More Money Podcast - 234 How to Reach FI at 32 & Why Not to Pay Your Mortgage Early - Kornel Szrejber, Host of the Build Wealth Canada Show

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

I finally have Kornel Szrejber from Build Wealth Canada on the show!  As a Canadian, I’m always considering what the right financial advice is so I can, in turn, curate the best personal finance content for you guys. Kornel’s mission is very similar to mine, only he’s FI and paid off his mortgage by 32, which is of course incredible!  On the podcast today we’re talking about how to become financially independent (FI) and learning a little more about what the path is toward FI. Kornel and his wife lived together in their twenties and focused their dual-income household toward paying off any debts and their mortgage. In achieving his goals he is now focused on his early retirement and navigating life as a young retiree.  Toss the headphones on and tune it for this energetic interview with Kornel and learn a few ways on how you can create a financially independent life for yourself! For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/234 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Mo Money Podcast. This is episode 234, and I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. And for this episode, I hope it's going to be a bit of an upper, something to lift you up. I have the wonderful Cornell Schreiber. He is the host of the Build Wealth Canada podcast. And I have known him for a number of years from afar. We've met, I think, once or twice in real life. But he started his podcast before I started mine. And ever since then, I feel like I've always just seen his podcast floating around. Apparently, he's seen the same thing for me. So it's like we've been around. And basically, a few weeks ago, I'm like, why have we not had each other on each other's

podcast shows? Like, why have we not done this? This is crazy. We've been following each other online for so many years. Let's do this. So after so many years, I finally have Cornell on the show. And he is going to share his amazing story of how he was able to pay off his mortgage in only six years while still in his 20s and how he became one of Canada's youngest retirees at the

age of 32. Considering I'm 33, I feel like a little bit of a failure. But hey, we all have our own journeys, right? Okay. Anyways, he's going to share all of his stories, his tips, or how he's able to basically accomplish these two huge financial goals that most of us can only dream of achieving in honestly just a few decades. I'm happy just to pay off my mortgage by the 25-year mark. So I would love to learn what are his tips and tricks? What's the magic that he used to be able to do that? He also now runs Canada's largest online personal finance and investing conference that he's going to share more about. But you can find more information about that at buildwealthcanada.ca. But it's

called the Canadian Financial Summit. If you're interested in it, it's going to happen in the fall. So like I think about September, apparently it's going to happen. So you can find more information on his website. And of course, make sure to check out his podcast. I'm also going to make an appearance on there very soon. But without further ado, here's just a few words I want to share about this episode's sponsor, and then I'll get to that interview with Cornell. This episode of the Momoney Podcast is supported by Ufile. It's that time of year again. You know, time to file your taxes. So how are you going to do it this year? Why not join over 1 million Canadians who put their trust into U-File's 20 years of experience helping taxpayers get it done? No matter if you've

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meaning you get their assurance of accuracy, satisfaction, and the best tax result. To learn more and to get your taxes over and done with the pain-free way, visit ufile.ca. And as a special bonus, get 15% off when you use promo code MOMONEY. Once again, that's ufile.ca and make sure to use code MOMONEY to get 15% off. Welcome, Cornell, finally to the show. I feel like we've been talking about this for years and it's just never happened. And finally, I'm like, I should reach out and just get him on my show. I'm glad you did. It's been on my to-do list forever. Yeah, both of ours. Yeah. And then when you reached out to me,

I felt this is really silly that we haven't done this yet. So thank you for being the smarter one and less procrastinate-ish. I just had a moment where I'm like, we need to do this finally. I've been doing my show for over five years. How long have you been doing yours? I feel like almost maybe longer or? I think it may be a little bit longer,

but it's, yeah, it's but it's yeah it's like um yeah it's like close to six like five yeah like between five and six uh something like that yeah i think we launched pretty similar time yeah when did you launch your podcast uh whenever six years ago or like five i'll check itunes and see when your first episode was like I can't do simple math live on the air come on yeah yeah okay okay fair enough fair enough I don't I don't feel like doing it I'll just be like a lot like okay let me think yeah no it's because I always see your show on the iTunes charts along with me and I feel like we're always battling it out to kind of like be on top of each other no matter what like day is, it's like, oh, Cornell's beating me.

Yeah, it's always like, it's very flip-flop, right? I mean, sometimes you'll have a higher ranking, sometimes you'll have a higher ranking. Exactly. It changes every day. So it's like, well. Yeah, yeah. And who's got the higher ranking in this subcategory? I don't know.

You know what? Actually, that's funny. I've never really looked at other categories. It's just like the business category. Oh, okay. Probably in other ones. I've never really looked at other categories. It's just like the business category. Okay. Probably in other ones. I've just never really thought about it. For sure. That matters at all because you and me clearly have good podcasts because we've been around for this long.

So I kind of want to start there. So we don't know when you started your show, but at least five or six years ago, what was the kind of inspiration or like, why did you want to start a podcast? And it's called Build Wealth Canada. So what inspired you to start that podcast? Yeah. So what happened is we paid off our mortgage really early. So we were 29 or I was 29 when we did it. So it was under six years.

And now we can talk about it because I know. But basically, so I did that. It was under six years. And we can talk about it because I know people talk about it. But basically, so I did that. And then upon achieving that milestone, I mean, it was a big deal. But then I realized, well, we actually don't really have much of a retirement savings because I've been plowing everything into the mortgage. And so I thought, okay, well, how can I best learn how to do this? And what made sense to me is that, well, quickly, when I started diving into that rabbit hole, you learn that there's so much conflict of interest within the industry, especially here

in Canada, right? I mean, people, you're calling themselves advisors, and then they're really just, you know, salespeople selling you high-key products, things like that. And so I said, okay, well, this is also a big deal. I don't want to just take one person's advice because one person can be wrong and one person doesn't know everything. So what if I just interviewed the top people in Canada, the top investing and personal finance minds in Canada to learn all these best practices so that I actually do it properly? And so that's what I did. And so the whole reasoning was, well, even if the podcast completely flops and no one wants to

listen to me, then at least I still won because I still learned the best practices from the top experts in Canada and I can actually apply that to my own finances, to my own investments, right? And so I figured this is like a win-win. There's no, you know, the worst case scenario isn't really all that bad.

And so that's really what started the podcast. And then, yeah, it really turns out people did enjoy listening to it and continue to listen to it. And I mean, yeah, like it's been one of the top personal finance investing podcasts in Canada now for, yeah, for like the, you know, five, almost six years now. So it's done well. And yeah, I mean, I continue to do it because there's things evolved too, right? Like technology changes, you know all about that, right? Like ETFs, different ones coming out and technology

and all that. So there's always, it's an ongoing learning thing, right? Yeah. So that's what kind of started the podcast. Yeah. So does your, you know, kind of from the title, you would assume it's about building wealth. Does it really kind of focus on that? Or do you kind of dive into other topics in personal finance? Or do you kind of mainly focus on wealth building? I would say other topics as well. Yeah, it's so that definitely has a lot of investing content and about how to optimize your investments. A lot of financial planning content focuses a lot on that. There is some pieces as well, like, you know, with budgeting and money management and things like that. But I would say, yeah, I guess it gets more into sort of the, it goes pretty deep. It gets pretty nitty gritty into, okay, how do we actually implement this? What are sort of the different

nuances? Specifically here in Canada, I would say that's kind of the big differentiator between my podcast and many other ones is that I made the conscious decision to just focus specifically on Canada because there's so many great podcasts and content out there, but then you start consuming it and it's like, you know, Roth this and 401k that. And as a Canadian, you're always, always wondering like, okay, I think this advice applies to me, but I'm not a hundred percent sure because it's made for Americans. Right. And so I thought, okay, well, I'm in Canada. I'm going to be here long-term. I have been here long-term. So let's do this. Let's find, let's get these experts that talk about specifically for Canadians.

Which makes sense when it comes to investing. Because I feel like, yeah, for other shows, it doesn't really matter if it's American or Canadian, if you're talking about budgeting or debt repayment, because it's all kind of the same across both countries. But when it comes to investing, well, there's a lot of minutiae and there's a lot of things that are specific to Canadians. And as a Canadian, you know, when I first started learning about investing, it's very difficult to find Canadian-specific information. So I understand that and I appreciate that, that you offer that.

Yeah, yeah, no problem. When I was doing a little research on you, I saw that you were on another podcast. It was all about you sharing one of your worst investments ever. And one of them you mentioned was paying off your mortgage early. So you're able to do that within a span of only six years. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. It was a bit under six years. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. So why did you make that choice that, yes, we want to pay down the mortgage as soon as we can? And ultimately, did you find

that was that worth it? Or if you could go back, would you do something differently? Sure. So going back, I wouldn't have done that. I would have paid the regular mortgage payments and then taken what cash flow we had. And I would have invested in just broad market index ETFs. That's what I would have done primarily because that, if you look at the performance of the stock market, equity in general, they do tend to outperform whatever the interest rate is that you're paying on your mortgage. And so, yes, you get this risk-free return by paying off your mortgage quicker and focusing on that, But the markets have historically totally outperformed that. And so from a sort of peace of mind and feeling good for being debt-free,

I mean, that's great. And there is value to that for sure. But in terms of how can I maximize my net worth in the quickest possible time, the correct answer to that would have been I should have invested that instead of just making all these early prepayments to the mortgage because we had a 50% savings rate. So we were really plowing money into the mortgage. So basically, I left a lot of money on the table,

especially because when we started doing this, it was around the financial crisis of 2008. And so as we all know, things dropped very heavily, but they also recovered very quickly. And so if I knew what I know now, and I instead invested that money, I would have been able to ride that wave up. And so in a way, I am, I guess, kicking myself for not doing that. But at the same time, it's like, well, you're fresh out of university. We weren't taught this stuff in schools. I even went to a business program. And I mean, it was like only in fourth year, there was an elective that I did take on personal finance. And that was like the only thing. And

this is like one of the best business schools in the country. Right. So, so it's, you know, so what, and that, so that was me. Right. And I didn't know this stuff. Right. So how can anybody else be expected to know? Yeah. So, so that? Yeah, so what was the other part of your question? Because I kind of went on. No, I find that so fascinating. I want to find out though, because it sounds like so you were able to pay off your mortgage very quickly and it was happening sort of around the financial crisis, but you're also a new grad.

Like I need to understand the timeline because I'm like, how did you have the money to pay off your mortgage that quick when it seems like you were just starting out in your career? Yeah. So when we first got out, we had pretty decent jobs. We moved to the GTA. So I had a pretty good salary starting off. And then my wife was working as well. So at the time, she was my girlfriend, but we lived together. So we were essentially dual income right away coming out of university. And so we both moved to the GTA. So we lived in Bram right away coming out of university. And so we both moved to the GTA. So we lived in Brampton.

And then I worked in Mississauga. She worked in Brampton, both for big companies, that kind of a thing. So we had the benefits and all that kind of thing. And so, yeah, that's how we were able to really do it. I mean, we both went to University of Waterloo. I went to Laurier for business. I did co-op there. So we started off really strong. And the fact that we were dual income right away allowed us to structure our lifestyle in such a way that we could achieve

that 50% savings rate. Wow. That's crazy. The opposite of my experience being broke for so long throughout my whole 20s. Well, I think you graduated shortly after I did, right? I did. I graduated in 2009. Right, right. So you were kind of- Different experiences, apparently. Very different experiences.

Exactly, right? In my case, when I graduated, it was 2007. And I mean, that's when I started working. So things were good. Things were rolling. The job buffers were there. There was no issue getting a job. And a lot of that was because I did co-op and I worked my tail off to be able to go

to the good program and all that. Also, you had a business degree. I had a film degree, very different hireability. Yeah, yeah. By the time I graduated, I already worked for Fortune 500 companies and stuff, big-fitting co-op and stuff. So to have that on the resume, getting a job was not difficult. And the fact that we weren't in a gigantic recession obviously helps a ton, right? So yeah, so that helped. And

then also we didn't get fired during the recession, which also obviously helped. Yes. Yeah, that's the other thing that I saw a lot. Not only was it hard to get hired when you are just starting out, but a lot of people that were recent grads, I saw they got jobs because they were kind of the last people and they got laid off. So, oh, it was a tough time. It was tough. Yeah, it was terrifying.

We had a whole, in my first job at a university, what blew my mind was, because I always, I guess, naively thought, oh, you just go, you work hard at your job, you do a good job and your job is secured and you're fine. And then the one day when the financial crisis hit,

they basically got an announcement, an entire floor of the office, how was that? Got fired. Like they just closed down the whole thing. So the whole floor just get wiped out. And I'm like, oh, so even like, I'm sure not all those people were bad workers, right? Like they were good. Like, you know what I mean? There were some good performers. It really came down to numbers. Like how can we save money? Let's cut that floor. Exactly. Right. Crisis mode. Let's just like this division's less, not profitable. So, or not as profitable as we want it to be done, you know? So, so that, that blew my mind. Yeah. So fortunately, yeah, we didn't, I never got fired or anything. So.

Okay. So you were able to pay off your mortgage super quickly. Amazing. And then once you reached that goal, is that when you're like, hmm, now we should start saving for retirement. And that's kind of maybe when you realize maybe we should have been doing this earlier. Exactly. Once I went down the rabbit hole of investing and I was like, oh, wow, this really has outperformed the real estate, you know, and, and, uh, or, or the interest rate rather, right. That we decided to opt, uh, that we decided to save on, right? Instead of investing. Yeah. So that was it. Yeah. And you kind of mentioned too that, you know, on your podcast, you sometimes talk about financial planning and stuff. Do you have like a personal experience of like working with like that traditional bank financial planner and them staring at you?

Because it sounds like right now, and you're kind of like on the same page as me, you know, very much into, you know, passive investing and, you know, index ETFs and all that kind of stuff, which I think are great. Sounds like maybe you weren't always doing that because most people don't know that at the start. Man, if I knew all this stuff that I know now earlier, I'd be so much richer. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Yeah. So what is your... Just so do you have any like a personal experience that you know maybe you were in mutual funds and then you learned oh there's a different way to do things yeah no so i my i before i dived into investing i learned as much as i possibly could about it like i read every book i could get my hands on you know reading the blogs started the podcast as well right to get a a specifically Canadian perspective as well. So no, so that was my experience.

So no, so I never had a thing where I was in mutual funds. So you didn't really make as many mistakes as the rest of us. Good for you. Well, I guess it wasn't so bad because my big mistake was deciding to pay off the mortgage instead of, you know, investing in equities

when they were down in the 2008 financial. So that financial. So yes, I left money on the table, but once I dived into investing, I really made sure I knew how to do it efficiently and how to pay the lowest fees before I actually pulled the trigger 100%. Because what happened is we had that 50% savings rate. And so that's quite a bit of money that we were pumping into the mortgage. And when that mortgage was paid off, it was, okay, now we're going to pump that into investing. So if I'm pumping an entire person's annual salary into investing, I better figure out how to do this properly to not mess this up. So yeah, yeah. So I definitely went all out in learning this. Yeah, for sure. Wow. So it sounds like basically you were kind of living on one salary and then saving the other salary.

Wow. Exactly. Yeah, that's pretty much what we did. And then to kind of get to that goal faster too, I started a side business as well. Not Bill of Canada. This was before. It was actually in rock climbing. Oh, yeah.

I feel like I saw that when I was doing research and I'm like, is this the same Cornell? Because I think I found your book on Amazon. I'm'm like is this the same cornell because i think i found your book on amazon i'm like is this the same person that seems very different yeah it's on amazon yeah i think the videos are up there they've got like like i think it's like well over a million views at this point but yeah like so so that was like my like you know side hustle so to speak because i was all into rock climbing and i still am um and so that was so i thought okay well this will be fun. I get to learn rock climb. I get to talk to experts about that, and I can make money off that. And so I ended up basically using that money as our fund money and to pay for some of our vacations too. And so that was one of the ways that I tweaked

things so that we could get our savings rate to be even higher, right? Because initials 50%, but then you start getting raises, and then eventually your mortgage is paid off. So you can plow that into investments. Plus you've got a side hustle that pretty much pays for all your like fun things like going out to eat and things like that. And so that's how we were able to really go full out and pump as much money into investing as possible, which resulted in the financial independence at 32 piece. Yeah. Okay. So let me get this right. So you were able to pay off your mortgage by 29 and then reach financial independence by 32? That's piece. Yeah. Okay. So let me get this straight. So you were able to pay off your mortgage by 29 and then reach financial independence by 32? That's right. Yeah. So in three years, you're able to reach financial independence?

Yep. That doesn't make any sense. So that's crazy. Was it really just like living below your means and investing in index ETFs? And that's kind of it. Is that the strategy? Yeah. So there was the ETFs. Also, I became a landlord as well. Some real estate. I did have some real estate as well. Yeah. That was the other, I would say, component of it. Yeah. So I did have a rental property, which, well, we just said has done well, as you know, recently, right, for the past several years. And so what ended up happening, yeah, so that's right. I can say, I would be like, well, that doesn't make sense.

It should be even, like, how did the portfolio grow so much so quickly? Well, yeah, so we had, I mean, we've had a bull market for quite a while now. Not so much now with coronavirus and stuff, but before that, the markets were growing very nicely. And the real estate market in Ontario or where we are, like Kitchener-Waterloo, has also been growing nicely. So we had our primary residence, which was appreciating in value. And then we also had our rental property, which was also appreciating in value. So that property was spitting off positive cashflow and it was appreciating. At this point, I've sold it because I just love investing too much, like passive index investing. Because real estate investing isn't very passive, I've learned. So what we were able to do is we were able to ride the wave of the ETFs going up in value. And we were able to ride the

wave of two properties going up in value. Because what we ended up doing is once we kind of, eventually I crunched the numbers to figure that we were financially independent, we'd actually decided, well, if we actually like downsize, we would become financially independent. And so we actually sold off, like now we live in a much smaller house, we sold off our bigger house and we sold off the rental

and we had those ETFs as well. And so that helped us get there. So we were able to ride both the real estate wave and the equities going up wave. And then we downsized the house to be able to catch in on the capital gains of both the rental property and the primary residence. So you don't have to do it that way. I'm not saying like, oh, you have to be a real estate investor and a passive index investor. No, but it's common when I talk to other people who've reached financial independence, I'd

say all of them have owned real estate. Either they currently do and they still get that rental income or they have in the past. So I'm like, that's always an interesting element that everyone has that in common. Yeah. So I mean, that ended up being lucrative as well. Like we definitely made quite a bit on that. And that helped us get there as well. But I mean, it was even more passive.

Even though I love that the tenants were amazing. I liked them so much. They were fantastic. But even with perfect tenants, it's still a ridiculous, it's still a lot of work and stress because things break, right? Like furnaces in the winter when you have a family with kids living there and now you're taking a vacation day off work to fix, to get the furnace fixed. And you know what I mean?

Like things like that, right? Like just these crazy stories, they do actually happen. So, well, I find that when most people talk about any type of passive income, if you actually really know that whatever they're talking about, you're like, that's not passive.

Nothing is really that passive besides maybe investing and getting dividend income. Yeah, pretty much. I'm of that opinion as well. There's a whole industry built around people selling people, marketing, or, you know people marketing courses, right?

Where, hey, you learn this and you'll have passive income forever and you don't have to work. And it's just that the reality from people that have seasoned business owners like you and I, you learn that that's just not true. Yeah, no, that's honestly a big pet peeve. And I feel like I just had this conversation with my husband today. He's like, maybe you should stop going on Instagram because I keep on going on Instagram and seeing these people that are selling this dream of, oh, I make, you know, five figures every month. And so can you. And I'm like, how the hell is that possible? I know a little bit about you. And I don't know if that is true. Like maybe it's true. Maybe it's true. I don't know. I don't know what their financials are, but just this idea that yeah, they're selling this idea on either.

I can help you make more money. I'm like, well, no one can guarantee that. Or I can help you build a business of passive income so you can just relax on the beach and money comes in. Like, well, that's not true. Any business owner knows there's no such thing of just a true passive income. You're working on something, but. Yeah, if you are working that much, or if it is true that they are earning that much, then guaranteed they are working their tail off. Probably building that business, that's telling you how they made all this money.

So you buy their program and then you can also have this. And that's the thing, right? You can't, one thing I've learned, right? Is you can't harvest a business indefinitely and expect the money to roll in all the time. Like I'll give you, like even with the rock climbing thing, right? That I did in the learned, right, is you can't harvest a business indefinitely and expect the money to roll in all the time. Like I'll give you, like even with the rock climbing thing, right, that I did in the beginning, right? Like now I don't really, I don't do that anymore. And yeah, it did

generate some passive income for a time, but it wasn't really even passive anyway, because you had to put all the work up front and then you hope that it actually, people actually buy it and, you know, and do this stuff. And so hopefully you get some sort of compensation for your time in the future. But even if you do get past that and you are getting that compensation, well, that's not just going to be always coming in all the time. Things change, right? Technology changes. The content needs to be updated. You can't just harvest the business forever and expect the money to come in. But there's such a big industry telling people that it does. I know. It drives me crazy when I see people saying,

I'm consistently making X amount of money every month. I'm like, no, you're not. Because there's no way that you're making it. It depends on what your business is. But if you're a quote-unquote coach and there's a billion out there, as someone who's been running her own business for over three years now, full time, I will tell you not one of my months are consistent. Maybe if we're to look the whole year and then average it out that I could be like consistently, I may know, but it's

literally very up and down. I'll have some months where I'm like, that's crazy. I made a lot of money. And some months where I'm like, okay, good thing I have some money in savings because it's up and down. You just never know. So listen to me and Cornell, everybody. If someone is trying to sell you something that sounds too good to be true, it probably is, especially if it's a someone who's trying to sell you, I can help you build passive income and they are actively working. Right? You're like, wait a minute. That's the thing. It is your primary business telling people how to make passive income? You know what I mean? And if the answer is yes, then that's a huge red flag. And then there's some people where they're like, well, I have a side business and yeah, I have a side business that's not in selling these kinds of products, but then, you know,

that might only be like, you know, 5% of their annual income comes from that little side. And then 95% comes from, of our income comes from telling little side. And then 95% of our income comes from telling people how to build these businesses. You know what I mean? I know. And firstly, I know some people who started as a money coach and then became a business coach because obviously they found it more lucrative. But I'm like, so they're a money coach and then they're a business coach teaching other people how to become money coaches. And I'm like, okay, I can't, I can't deal with this. It's just, it drives me a little bonkers, but it is, it's just, it's what's trendy right now.

And I think what people don't realize, especially too, with learning how to be a coach, cause it seems like, oh, it doesn't seem like anyone is not regulated. Anyone can call themselves a coach of whatever. It's like, as someone who is a financial counselor, does have actual credentials and worked with, and still work with clients, I realized, oh, it can never be a huge part of my business because you're literally trading time for money. And there's only so much time and only so much you can charge people. So just so you know, you're never going to be a millionaire if you're a coach, unless you're going to charge people $10,000 per hour or something ridiculous. But that is a whole other thing that we could talk about for a million years, but I'm not going to charge people $10,000 per hour or something ridiculous. But that is a whole

other thing that we could talk about for a million years, but I'm not going to do that to everybody. So I feel like I have a better understanding of how you reach financial independence, which I still find so crazy amazing. Now that you're financially independent, what do you guys do? I'm always so curious. Like, okay, a lot of people strive towards this goal and sometimes don't think about what are they going to do once they reach it? What was, what were your kind of plans? And like, once we reach financial independence, this is what our lives are going to look like. Yeah. So the plan was to travel a lot, which did not work out because we have two little kids and one of them hates traveling very much. So, so I had all these plans, all these documents, like we're going to go here and we're going to go

there and we're going to do this and it's going to be awesome. And we're just going to like travel the country and all this stuff. And then our kid, like our baby, he, I mean, if he won't be in the car for more than half an hour before he starts freaking out. So we're like, okay, local things it is for the foreseeable future. Yeah. So that, so that never, uh, so that's going to end eventually. Right. So eventually we are, I definitely, uh, had to put that on the back burner, but we're definitely going to be doing a lot of traveling, uh, things like that with the kids. Uh, and just, yeah, but it's been an interest. It's been a really interesting journey because when we first, and I think this is kind of a good warning to, to a lot of people who are, want to be part of the fire movement or a part of the fire movement, want to do that whole,

you know, retire early, achieve financial independence thing. So in my case, I didn't particularly like my job. And so that was a big motivator for me to get financially independent ASAP. And then once we got there, it was interesting because basically I did a full, full-blown retirement, and I only lasted about five, six months before I started feeling very antsy, very unfulfilled, not as happy as I thought I should be. What does full retirement look like? Just so people can get a sense of what you mean. Yeah. So basically in my, I guess in my case, what it was is I would make one podcast episode once a month and that's it. Like nothing, like nothing, like no, no other side projects, no side, you know, no, no, nothing just like having, like just enjoying

yourself, like catching up on shows or playing games, going out and doing stuff with the kids, with the family, just, just not, yeah, basically just a life of leisure other than, you know, spending like a day, do it or a day and a half or whatever, you know, working on an episode once a month. Right. So like, that was my thing. And so what I noticed was that, so after like, you know, five months or six months of that, I started feeling like not as happy as I thought I should be. And I thought this like whole,

almost exclusive life of leisure, actually, like, why aren't I happy? I should totally be happier. And then what I noticed, it was weird. I was working on one of my podcast episodes and like, it was like and it was a great guest. We had a great interview. I was learning a lot from them.

It was just things were going awesome. It was so enjoyable. And I thought, oh my goodness. And then before that day, I was watching TV or playing a game or something. And I'm like, you know what? I actually had more fun doing this interview and learning and being involved because it's mentally stimulating, creatively stimulating, all that stuff. Then I had more fun doing that than just being lazy and like doing this life

of leisure thing. Right. And so I thought, well, so that was like a big mind blown moment. Right. Because that happens to you and you're like, huh, maybe this whole goal of like unlimited leisure time and just sitting on a beach all day isn't very, isn't as great. Like is that, that's, you can't just do that. And then I researched other people who have retired early as well, and it became very fascinating how actually every single one of them,

except for one, so like 90-some percent of them, all have some sort of passion project, some sort of stuff that they still do, even though they don't have to technically because they have the financial dependency, they don't have to, but they still do it because they get, it checks the other boxes, right? You get more fulfilled, you're happy, you get to creative outlet, you're learning, you're interacting with people, like all these human needs actually do get satisfied with work. And so sort of my new goal now, so I basically was worked full time and then semi-retired, then fully retired. Now I'm back to semi-retired again. But now it's different, right? Because now the goal is now, well, pick something that, or learn about yourself to know what you enjoy doing, what you get fulfillment

out of and what actually benefits society. Cause that was one of the other things that really, um, bothered me is like, if you're just doing life a leisure, it's a very like self-centered hedonistic kind of thing. You're not really, you have these talents still, like I'm in my thirties, uh, like you're just, and you have these things that you're clearly like competent at, and you're just going to waste them away. Cause you want to watch another season of Game of Thrones or whatever. You know what I mean? So now the journey is figuring out what I like, what I don't like, and basically lifestyle design, essentially, right? Where money is no longer like, sure, you can make some money. Money is always nice.

But that's not even in the top three of priorities, right? It's more, does this make me happy, fulfilled, educated? Does it help society? Does it contribute positively in some way? That's my new criteria now for taking on projects. Yeah, so that's kind of that. It's been an interesting ride, very interesting ride. Yeah, again, yeah.

I think people focus so much on the journey, but not on the destination. What are you going to do when you get there? And even if you're listening and you're like, I'm probably not going to be retired early, even retirement in general. I think a lot of people don't take enough time to think about what does that look like? And not talking just about like, how much do I need? But like, what does that look like? I'm talking a lot to my parents recently about that because they're approaching retirement in the next decade. And I just want to make sure like, just so you know, I've done a lot of research on this. If

you just have this idea that, oh, once I'm retired, I'll be happy. It's like, no, there's so many studies that say you will plummet into a depression if you don't have a plan for what you're going to do with your time. Because yeah, even for me, like if I have, well, I mean, is it maybe a bit different, but if I have too much time, like I don't have any projects coming up or maybe it's summer, it's a bit slow. Oh, I go crazy. I go crazy I go crazy I need I like you said I need to interact with people I need to have some sort of project to give me fulfillment I need to feel like I'm contributing to society in some way otherwise I just kind of question why am I here at all it's a big spiral and that's no good exactly and it's it's interesting right

because it's like you think oh I have it's's the summer, I can be easygoing and not really do anything. But it's interesting how we think that's what we want, but if we get too much of that, we actually start getting depressed a little. reading some summary of some study once about CEOs who retired, and then they would die so much quicker. And I'm like, well, I can, because you've been running this company, you have all these things, it's fulfilling all these needs you have as a human in terms of psychological needs, right? Like the creative stimulation, all that stuff, intellectual stimulation. And now that's gone, and now your purpose is gone. If that's how you saw your life, I could see how you get depressed for 100 yeah yeah so so yeah it's a very very interesting thing uh so instead of i think like sucking it up so now my view has changed but

instead of like oh you should just suck it up and make as much money as you can so you can retire and never work again my view now is more go through this journey of learning what you like and what you would do even for free or like where money, like you don't even care if you're getting underpaid because I'm not saying you should get underpaid, but like where that's not, that's not even in your top three, you just love this. And then you're probably going to be better at it than someone that is doing it strictly for the money anyway. And it's going to check off all those other sort of human, those basic human needs, you know? So yeah, it's really interesting,

really interesting psychological thing that I never expected. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, even if, you know, someone can't reach financial independence, even having some like, you know, saving as much as you can, investing and keeping your costs low and all that stuff.

So you do have more of a cushion will ultimately also make you happier because then you will have more freedom and flexibility to, if you hate your job, you can afford to leave that job either for like, you know, some, you know, a sabbatical, personal sabbatical, or just to find, you know, go back to school or something like that. I feel like a lot of people kind of get into this mode of just like grinding it out because they have these bills and they're in this endless cycle, but there's lots of different paths. So even if, yeah, people don't want to do the full blown financial independence, they could be like you and be semi-retired or, or just discover a different

path. Cause I mean, I've definitely discovered this and I'm sure you have too, is what I started thinking that like, you know, back when I was in high school, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. It is, I mean, it's a complete 180, like 360 or whatever. It's just not, not at all what I thought it would be. And it's probably going to continue to evolve as I grow older too. So. I think that's safe to assume. I mean, people do, we do evolve and as we live, we learn more about ourselves and what we like and what we don't like. Cause you know, we get new experiences and you know, we go through this whole self-discovery thing. It's not like self-discovery ends at 20 or 24 or whatever, right? No, I know.

Why do we always think it? Like, yeah, people are always like, oh, your 20s is for self-discovery and making mistakes and learning. I'm like, what about the rest of your life though? Exactly. Yeah, I don't know. I still question sometimes like,

maybe I should do this. Maybe I should be doing that. And those questions always come up. But I think it's just this exploratory thing. And yeah, you just try to enjoy the journey and, and, and, and then do a lot of self-reflection to see what you actually do like and what you don't like. Yeah. So I guess also probably a component is thinking about the future and still setting yourself some goals. What do you kind of envision for yourself? I mean, you're in your thirties or so young, what do you kind of envision for yourself in the, you know, the rest of the rest of time? That seems like a big question, the next couple

decades or the next decade, let's say. Yeah, so I mean, right now, the semi retirement thing is great, because I still get sort of all the benefits of work, but I get to do it for myself and spend my own hours and take whatever time you know what I mean? Like it there's no Yeah, so so that that part is fantastic to be able to basically work on passion projects, but still have a lot of time to, you know, spend with the kids and do things that I enjoy, that kind of a thing. So, yeah, so definitely semi-retirement

is a really good fit at the moment. Definitely not ready to do a full-blown retirement because I tried that and it surprised me. It didn't lead to as much happiness as I thought. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, I've got the podcast, so I'm definitely going to keep doing that. Things are always changing. There's always more to learn.

So I'm definitely going to keep doing the Build Wealth Canada podcast. Don't plan to stop at any time soon. One of the new projects I took on when I was going through this like, you know, month, month five, month six of the retirement thing. And I was like, I need something else because this is not fulfilling. I actually ended up taking over the Canadian Financial Summit. So that is, it's an online conference. Similar, you know, anyone that listens to a podcast would definitely enjoy it as well because it just interviews with different experts from Canada around a whole range of topics. That was run by Kyle before, but he doesn't,

you've taken it over. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm running that now. So, I mean, it's great because, I mean, it's a free conference that anybody can attend. So you don't have to be something like $3,000 course you have to buy. Anybody can attend and you can, you know, consume all the content and really it's there to increase financial literacy in Canada.

So, you know, that to me is a passion project, right? I have the podcast for, it has financial literacy and then there's the summit as well to help with that as well. And it's, you know, the podcast is free, the summit's free, so it's totally accessible to everyone. And yeah, I mean, it's very fulfilling. It's very educational. I mean, yeah, there is some money that's made off it too, because, you know, they are businesses at the end of the day. But I like not having, like I said, when money isn't even in the top three objectives, it's more, you know, how can we make this beneficial to people, have some sort of positive impact on society,

how to give back. I find that actually creates a lot more happiness than being able to buy, I don't know, another pair of jeans or something when you already have like four pairs or whatever. Right. Oh, I can, yeah, I can relate. When do you know when the next summit will be available or happen? It'll probably be in around September of this year. Like usually it's in the, it's in the fall time. But yeah, if anybody goes to

my site, which is buildwealthcanada.ca, you can sign up there and then I'll basically email you free tickets to it. Anybody that signs up, I'll send an email when it gets closer, when I release them. And you'll have free tickets to it. So you'll be able to watch all the talks for free. Yeah, so you can do that. And then I have a guide on the site too, where it's basically all the tools that I use. Like my favorite tools. Tools I've used to help us become financially independent.

And then tools I continue to use now to not mess it up and have to go back to a regular day job. Right. Ooh, I'm going to check that out. I'm excited. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. So if you go to buildwealthcanada.ca and you sign up there,

basically you'll get that automatically upon signing up and then you'll be on my list so then I can send you those free tickets and other content and stuff like that. Amazing. Well, I guess my last question was like, where can people find you?

But so obviously buildwealthcanada.ca. Are you on social media? Can people follow you? They can. I actually don't use it that much. Yeah, Twitter is like buildwealthca. And if you just type in buildwealthcanada on Facebook, you can either too.

But yeah, I find social media, I actually don't enjoy it too. But yeah, I don't, I find social media, I actually don't enjoy it that much. No, I don't enjoy it either, but I'm still on there. Some days I'm like, why? So I'm just like, my wife's really good at this. She'll be like, like I'm doing something that I feel I should be doing, but I don't like it. She'd be like, why are you doing this?

You don't need to be doing this anymore. And so that's one of the things where I'm like, yeah, I want to have an episode. I'll put it up. I'll say, hey, by the way, it's up there, but I don't actively work on... Basically, if you want to reach out to me, just go on the site, sign up, then you'll have my email. And then that way you can get involved in stuff and questions and things like that. I bet you're so much happier for not being on social media because it really is such a negative thing. It's turned into such a negative monster, but yeah, you found it. You figured it out. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of negative

psychological things with it that has been proven at this point. And I found, I don't know, maybe you've had a different experience, but I've been in marketing for a long time as well. And I found when I look at the different marketing campaigns I've done over the years, the social media ones, unless you're willing to spend a lot of money on actually doing paid social media things, they haven't generated nearly as much as other channels. And so I'm kind of like, well, I don't enjoy doing it. For me, it hasn't been as lucrative. The ROI is nowhere nearly as high as these other channels. So why am I doing it you know like if I needed to do it to feed the kids I would do it

but I don't so I'm not going to do it yeah then don't do it oh my gosh I know I know I hear you but I'm still on it and I'm every day I'm like why you've got quite the following I would think I was like oh she must enjoy it oh no no I'm just doing it just because, oh, she must enjoy it. Oh, no.

No, I'm just doing it just because I've always done it. And it's just like one of those, whenever I create a piece of content, I just share it. But I don't love it. Some days I do. There's some great things. It's great to discover new people. And there's some positive things that everyone listening can relate to. There's also a lot of negative things like going on instagram and just feeling bad about yourself because everyone else

is apparently living the best life ever not true no one's no one's doing that like it's just fake it's a filter exactly that's what causes people to get depressed at times i mean it's been linked to that now at this point well i know and it's just like yeah it's it's something that i feel like hopefully uh will change like maybe with the younger generations they'll discover some a solution but uh still waiting on that yeah yeah do you find that the total off topic somewhat do you know if like a lot of the different brands out there do you find that they focus a lot on like hey will you do social media for us? Things like that. Do you feel they prioritize that pretty highly? Not really, no.

Like if I work with a brand, it's usually about like creating some sort of content like the podcast, blog, YouTube or event or whatever. Usually social media is just like an added bonus. Like, oh, and can you share that piece of content on your social media? But it's never, I don't really do just a straight up social media campaign. When some brands have reached out, they're like,

Ooh, we want to just work with you on Instagram. I'm like, no, not really interested because I can't really provide a ton of value just from one Instagram post. I feel like that's just not what I do. Like the content I put out is like a long form blog post or like a 14 minute YouTube video or a 30 minute podcast episode. Like I can't really be like, this is how you get better with money in an Instagram and just one Instagram post. I don't think those are very effective. Yeah. I mean, I find, um, I've seen some companies I asked because I've seen some companies being so keen on spending money on social media and they're all about the followers and all that. And then I wonder, have you, have

you guys actually tracked how much you're getting from this versus other marketing campaigns? Because from my experience, it's just not, I think it's nowhere nearly as good. Like I said, unless you're willing to fork out like tens of thousands on Facebook ads or, you know, let me to like to run the tests and things like that.

But anyways, we're getting, we're talking, that was business talk. We're getting, I know, we can do a whole other episode on business, which maybe we'll do in the future. I'll leave you there, but the good thing is that I will also be on your show. If you enjoyed this episode, you could go to Cornell's show and listen to us talk some more. Thanks so much for joining me.

Again, people can find you at buildwealthcanada.ca. It was such a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks. Long time coming. We should have done this so a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks. Long time coming. We should have done this so much sooner. For sure. Yeah, long time coming. I feel like all these things

are like, that's why now we can talk probably for so many hours because we've been talking for over like three years or however long it's been. I know. I know.

So thanks for having me on. It's been great. And yeah, buildwealthcanada.ca is the place for like the free tickets and the guide and all that stuff. So thanks for the plug. And of course, listen to your podcast.ca is the place for the free tickets and the guide and all that stuff.

So thanks for the plug, Jess. And of course, listen to your podcast. Subscribe. That's right. Please subscribe and review on iTunes. Awesome. So thanks so much, Jess. And that was episode 234 with Cornell Schreiber. Make sure to check out his website at buildwealthcanada.ca and also check out his podcast, Build Wealth Canada. And of course, sign up to his email list if you want to find out updates about and get free tickets to the

Canadian Financial Summit that will happen sometime in the fall of 2020. I have a few things I want to share with you. Well, first off to, before I forget, make sure to check out the show notes for this episode. If you want to learn more about what we talked about in this episode, some important links and all that good stuff, make sure to go to the show notes at jessicamorehouse.com slash 234. But I have a few words to share about this episode's sponsor, and then I've got some more importante things to share with you, so do not go away. This episode of the Mo Money Podcast is supported by Ufile. There are only two undeniable truths in life, and one of them is we've all got to pay taxes. So why not take the pain out of it and join the over 1 million Canadians who choose to use Ufile to get their taxes filed online with ease. To name a few of

Ufile's most notable features, they've got Autofill My Return, in which you can automatically download information from your tax slips directly from the CRA to save you time and avoid mistakes. They also have Carry Forwards, in which you can import your previous year's information and pick up right where you left off. They also offer free telephone and email support if you need help or have a question. And since they are CRA NetF file certified, when you file your return with them, you can get your tax refund in as few as eight days. To learn more and to get your taxes filed sooner so you can enjoy that tax refund, visit ufile.ca. And to get a special 15% off, make sure to use code MOMONEY. Once again, that is ufile.ca and make sure to use code MoMoney to get 15% off.

Okay, first and foremost, of course, I have a couple contests. Now, I recently drew a winner for my Investing Foundation for Canadians course scholarship, Kellen from Alberta One. Congratulations, Kellen. You would know this if you were on my email list. If you're not, get on there. What are you doing? Go to jessicamorales.com slash subscribe to get onto my weekly newsletter list to find out all the exciting new things that are happening. Honestly, it's a great newsletter if I do say so myself. But also I have two big contests. Okay. So number one, I'm doing obviously a season long until this, you know, basically I'll start drawing winners at the end of this current season, which is season 10 of the

podcast. So I think about June, I'll start drawing winners. I'm giving away copies of books, any book that has been featured on this season of the show. And there's going to be a ton of books, a ton more authors coming on the show. So make sure to go to jessicamorris.com slash contests to find out all of those book giveaway contests. I am also still giving away a scholarship to CarePrize's debt management online course. I'm going to be drawing a winner very soon, probably in the next week or two. So make sure to check out the show notes for a link to that. JessicaMorehouse.com slash 234. Some other exciting news. And again, you would know this if you are following me on social media or you are on my email list, you would know this. But I finally have opened enrollment again to my Fix

Your Finances Masterclass. I'm so excited. So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I did this thing called the Six Week Fix Your Finances Masterclass, launched it in January. It was obviously six weeks. I did live kind of webinars every single week and then it closed because the course ended. All the students had a very good time, gotten some very great feedback. But some of the feedback I got was, oh, I couldn't go to your live sessions because of my job, different hours, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm like, you know what? I think the best way to make this more accessible, more easy for people to, you know, take advantage of, to, to educate themselves on their own time is to make it kind of more of an on-demand course. And I finally done that. So if you want to fix your finances and you know what better time than right now to do

that, to figure out, Hey, how do I make sure my money is all good in this kind of chaotic time? We are, this course goes through pretty much everything you need to do in order to make your own financial plan aside from the investment side of things. If you want to learn more about investing, highly recommend you check out my investing foundation for Canadians course. Again, you can find all that information on my website. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash courses. And if you specifically just want to find out more information about the Fix Your Finances class, go to jessicamorehouse.com slash Fix Your Finances.

Nothing crazy there. But I'm super excited about it. I'm also going to be doing something very special because of what we're, you know, everyone's is in self-isolation pretty much. And I don't know how long this will be our kind of reality. So for the time being, for as long as it makes sense to, basically because I cannot leave my house really, and I have no travel plans, they've all been pretty much canceled. And my business is shifting because a big part of my business is travel and speaking, I am doing something very special, which is kind of an incentive to sign up now and take advantage. I am going to be doing weekly office hours, I'd like to call them. Basically, I will be providing

a special link that you can join me at a certain date and time where I will have office hours. It just means I will basically be live on Zoom. You can pop in whenever you like during that block of time. Come in, ask me your questions live, and I will answer them. So kind of like if you went to university or college or whatever and the professors had office hours, that's what I'm going to be kind of doing. So you can be at any part of the program any week and just ask me any of your questions and I'll be there to do that. So I'm going to be doing that for the time being. Not sure how long we'll see along this kind of quarantine, whatever situation is. But yeah, I'm going to be home for a while just out of my own

personal safety. And so I've got some time to hang out with you doing some office hours. So make sure to check that out. JessicaMorales.com slash fix your finances. Last but not least, if you were not already in my Facebook group, get in there. This is a great time to, I think, really be part of some online communities because we're kind of told to, you know, don't touch people. Don't get together with people in real life. Not the time to do that. So if you want to talk about money or have some questions or just want to feel like you're part of a community, and I feel like the community I've kind of built in this Facebook group over the past several years is a really great one. A lot of amazing, supportive, positive people. This is where you can be part of it. Just go to

facebook.com slash groups slash money life balance to get in there. Of course, you have to be an email subscriber to get in there. Don't let anybody in there. I'm very protective of that group and who I let in there. So get in there, get on my email list, and I look forward to seeing you in there. It's a great place to be. Okay, that is it for me. I, of course, will have another Money Minute episode this coming Friday. So make sure to check out that when it's live. Thanks for listening. I will see you back here Friday. As I just said, have a good rest of your day. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network.

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