More Money Podcast - 252 How to Be the Architect of Your Financial Future - Kassandra Dasent, Financial Wellness Engineer & Speaker

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

I’m so excited to share this episode! I was told by others that Kassandra Dasent, a financial wellness engineer, Certified Financial Education Instructor, and speaker, would be an amazing guest…and she did not disappoint. As she shares in this episode, she is immigrated with her mom from Trinidad to Quebec, Canada as a child, and now lives in Florida, USA. And as immigrants to a new country, money was always tight. This led Kassandra to do, as I see so many financial counselling clients do, to rebel as an adult and spend without a plan and eventually get into debt. But everything changed in 2009 when she realized she was in serious consumer debt. Something needed to change if she wanted to live a more balanced, fulfilled, and financially secure life. So, in June 2009, she created a plan to pay off $55,000 of debt in five years. By November 2012 she became debt-free. And now she is on the show to not only share her journey of becoming debt-free, but to explain how she did it, how she continued to stay diligent with her plan and stay motivated, and what lessons she learned she hopes to pass onto others who may be in a similar situation. For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/252 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Momenty Podcast. This is episode 252, and I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the show. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I don't know about you, but I sighed a big sigh of relief this weekend. I don't really talk about politics on any of my social media channels or the podcast. I don't think I've ever really talked about it because that's not what this show is about. But this has been an interesting year. And I feel like I can't do this episode without acknowledging what's going on in the frickin world. And I'm very excited. I feel very hopeful for the future of North America, because because obviously I'm Canadian living

in Canada, but what happens in the U.S. very much impacts what's going on in Canada because we are neighbors. So I'm so thankful that hopefully there's light at the end of this tunnel. Things are going to get better. Let's end this year off with some good news. And I'm sure if you're a Canadian listening to this, you're like, oh yeah, we were paying attention to the news. I mean, the whole world was paying attention to the news. Let's be honest here. So, oh man, I was so anxious last week. I just couldn't, I couldn't sleep. It's insane. I could not sleep about what was going on.

And so it's nice to have some good news about what's going on. Yeah, so that's all I kind of wanted to share. Not that this is a political podcast whatsoever. But just so you know where I'm at, I'm happy about what's going on. And hopeful for the future. And hopefulness and inspiration and just feeling positive about the future. That is what this episode is about. I have Cassandra Dacent on the show. I started following her and kind of getting to know her a little bit in the spring. And she was, you know, several friends of mine have said, oh, you need to have her on the show. She's such a great speaker. And she is, you know, a Canadian. She lived in Quebec for years and years and years. Now she is based out of the U.S.

We do kind of talk a little bit about that in terms of what is the difference between Canada and the U.S., especially during this crazy pandemic year. And also just she shares her amazing story of getting out of debt and what inspired it and motivated her to take control of her finances, especially with her background as an immigrant and also her mom's story and how that affected her and how now she is empowering others to do the same. And that's really kind of the sentiment I want to get in this episode is this has been a crappy year. We cannot deny that. It's been a crazy year. And there's a lot that we cannot control, but there's also things that we can control. And we need to focus on

that. We can't, what can we do about dwelling on things that we cannot control? We can only do so much about that. Using that as an excuse for not taking control of our financial lives, of other aspects of our lives where we can make change, we need to pay attention. We need to use the tools we can, use the things that we can to make some positive progress. So we can turn these lemons into lemonade. And I know that's kind of generalizing, but still that's kind of what the show is about is to inspire, motivate, and hopefully educate and give you some tools to help you in your financial life. And Cassandra Jason is on the show to talk about it. So she is a financial wellness engineer and speaker. She focuses on how emotional awareness can have a direct and lasting

impact on one's relationship with money. So she really does provide her audience with practical solutions to help them achieve holistic wealth, a term that you may remember from the show when Keisha Blair was on the show last season. Make sure to check out that episode. She has also been featured in numerous media outlets, including Forbes, US News and World Report, Business Insider, Fast Company, amongst a number of other amazing, amazing publications. She's also a certified project manager and founder of Bridge Tech Enterprises, a certified commercial credit

analyst. She's also a certified commercial credit analyst, a certified financial education instructor, a twice immigrant and fluent in French. And my French is not so good, which is why I didn't even try to talk to her in French. Let's not go there. I may have done 11 years of French immersion, but it's still not good enough to unfold a conversation in French, let me tell you. She was originally born in Trinidad, West Indies. She was raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and currently lives in Orange Park, Florida with her husband. And you're going to like this episode. I promise you will. But before I get to that interview with Cassandra, here's just a few words about this episode's sponsor.

This episode of the Mo Money Podcast is supported by TD Direct Investing. Investing just got a whole lot easier. Remember about a year ago, I did a blog post and made a video about TD Direct Investing's new feature in WebBroker called Goal Assist? Well, that same feature is now called Goals, and they've reimagined Goal Assist to become a standalone investing app that is now available to download on iOS and Android. If you're looking for a new, simplified way to invest and want to save on fees, you'll want to check out TD Goal Assist. It not only guides you through building a goals-based investment plan, it allows you to build a diversified investment portfolio aligned with your goals using TD ETFs, stocks, or TD one-click ETF portfolios. The best part? There are no

balance minimums, monthly fees, or inactivity fees. And you know what that means. More money in your pocket. And when you trade TD ETFs, there are zero commissions on trades. That means the only fees you'll be paying are the MERs embedded in the ETFs themselves. Want to learn more? Visit the show notes for this episode or go to jessicamorehouse.com slash GoalAssist or try it out yourself by downloading the TD GoalAssist app by the App Store or Google Play. TD GoalAssist is a service of TD Direct Investing, a division of TD Waterhouse Canada Inc., a subsidiary of the Toronto Dominion Bank. Welcome to the Mo Money Podcast, Cassandra. I'm so excited to have you on. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. So I feel like I discovered you in the spring when I started discovering so many other amazing people in the personal finance space. And I heard

from other people, including like Beau Humphries. He's like, oh, you need to have her on your show. And so I'm like, oh, I need to have her on my show. And I've been following you on Twitter for a while and love your tweets. So I'm so excited that we can chat money and everything that's been going on in this crazy world for the past several months. Yeah, so much in 2020 to unravel. Yeah, I know there's a lot to unpack. We won't unpack all of it. Yeah, we don't have time for that. Yeah, exactly.

But let's first start. I'd like for people to get a perspective on your kind of backstory, which I find so fascinating. So you immigrated to Canada from Trinidad, and then you immigrated from Canada to the U.S. So I'm kind of curious what all that kind of looks like. But kind of talk to me a little bit about your backstory and how did being an immigrant have an impact on kind of how you thought about money, dealt with money, and how it kind of, you know, inspired you to, you know, eventually talk and create content and speak and help people with their personal finances? Oh, absolutely. As you mentioned, I immigrated to Canada with my mom at the age of six.

And I lived most of my life in Montreal, Quebec. And so money was definitely a central part of my consciousness, even though I was a very young child, just because my mom was a single parent and she worked multiple jobs. So I always say, you know, side hustle was a necessity for her. It wasn't a luxury or it wasn't a thing to do just to ensure that, you know, we made rent. Everything was we, because she didn't have really anybody else to lean on that the bills were paid. I was just acutely aware of our financial position and sometimes predicament just because she didn't have anybody else to really talk this through with.

And she wanted me to understand the reality of our situation. And so I kind of skipped. I had a childhood in some ways, and in some ways I didn't. From a financial perspective, I grew up really quickly. So moving into my teenage years and my early adult years, I really said to myself, I didn't, I don't, I didn't want to struggle with money. I didn't want to miss out on my wants. And I had so many wants because my mother gave me all my needs and some of them, but I was always a child that looked to what other people had and I wanted that, you know? And so I started working really early at the age of 14. I was, I was doing a paper route and I started modeling when I was around 16, 17, I think. And yeah, I was a commercial model. And also music was a huge part of my life, but for a long time, I just, I did music because I was

passionate about it. Never really thought I could make money from that that came on later so I um actually quit university uh because I got a full-time job at the age of 22 and you know at the time I was making I think $32,000 without bonus or any like before bonuses and I thought that was just great money because I was out earning my mother at the age of 22. My mother never made more than $25,000 Canadian a year. So, you know, I just thought, oh, wow, this is great. I don't need to go to school. I can just like bypass that and just live a rich life. And the mistake that I made, which might, it worked out for me in the end, but I just really didn't know how to manage money really well.

You know, my mother actually, unfortunately, she had to declare bankruptcy when I was 10 years old because when we came back from a trip to Trinidad, she lost her job. And I remember seeing her crying and it marked me like it scarred me and not realizing that she had so much credit card debt. She was just trying to fund a life for us that was just beyond her means. She just didn't have the information and the intel to make better financial choices. So I thought I would deviate from that path. And in many ways, I didn't. I went down the rabbit hole of consumer spending and just trying to fill a need, satiate an emotional need in myself and my

spirit that I had to validate myself through money, through purchases, through things. And it took a long time for me to realize that I was suffering from a huge, huge lack of self-esteem and self-worth. And it all came to a head in 2009. So it was like a 10-year period where I was just spending my paycheck. Just it was a cycle. And in 2009, I was I was about fifty five thousand dollars Canadian in debt. And I was making about forty five K a year at the time. And I was a credit analyst, a corporate credit analyst. So you think I would have had my ish together? I didn't. And it all came really kind of to a head when my credit card providers wouldn't

increase my limit anymore. They realized that, okay, she's hit her max. And that made me realize that, okay, I calculated my debt. I really wasn't following how much I was paying out and how much I was making. And I quickly did the math and realized, okay, I am in trouble. So I did a 180, literally. I had a two bedroom condo that I loved. I gave that up. I went into a roommate situation for the first year. I made a plan to pay my debt in five years. Long story short, I did it in three and a half for so many reasons. Yeah. I just decided like, okay, I want this gone. I wanted this gone so badly. It was like a project for me. And so I did a combination of things. Of course, I cut my spending drastically. At least 50% of my spending was just dedicated to my essentials. And then the rest of the money I had was thrown to debt.

I also, like I said, the roommate situation, I started to use my talent and make money from it. So as a musician and a singer and a background vocalist, I started charging. I was teaching. I was also doing, I did a couple of movies during that time. I played myself as a singer. I'm not going to say which movies I'm in, but if you Google, you'll find them. I'm going to Google that later. So I just became one of those multi-hyphenates. I did a bunch of things to get this goal done, to accomplish this huge objective. And the most important thing I did was really reprogram my brain about money and decide to peel the layers back emotionally to figure out what brought me to this point. Because I knew that if I didn't do that, I would end up back in the same pattern. I would, you know, recidivism is a huge, huge, huge, huge, like, impact that happens if you don't correct what got you into

the first place, right? And I just didn't want to be back where I was. I worked too hard to get out of debt. So I really had to trace, retrace my actions back to childhood. And I figure out what, what kind of like just set me off course. And once I figured that out, I could literally feel myself thinking differently about money, viewing money differently, using it as a tool and, you know, wielding it in a way that would benefit me not only today, but long-term. So it was a huge shift, but it didn't happen overnight. It took, it took years in the making for me to acknowledge it and also forgive myself for all the mistakes that I had made up until that point because I made many, right? And so all of this to say my life and my journey, it's never dull. Everyone always in my circle says like, you don't live a dull life and it's so true. But one thing I do learn is I learn from my errors and I learn from my setbacks. And I also learn from like my successes too. So, you know,

I learned to appreciate the good that I've been able to do. I've maintained my debt-free status since 2012. So I paid it off three and a half years, a year, a month after I got married to my now husband. And that brings us to how I got into the United States. So the same year I started my debt payoff, I met my husband, my now husband in Montreal. He is a sound engineer. So he was traveling for a show that I was opening for a festival. And yeah, so we started a long distance relationship for the first three and a half years And yeah, so we started a long distance relationship for the first three and a half years. We got married. We stayed long distance for another year until immigration. I immigrated to the US. And one thing I just didn't want to take into our marriage was

my debt. I wanted to start this chapter of my life clean and he didn't help me. I said, thank you very much. I can do this on my own. I want your support, your moral support, but I made this situation. I want to get out of it. And true to word, my last debt payment was November 21st, 2012. We got married October 27th. And we've just been able to build a very significant six-figure net worth from there. Nice. I'm guessing when you were in the stages of talking about getting married, you had some, or maybe even before that, did you have conversations about money being like, listen, I love you, but I'm in debt. This is the thing I'm dealing with. Do you have those kind of tough money conversations? It came super early. Oh,

really early. Early. I brought it up. I brought it up with maybe the first two months. Oh, really early. Oh, early. I would, I brought it up. I brought it up with maybe the first two months. Oh, wow. That is early. Yeah. Well, because I knew I had this huge, huge baggage of $55,000. You know, I just want to give someone the opportunity to say, yeah, I'll pass. Yeah. Right. You know, I also wanted to find out where he was at because he had a young son. He was, you know, a toddler. And I just said, look, I go, this is what I'm facing. I go, this is my priority right now. Like, you know, I'm interested in dating you and we can see where this goes.

I go, but this is my focus. You know, I'm just trying to, you know, right my ship. And he was like, I respect that. He's like, let's just, you know, there was like no promises. Let's just see how this goes. And he also mentioned at the time, like he didn't have any debt. He just didn't have any savings. He didn't have any money, you know? I was like, oh, okay. Let's see how you do. Let's see how you do with that. And yeah, I think also osmosis by being together and just having those honest conversations and also charting where we both wanted to be individually in terms of our personal and professional life. And just, you know, as,

as we fell in love and, and, you know, saw that there could be a future together, we just started to align in terms of our, our overall goals and personal goals and started to support. And, you know, he's a, he's a great sound engineer. When I met him, he was still struggling because he had, you know, moved to the United States. So he had to start from scratch because he's been in his domain for 20 plus years. But when you move to the United States or Canada, like, you know, the governments don't really recognize your past experience when you come from another country most times, you know. So, yeah, we've been around to just support each other and see each other grow. So I think it was a good move that I had that conversation really early because it worked out well for us.

And it just allowed us the opportunity to be honest. And I think that's just so crucial. You need honesty in any relationship for it to survive and thrive. So since you mentioned that you moved to the States ultimately, what was that like? Because I know it's a different system than Canada. Did that have a negative impact on your finances or were you able to navigate it? Was there any kind of change or how was that transition? There's so much I could say about it. It was both rewarding and painful, if I'm being honest, because rewarding, I've never made as

much money as I have since I, like until I moved to the United States. Like I tripled my Canadian salary, like tripled. And, you know, in terms of building wealth, it has been kind to me, you know, living here. On the personal front, though, it's been really difficult. I think I'm still homesick. I've been here since 2013. Okay, so almost seven years. And Canada is my home, like Trinidad is my home too. But Canada is where I lived over 30 years. It's where most of my friends are. It's where my mom is. And so I actually, I miss it a lot. I visit Montreal before COVID at least four to five times a year. So a lot of my budget is spent on traveling to visit my family, like in Trinidad and throughout Canada. So as I said, financially rewarding, like it was the best move ever,

but on a personal front, it's still an adjustment from, like you said, the, the, it's very different system, healthcare wise, electorally speaking, politically speaking, just, just, you know, from a capitalist socialist perspective, there's just so many differences. People think, okay, yeah, you guys must be so similar. And no, we're not. No. We're really very, very different identities, very different views. So it is challenging for me, honestly. Yeah.

Well, I feel like I totally understand with the homesickness. I think me and my husband have been so homesick. I mean, we still live in Canada, but we are originally from Vancouver and live in Toronto. And it's like not being able to visit like we usually do. We usually do, you know, two kind of longer trips per year. I think a lot of people during this pandemic are so homesick because we're not allowed to freely travel like we're used to. So I think so many people are dealing with that, which is a whole other story. But yeah, that's so interesting that you say that. So financially, it's been good, but other kind of parts of your life, it's been a struggle. And again, this is nothing to compare, but I had the same kind of struggle. It's funny that you

mentioned 2013. That's when we moved from Vancouver to Toronto. When we moved here, we didn't know anyone here. We didn't have any friends or family. So we're starting from scratch. And yeah, it was a big adjustment, even though it was still still the same country, just a different province, but felt very different. So I can't imagine going to, I think sometimes people forget, even Canadians, America is a different country, like an actual different country. Completely. Like it's international, like just because the border is not too far. It's really a different flavor, different mindset. And I understand, like, you know, to your point, like, I can imagine BC is quite different from Toronto, from Ontario. Ontario

is quite different from Quebec. It's almost like in the States, we think of it as each state is almost like its own country. It's just so, it's just really different. And so I can imagine that it must have been a huge adjustment for you because it definitely has been for me. And like to your point, I have a couple of nieces in New York. We start off in New York. I lived in Brooklyn and Staten Island. And then we moved to Michigan where I knew nobody. I moved there for a job. So we knew no one, you know, but we ended up having three years of awesomeness. We had amazing neighbors. I made some great friends who I'm still really close to. And then for the past two years, we've been living just outside Jacksonville, Florida.

So we're living like the semi-retired lifestyle kind of right now. But it's been something. That's all I can say. Yeah. Yeah. I can't imagine. Since I kind of brought up COVID, I thought that'd be an interesting thing that we can talk about because I think it's changed a lot in the personal finance world for good, personally. I think

we're having different conversations, but it's also obviously having a huge impact on people's finances. I know you don't do it anymore, but you used to help people one-on-one with personal finances, but you still do lots of speaking and lots of great stuff in terms of educating people. What are your feelings or sentiments about how people are being affected financially with COVID? Especially because you have the perspective of people in the U.S. as well. Whereas I feel like in Canada, I see it, but I feel like it's not as bad as what's going on in the US. I feel like it's just like, whenever I look at the US news, I'm like, oh, wow. It's a horror story. Yeah. It feels like it. It feels like we've gone down really Alice in

Wonderland over here anyway. But I can start with my personal perspective where my husband's career is pretty much on hold. He's in the music industry, as I mentioned. So the arts has been disadvantaged severely as a result of COVID because there's just no live performances. There's no concerts. So he's on ice, so to speak. So he's actually retraining, you know,

in a different field of engineering, a different aspect of it. So, you know, you have to pivot. You've got to learn how to pivot quickly. Music will come back. It's not dead. It's just, it's going to be in a very different way. And you've got to learn to be able to roll with the punches, so to speak. you know, my income actually increased. I actually ended up earning my highest salary to date because I moved into a new role a couple of months ago. So we've been very, very fortunate. But I can tell you firsthand, it really, really has affected people. At one point, 50 million Americans out of work. You still have, you know, now the airline industry,

you're going to have, you know, now the airline industry, you're going to have, you know, the major airlines cutting thousands of jobs because, you know, we don't have another, you know, debt relief plan in place from the political side of the equation. And so, you know, when you literally see people, I think, especially a lot of the middle class, and maybe some of, you know, those who are making like the low, you know, six figure salaries who have lost their jobs and who have had to like go to a food bank, it humbles you. And it, it helps you to realize that, you know, there are people in both countries who are struggling every day with this,

you know, until you've had to face unemployment and until you've had to face a convergence of factors that really knock you back a couple pegs in your life, I think it's hard to be able to relate and it's hard to be able to talk about money in such a language that, you know, it helps to level the playing field. And we didn't have that before in the personal finance space. A lot of us were just doing super well and we're not cognizant of, you know, the millions of people who don't even hit 50,000 a year. If they make 25, that's a lot. And I think that is one of the good things that has come out of it. And not to say, and please don't take that wrong by saying good things. I don't want people to suffer, but I want people to have more empathy and to be just more understanding that we all don't have the same resources or access to the same resource. And understand that people are really struggling in both countries.

Like you said, Canada, I think Canada has done probably a better job, like, you know, overall of dealing with COVID. And unfortunately, you know, I think the second wave is here. And I think it's normal that people, you're frustrated, you can't live your life the way you want. And so people are taking chances by trying to visit with other people. And unfortunately, you're putting people at risk. And I think that's why we're here now where you've got partial lockdowns happening in Montreal, Ontario, and so forth, because people have gotten complacent. And complacency is a killer, you know, and when it comes to money, that also is, you know, it also is something we need to watch out for is that, you know, you get you arrive at a place where you're like, Oh, yeah, I'm doing great. I'm coasting, I don't have to worry about my emergency fund, you know, life is good. We've got two incomes

coming in, if you're a couple couple or if you're a single person. I'm making good money and I can allow myself to spend freely. And then, you know, COVID hit and, you know, no one was prepared for COVID really. Very few people were prepared for COVID. So your three-month emergency fund went really quickly while you were waiting for CERB to get paid out or for the HEROES Act to get passed. And especially in the U.S., we are, the American people are literally caught in a fishnet while you've got politics deciding, you know, whether people can afford to, you know, to wait out to pay their rent. Like, this is how it is. This is the situation. Or, you know, you, what if you

don't have health insurance? Because health insurance is often tied to employment in the United States. Right. Which is I that boggles my mind as a Canadian. I just don't get it. You know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand. Yeah. So, you know, you've got real life problems here, you know, and I think the personal finance industry and people in the space for the most part, have had to learn to talk a different language and understand that their audience is much bigger than they initially thought. And some of the same audience who they thought, you know what I mean, they've been set back. So you've got to be able to give sound, realistic advice. And it's not going to be the cookie cutter advice that we've

been feeding people for years. It doesn't work in this time and age, you know? So that's kind of where I'm at personally. And I think I've never really done the cookie cutter advice. I think I'm one of those outliers that have always just been real, so to speak. And, and I'm just like, I'm just doing more of what I know, you know, to be true. Cause I haven't lived a privileged life, so to speak for, for the most part of it. No. And that's why I think it was drawn to you too. Cause you, you talk on your website a lot about holistic wealth, which I also had another guest who wrote a book called holistic wealth, who's Canadian, um, which is funny, but I'm like, I totally, as I've been in the industry or started my blog over

10 years ago, almost 10 years ago, my mindset and how I view certain things has changed so much. And a lot of it has been personal experience, but a lot of it has just been talking to more different people, especially working with clients one-on-one. You see a lot of different personal circumstances. So recently, I was working with a client. She was reading a, I'm not going to name the person, but I'm sure you can guess who it is, this famous money expert in America guy. And he recommends that you should have $1,000 in your emergency fund and then just focus on debt. And then if you have an emergency and need more than a thousand dollars, stop paying debt and then use whatever income you have to pay for that emergency fund. I'm like, but that may not be enough. A thousand dollars can't even pay your rent. Your rent is double that. So that is cookie cutter advice that if you just took that

and did that, you would find yourself in some trouble. And that's where things where people say, this is a fact, or this is what you need to do without the asterisk, but also consider these things. It can get dangerous. And I think that's my biggest thing is still seeing people online talking and sharing these pieces of advice that actually can be very dangerous to people. And that really scares me. So I like your approach where it's like, it really shouldn't be like that. We really need to talk about personal finance on an individual basis. Absolutely. I think we have to understand that we have a very, very big responsibility to be cognizant and wise with the information that we share and how we posit it. I think people don't realize the amount of influence

that we have, even if some of us are not paid influencers, the moment you step on a platform and you start to talk authoritatively on a topic, you are now influencing people and you can influence in a good and obviously an irresponsible way. So when I hear, you know, $1,000 emergency fund, I laugh because I go, on what planet does that work? In which country is that money? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So I just, I've been in this space since 2014. We may have just crossed more recently,

but I've been around for a few years as well. And I've seen, I have seen the shift and it is really going in the right direction. And although you see the shift that it's a hard line, you know, there's a line that's drawn in the sand about about how people approach personal finance and how they share it. Like, you know, there's another you talk about the emergency fund. That's, that's one big, you know, debate. The other one is, you know, should you rent, should you buy? Another one is, you know, how should you invest when you, or travel when you, you know, all these different decision-makers. And I'm like, okay, you really need to look at that person's individual situation because no two are alike. You know, like, like to your point, I've, I counsel people in the fast. There was one who

was, she was from France, she was Parisian and she was living in Montreal on a work visa. She became pregnant. So we had to completely revamp her plan. And I ended up telling her, I'm like, I think you need to go back to Paris to have your baby. And at first she was like, no, I want to stay. I'm like, okay, then you need to do the math and to have your baby. And at first she was like, no, I want to stay. I'm like, okay, then you need to do the math and figure out how much is it going to cost for you to give birth here without insurance. And that's a standard, no problem birth, you know?

And she did the math and she came back. She said, she actually messaged me a few months later and she said, I had the baby. I'm like, oh, congratulations. She was like, yeah, I went back to France. I'm like, I'm so glad you did. Yeah. But you like, I'm so glad you did. But you know what I mean? A lot of people wouldn't know what to do with that. Like, you know, how do you plan for that kind of circumstance? Because it's not, it's really not a regular occurrence in someone's life, you know? So to your point, we really have to be responsible about what we share and how we guide people when it comes to their money and their decision-making. Another thing I saw online that I just haven't been able to stop

thinking about was there's this other personal finance blogger that's been in space for a long time. And she was commenting on Facebook. She was kind of sharing her opinion about some, I think maybe a money expert or something like that online, some old white dude basically, was sharing this advice that if you have a side hustle and you're earning less than $1,000 per month from it, you shouldn't even bother. And he said, that's a fact. And that boggled my mind because I'm like, so clearly he doesn't understand different people's situations. Because sometimes, well, $1,000 per month is actually a good chunk of change, I would say. But back when I was in my 20s and I had a day job living on my own, then I also had a job at night.

And that job at night really only probably paid me a couple hundred dollars per month. But that couple hundred dollars literally was life-changing for me. If I didn't make that extra money, I wouldn't have been able to put that little money into savings. Otherwise, I'd probably be living very close to paycheck to paycheck. So it always just boggles my mind, people giving advice without really understanding how other people live. And I think that is shifting now because we can't ignore that anymore. And also those people hopefully will get the memo or just, we'll just stop listening to them. It's so dismissive and it's so, it's ignorant. I'm going to say flat out. It's ignorant. And it's just because again, you live in your bubble. And again, when you surround yourself with the same minded, you know, people, you're going to talk a certain way, you're going to behave a certain way. But if you open yourself up to the variety of people that are around you and their circumstances, it's, again, you're going to, it's going to permeate your thinking. It's going to color your thinking and then opens you up to, to other,

to considerations. Right. So people like that, I'm just like, okay, continue to operate in your little bubble. Thank God. There's enough of us that are reasonable and are able to counter that. But that messaging is very strong. That's what I mean that line in the sand that I was talking about. That's exactly what I was talking about, you know? So I I'm just at a point where I can only do what I can do. I can offer what I offer and hopefully it will help people. And I think, I believe it has. And others like yourself and many others of us in the space are doing amazing work, truly, truly great work

that there's enough people around that, people around that the public can make their own decisions on who they choose to follow. And there's enough people doing good work that I feel comfortable that they'll be okay for the most part. Definitely. And I think that's a big reason why I feel so lucky to have thought to start this podcast and have continued it because I have this opportunity to share hundreds of different voices and perspectives on this show. So I feel like, yeah, I can share obviously my opinion and perspective, but there's so many different, you know, all listeners can listen to like, there's like 200, 250 plus episodes now. That's so many people that you can hear

the different people, different perspectives. And I think that's kind of the key thing that we've all been realizing. It's like, you need to not just get, you know, information from one source. You need to get it from different sources because you'll learn a ton if you do that. Exactly. Just use what works best for you. You know, you don't have to follow someone's script to the T, like to your point, just open yourself up to, you know, what people are offering in terms of information and use what makes more sense to you within your given circumstances. That's really what it is. It's just to help individuals to learn more about money, to understand the concepts that are being bandied about by big media and the big gurus, and help them to simplify it so that they can understand and learn to apply it.

But we just want to help you to take action to better your life financially. Yeah. I'm curious though, since you were able to pay off and it was like $55,000 of debt in Canadian dollars in three and a half years, what, because you mentioned there's kind of that point, you're like, I need to do this. What kind of sources or people helped you? I feel like what inspired you or what helped you take action? Because I feel like so many people are in that situation that you were in and they need that little push from something. What helped you actually take action? So I knew one of the things I needed to do was earn more. So you can cut, you can cut, and you could cut. And then there's a kind of point you can't cut anymore. And for me, one book that I read in

particular, really, honestly, I will say it was life-changing for me. It was The Secrets of Six Figure Women by Barbara Stanny. And that book, it's an old book, but it's as ever useful. And it helped me to recognize first and foremost that I was a chronic under earner and that I had created certain patterns that kept me at a certain level, financially speaking. And then it helped me to figure out ways to be able to change that. And I was able to learn how to advocate for myself as a professional in the workspace, take advantage of an opportunity because I'm in tech now, I'm an IT project program manager, and I was in corporate credit, you know, like, that's a huge jump without a

university degree, you know, so how did that happen? Right? Well well that book was a trigger for me that that book was a turning point for me so you know that that just information really is powerful once once your brain takes it latches onto something once my brain anyway does it just like get out of my way like you cannot stop me so you have to it's going to be different for other people. What is it going to be that linchpin, you know? But I can say that for me, I just, I wanted to live differently. I knew that I could do better. I just didn't know how. And until I started reading, I went down, you know, I looked at many blogs. I read a lot of the typical books like Smart Women Finish Rich. I read, I'll call them, I read the Dave Ramsey book. There's good in everything. But again, I just took what I needed and pieced together something that connected with me spiritually. We talk about holistic wealth, right? I realized that, you know, it wasn't just about money for me. I really had to connect with what did I want my future life to look like? You know, I knew what today looked like, but I knew that I also had to where I am. And this proves the point that it doesn't happen overnight. It's a progression. It's a series of steps that you have to make consistently. And the word consistently is something everybody wants that overnight solution.

And it just does for many people. It won't happen like that. But you've got to take an action and you have to build upon it. It really is a block by block approach that I did. And the more good choices that you make, the better you are, the more you're rewarded, you know? And so now I really, like I took a whole, I took a gap year off last year. I quit my other job in engineering in the 2019 and I took a year off and I did my project. I started businesses and I could afford it because I had done the groundwork. I had laid the foundation financially for me to be able to afford to do that.

And that's what I'm trying to encourage people holistically is to like I really live a life of my own choosing of my own design. If I tomorrow get laid off from work, I'm not crying about it. I'm in a financial position where I can chill for several years and figure out what my next move is. And that's what I hope to help people to start dreaming. Dreaming is good. You really just have to support it with consistent actions that will turn that dream into something viable and something that you can say, wow, this actually happened. So I can't give everybody a prescription because your prescription is unique. But looking at assessing your life and assessing where you are, you really need to be honest with where you are and acknowledge why you ended up

where you are and allow yourself to look forward and say, well, if I were to commit myself to taking action today, where could I end up? Where would I like to end up? And at least start with that. And then the rest will come into play as you learn more. As I said, information, you start getting thirsty. I'm thirsty for information. I'm still thirsty. And that's what I encourage people is to kind of drink from that well of knowledge and information and then apply it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And hopefully this episode will inspire some people. I think you just hit it right on the head there. Everyone is different. Everyone's kind of trigger or that linchpin is a bit different, but you do have to take the time to seek it out. So that's kind of on you. That is your personal responsibility that you need to seek that out. And yeah, nothing's an overnight.

No one's an overnight success. You hear all these stories from comedians or actors who are like, an overnight success. I've been doing this for 15 years. You just discovered me. So it is one of those things that it takes time and it's hard to process that, I think, message when you're at the start because you just want to get to the good part. But it is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And time flies by so fast. Your 10 years probably flew by. You're like, oh my gosh, 10 years already happened. But then you can look

back and you're like, I'm so glad where I am right now because of everything that I did in the past. Oh, yeah. There's no regrets. No regrets. I made those choices like in 2009 to bring me to where I am today. Zero regrets. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Before I let you go, where can people find more information about you or follow you on social media? Sure. So social media handle is at Cassandra Dason. You'll find me on Instagram and on Twitter. And I'll warn you on Twitter. I like your Twitter. Yeah, Twitter. I'm pretty straightforward.

Yeah, that's why I like it. Instagram is more, I use it more as a short form blog, since I don't really blog much on my site anymore. But my website is www.assandradayson.com. So you'll find information about my money story and also my music as a singer, songwriter and producer. So there you go. Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you on the show. Likewise. Thank you for having me today. And that was episode 252 with the lovely Cassandra Daysen. Make sure to check her out on social media. You can find her on Twitter at Cassandra Daysen. You can also find her on Instagram at CassandraDacent. You can find information about her on the podcast shown us on my website,

JessicaMorehouse.com slash 252. Also make sure to go to her website, CassandraDacent.com. Very easy to find her. But yeah, check her out. I honestly love following her on Twitter. She's just like real. She says it how it is. And I really appreciate that in this world. That is so crazy. Sometimes I just want someone to say how it is. Sometimes I wish I had more courage. I don't know. I wish I kind

of spoke my mind a little bit more on social media, but yeah, I just also cannot stand the haters. I can't stand getting criticism for speaking my mind. And I surprisingly got not a lot, but some of it when I spoke out about how I'm a supporter of Black Lives Matter, which is ridiculous in my mind. So, yeah, I'm doing my best. I'm trying to be more vocal about things that I'm passionate about and that I think are important. But I mean, Cassandra, she keeps it real and she's a great person to follow on social media. So make sure to do that. So I have a few important things to share. Do not go away. I'm just going to share a few things about this episode's sponsor, but do not go away. Very important things to share with you. This episode of the Mo Money Podcast is supported by TD Direct

Investing. You guys, you know when it comes to investing, there is one product I'm a sucker for, ETFs, which is hilarious considering five years ago when I started this podcast, I had no idea what an exchange-traded fund even was. Well, a lot can change in just a few years, which is what happened to TD Direct Investing's Goal Assist. It started as a feature introduced in their web broker platform to help investors set investment goals so they could be more intentional with their investment portfolios. That was back in April 2019. Now, in November 2020, GoalAssist has evolved into a standalone

investment app called TD GoalAssist to help you set and monitor your investment goals and manage your portfolio on the go. And the best part? There are no monthly or inactivity fees like most brokerage apps charge and TD ETFs have unlimited commission-free trades, including their TD one-click ETF portfolios. You can also trade individual stocks at a flat fee of $9.99. Want to learn more? Visit the show notes for this episode or go to jessicamorehouse.com slash goal assist. Or try it out yourself by downloading the TD Goal Assist app via the app store or google play and opening an account TD goal assist is a service of TD direct investing a division of TD waterhouse canada inc a subsidiary of the toronto dominion bank okay so as I uh mentioned but just want to remind you check out the show notes for this episode jessicamorehouse.com

slash 252 if you want to check out the show notes for any episode I've ever had and yeah I've had 252 episodes like that's. You can just go to jessicamorales.com slash the number of that episode. Very, very easy. I also want to remind you, um, I am running a contest. I haven't had, there's been a couple, uh, several episodes actually that I've had guests that haven't had books. So I don't think I've really talked about the book contest, but giveaway I'm doing. If you go to jessicamorales.com slash contests, very easy, or the show notes, there's a link in the show notes. It will show you how to enter to win any of the books that have been featured on this episode. I have a couple authors coming up that you're going to

love. I'm going to give away their books, but you know, why not go to jessicamorales.com slash contest, enter to win one of the many books that I'm giving away and see what happens. I feel like I might even do another giveaway. Um, soon I'll let you know about that, but, uh, it's just like something in my brain. I want to do like an exciting kind of like fun giveaway. Um, that's not book. So I'll let you know, maybe it will be books. I don't know. Um, but how you stay in touch and find out sometimes things happen and I don't have time to share them on the episode, go to my, well, get on my email list basically. If you go to jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe, you'll get on my email list or you can also get on my email list by getting access to my free

resource library, jessicamorehouse.com slash resources. And you can access all my free downloads and some past webinars and things like that. That is where I share all the up-to-date information about what's going on. And the latest thing which I shared last week, I also shared it in a previous episode, but just in case you haven't heard it, I'm going to remind you. I have made the bold decision to close the doors on my two online courses, Fix Your Finances Masterclass and my Investing Foundations for Canadians courses. The reason being is I basically want to take November, December to really take a good look at these courses and make them even better and more meaty. And just, I want to basically like, you know, this, if you've been listening to the show for a while, my whole goal kind of in life, my whole purpose in the kind of personal finance

spirit with my, my, you know, career, but also just like my life. Like I want to help people, but not only that, I want to transform people's lives. And I've seen that, uh, with my current courses, but I know I can reach a bigger, uh, you know, amount of students if I kind of make a few tweaks. And I've also seen that and have the evidence with my one-on-one financial counseling clients. I love doing financial counseling. I really do. Don't get me wrong. I just have limited capacity. There's only so many clients I can work with. It takes a lot of time and hours to work with individual or couple of clients. And so I'm trying to build programs. I wouldn't even want to call them courses. They're more like programs to

help people really get the results that they want and to be able to reach more people. So that's what I'm currently working on, which is why I'm closing the doors. December 1st, I'm closing the doors on both of those courses. Now, the reason I mentioned that is because if you sign up to either of those courses or both of those courses now, you will lock in those current prices and those prices are going way up when I relaunch these courses in the new year. So I'm only going to mention this maybe one more time and that's kind of it. Then it's like if you snooze, you lose. Sorry. But if you want to just go to JessicaMorales.com slash shop, that's where you can look at the current courses I have. You sign up, you get access to those courses. You'll always have access to those courses. I'm just going to

kind of archive them. Like you'll still have access if you're a student, but then you'll automatically be enrolled into my new courses. So basically you're getting a deal. And that is kind of what I have to say about that. But, oh no, there's one more thing. So sorry. Oh my gosh. I am also doing research because I want to hear feedback from people who are not students. Well, actually, if you're a student, I sent you an email. So look at that email that's in your inbox. Don't delete it. But if you're not a student, you've been thinking about it. I'm currently doing some research so I can make sure these courses are the best things ever. And they're answering your questions. They're, they're helping you get what you need.

So if you want to sign up for a free call with me, just so I can ask you a few questions, you can also tell me like, well, I just want to know basically, what do you want? What are you struggling with? What do you need help with? What kind of transformation do you want? What do you want at the end of this? Well, how can we change your financial life? And what does that look like? Just a few questions. And you get to chat with me. You can do so. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash discovery call. Then you can book a call with me and we can have a little chat. So mine as well. It takes like no time and you get to speak with me. You can share. I'll probably, you know, answer some of your questions because I can't help but do that when I'm on a call with someone. But yeah, I just kind of want to know your thoughts and your feedback while I work on developing these things. Another thing, since I mentioned my shop page on my website, if you're

not aware, I have a bunch of budget spreadsheets. So if you were like, I need to get my stuff together ASAP, like right now, well, I've got two free budget spreadsheets. And I also have a number of other paid ones that are for specific situations. Like if you're self-employed, if you're a couple and self-employed together, if you're in a couple and one person self-employed, one's an employee, if you are an employee with a side hustle and want to make sure you're keeping track of your business income and expenses, all that kind of stuff, I've got spreadsheets for you that include a full video tutorial library, a bunch of different video tutorials on how to use everything. So make sure to go to jessicamorales.com slash shop to check out all of those. Okay, so I think those are kind of the importante things that I wanted to share. But yeah. Also, because I mentioned it

in last week's episode and I feel like people heard the call, I'm on Instagram. I'm trying to do better at it and I'd like to connect with you. So follow me on Instagram at Jessica I. Morehouse is where you can find me. I'm also releasing a bunch of more videos on my YouTube channel. So make sure to check out my YouTube channel, jessicamorehouse.com slash YouTube, or just Google Jessica Morehouse in YouTube. You can find me right there. For instance, I just released an episode last or an episode video last week about my experience taking the Canadian securities course. If you've ever thought about taking the course, you'll definitely want to check out the video because I just did it recently. It's fresh

in my mind. And so I made a video all about it. Okay. So that is really it for me. Thanks so much for listening until the end of this episode. Really appreciate it. I will be back here, of course, next Wednesday with a fresh new episode. Until then, have a good rest of your week. I'll see you next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.