money, I'd say, frankly, equally bad in Canada. You know, the savings rate is abysmal in both, you know, people retiring with a paltry $200,000 of net worth on average, crazy amounts of debt levels, all these things. In terms of the book edition, obviously, the cultural references change. The vehicles change in terms of Roth IRAs and 401ks instead of RFPs and so on and so forth.

Some of the calculations are done differently around mortgage interest, etc. But probably the biggest one is that in the U.S., there's even more clever and creative ways to save. There's a lot of interesting vehicles. For example, there's a website extension called Honey, and it pops up deals for you. And in Canada, you'll see 1% here, 2% there. It's really not that exciting. In the US, it's a big deal. And some of the points, things like Rakuten,

really dramatic here versus what we see in Canada. Well, thanks so much for joining me. It was a pleasure. Well, hopefully I'll have you back soon. We could talk more about the American side of things. I think that would be great. And that was episode 222 with Gordon Stein, the author of Cashflow Cookbook. Of course, check out the show notes at jessicaboross.com slash 222. Also, make sure to grab a copy of his

book, cashflowcookbook.com or find it on Amazon, whatever. If you do want to buy it via his website, which I'd probably recommend because there's a promo code he's giving me to all Mo Money podcast listeners. You can save $5 off the purchase of the book, which apparently I'm just reading now in his email valid for one week after running this podcast. So hopefully, maybe he'll extend it. I'll let, I'll, you know, but just do it. Just do it. Just go to cashflow, cashflowcookbook.com and use the promo code Mo Money. Save $5 off the book. There you go. So I hope you enjoyed that. I have some a lot of things to share with you. We need to chat a little bit. So stick around. I just have a few words to share about this podcast episode sponsor. This episode of the Mo Money podcast is supported by ShopTaker. Did you know that 67% of millennials prefer to shop

online? Well, I guess that makes me one of them. And a big reason is because you can save so much time and money by doing so, especially when you use ShopTaker. You see, ShopTaker is a free app for your computer and phone that helps you do your online shopping and get the best price. All you have to do is make an account. Then when you're doing your online shopping and see something you like, take it with ShopTaker. After you take it, you'll be notified whenever there is a price drop or sale on that item. Not only that, once you're ready to buy, ShopTaker will scan the web for coupon codes at checkout and apply them to your purchase. ShopTaker has already helped members save over $92 million.

Don't you want to save some money too? To learn more and to try it out for yourself, visit jessicamorehouse.com slash shoptaker. And that's spelled S-H-O-P-T-A-G-R. Once again, that's jessicamorehouse.com slash shoptaker or find the link in the show notes for this episode. Okay, so if you listen to my little kind of special little bonus episode that I put out last week that was kind of just letting you know about some important things. One, this season is starting on this date specifically, but also that I am doing a live masterclass called the Six Week Fix Your Finances Masterclass. Well, that starts today and the registration closed last night. That being said,

if you were listening to this episode in the morning or even the afternoon and you're like, yeah, I just found out about this. That sounds amazing. I want to fix my finances in six weeks and be able to talk to Jessica live every single week and get my money together. But I can't believe it's too late. I know the window for registration was very short. If you really want to join, there's still time. I'm going to give you some time. Give me an email at jessica at jessicamorehouse.com. Let me know that you're interested. I will send you some important information and a special private link where you can register and join us for the first live masterclass that is happening this evening at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Even if you cannot make the specific live sessions that I will

do weekly, I record them as well so you can watch them the next day because I know everyone is in different time zone and has different work schedules. And this course is for anybody. You don't have to be Canadian. You can be American. You can be Australian. You can be British. You can be wherever you live and you can join because it is just about just general financial management for anybody in any country. So I'm very excited about it. I really can't wait to kick it off today. So email me if you are interested in joining. Again, you can find more information about it at jessicamorehouse.com slash fix your finances. Another thing that I want to share is, well, I did that big book giveaway for season nine last season. I have wrapped it up. I have already contacted all of the winners. So if you're wondering if maybe you're a winner, if you didn't get an email from

me, if you didn't already receive your book or any contact from me, unfortunately, the contest is closed and you did not win. But that being said, I am, of course, doing more book giveaways because I love it. So I'm going to give away Gordon's book. Okay. So go to jessicamorales.com slash contest or check out the show notes for this episode for the link for how to enter the contest. And you can be entered to win a free copy of Cashflow Cookbook. And of course, I'm going to have so many more authors on this show. So that means a lot more books I'm going to be giving away. Very excited. One other thing that I can't remember if I teased or not. Sometimes I'm like, did I say this to myself or to you? I can't remember. But I am going to be doing something very special this season on the podcast. I'm going to be releasing two episodes a week instead of just the one. I know sometimes

I do two and those are just kind of like crazy special weeks. I'm going to be doing a regular segment every Friday. Um, call, well, I'm just going to leave it at that. You're just going to have to subscribe, uh, wherever you're listening and tune in on Friday to find out what this new kind of series I'm doing, But I'm pretty excited about it. I think you're going to really like it. Also, I have a YouTube channel. If you're not aware of this, maybe you're listening to this on YouTube, which I appreciate. Thank you so much.

But if you're just listening to me on the podcast, you may not know that I also do a ton of videos on my YouTube channel. JessicaBoross.com slash YouTube is where you can find that. Make sure to like and subscribe and join me because I'm trying to put my film degree to use. I mean, I know it's been a while since I finished film school and a lot has changed. A lot of technology has changed. My gosh, I remember honestly, and this is embarrassing. I remember being in film school, going back to my high school to give a presentation as kind of an alumni and talking to this one student. And he's saying, I'm going to really do more YouTube. I think this is, you know, going to be really big. And I'm like, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's a trend.

I wouldn't waste your time. That guy's probably a millionaire now. And here I am just starting my YouTube channel in my early thirties. Well, I've never been an early adopter. So what can I say? Anyways, join my YouTube channel, please. It's quite good. I think, I think, but you know, I'm the one behind it. And last thing, if you're not already in my Facebook group, join. It's facebook.com slash group slash money life balance. It's a great way to get to know other listeners, get to know other people and ask your money questions. There's no dumb questions. It just means you just don't know the answer yet. And it's just a great space to kind of just be amongst other people that want to continue their personal finance journeys.

That is it for me, really. I mean, I can talk for another hour, honey, but I'm not going to do that because you have a life to live. And I get that. I understand. I understand. So I'm going to let you go, but I am going to be back here on the podcast Friday for a new series of the podcast when I'm very excited about. So I hope to see you back then. But other than that, have an amazing Wednesday or whatever day you're listening to this episode. Have an amazing week. Have an amazing year. Have an amazing decade. Have an amazing life. All right, enough, Jessica. Get on with it.

Okay, leaving you, have a great rest of your day. I will see you back in the podcast very soon. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.