More Money Podcast - 311 Money Advice for the Real World - Erica Alini, Author and Incoming Personal Finance Reporter for The Globe and Mail

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

Welcome back to a new season of the podcast! I hope you’ve had a nice winter break and like me are ready to get this year started. To kick off Season 14, I’m joined by author and personal finance reporter Erica Alini, whose new book Money Like You Mean is the perfect new year read.  Erica Alini lives in Toronto and is the incoming personal finance reporter for The Globe & Mail after being a financial journalist at Global News for several years. She was also the face and creator of the Global News' Money123 personal finance series, which aired on Global National every Saturday evening for nearly two years. In this episode, we cover so many topics that Erica writes about in her new book, Money Like You Mean It, such as the trouble with buy now, pay later apps, renting vs. owning, how to increase your income, and why the pandemic is partially the reason behind the growing popularity in investing.  For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/311 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is episode 311. It is the year 2022, and this is season 14 of the show. My goodness. And I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the podcast. If you're a longtime listener, hello, welcome back. Hope you had a nice little winter break over the holidays. And if you're new to the show, welcome. So glad that you decided to, you know, join me for a new fresh season. So have a great season for you in case and if you are new, this is how this podcast works. So this season will the winter kind of spring season goes from January till kind of the beginning of June, take a summer off, and then I'm going to reprise with

the new season from September, all the way till the end of December. And usually this season is a little bit longer than the kind of fall season. So you've got a lot of great episodes coming at you. Actually, let me just look at my little spreadsheet. You can look forward to at least and possibly more 19 episodes this season. Not bad. variety of topics I'm actually super excited for this season because I've got a not a weird like a very diverse uh you know range of topics that we're going to touch on in this season you know we're going to be talking about investing and speculation we're going to talk about debt we're going to be investing in a investing we're going to be talking about investing in alternatives like wine and art uh yeah we're going to be talking about investing in alternatives like wine and art.

We're going to talk about so many different things. You're in for a treat, I will say. So before I get to talking about who the guest is for today, you know, no, actually, I'm going to leave this till the end. I'm going to talk about myself and kind of what I've been up to in this interim in the end. So you can look forward to that so we can just get to the episode because I know what you're here for. You're here for the interview with my special guest. And so I'm so excited to have Erica Alini on the show. So you probably have read lots of her work because she has been a personal finance

reporter for a very long time. So she is the incoming personal finance reporter at the Globe and Mail, as of me recording this in the early January. And she was previously the personal finance reporter at Global News, where she wrote the wildly popular newsletter Money123. And she was also the face and creator of the network's Money123 personal finance series, which aired on Global National every Saturday evening for nearly two years. But not only is she a fabulous personal finance journalist, she's also an author and she is on the show to talk about her brand new book that just came out this past December called Money Like You Mean It, Personal Finance Tactics for the Real World. I really loved this book because

it's very relevant to what's going on. She does talk about the pandemic and just how things have changed. And also, you know, for people, if you're a Gen Z or a Gen Y, this is also very relevant to you because so much and I'm saying this as someone who is in her mid 30s and started this kind of personal finance journey a decade ago now, my gosh, yeah, literally, I crossed the 10 year mark of when I first launched my first personal finance blog, which is crazy. So much has changed in just the personal finance universe. Just how we talk about it or some of the financial advice that I feel like was given 10 years ago, not so much anymore. So it's a great book. And we're going to dive into some of the key kind

of messages that she has in her book in this episode. So you're in for a treat. And yes, of course, am I giving away a copy of her book? You bet I am. You bet I am. I have I just closed the contest for for season 13 and picked all the winners for that. So if you didn't get an email from me, or you're not on my email list, and you know, see the list of winners, then I'm sorry, you did not win. But you have a chance this this time around, because I have a lot more authors coming on the show. A lot of great books going to be featured on the show. So make sure to go to JessicaMorales.com slash contest to enter to win. Anyways, let's get to that episode. But before I do, I just have a few special words I want to share about this podcast episodes sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Harvest ETFs. I talk a lot about

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companies. This is all to say that if you're looking for something outside of your regular index ETF, you've got options. A lot of them. And Harvest ETFs has a big selection to choose from. To learn more about Harvest ETFs, their ETF lineup, and even just to learn more about ETF investing in general, Harvest hosts their own Harvest Talks podcast. Visit HarvestPortfolios.com. Once again, that's HarvestPortfolios.com. Welcome, Erica, to the More Money Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much for having me. You're so, so welcome. I don't think you know this. I know you, so you're the national online Thanks so much for having me. stuff like that at Global News. It's so funny just to see Global News. I used to work at Global News. This is going back now, not eight, nine, 10 years, maybe it was. And it's relevant to why I'm bringing this up is because you talk about side hustles in your book. I'm like, that was actually like

my first side hustle was working at Global News on top of my day job. I was trying to figure out money in my 20s so yay it's all I had no idea I mean I was not in the uh I was not a reporter I I was a teleprompter operator not very glamorous but also incredibly stressful I would not it was like the worst job I've ever had I've got into work and I was stressed the whole time. Oh my, I had no idea. Yeah, yeah. So, but with that, I am so excited to have you on the show because you've, like I kind of mentioned before, I hit the record button.

With your new book, Money Like You Mean It, it felt like I was reading a book from a peer, from someone who had kind of a similar experience of just like the financial world the past decade. And I feel like a lot of the books that I read are authors that I have on the show, maybe they're a little bit older. And so they have a bit of a different perspective. So it's kind of nice reading something you're like, that's exactly what happened to me, or that's exactly what my peers have gone through.

And so it's really refreshing to have a book that also a book that's specifically Canadian, because as you know, lots of authors like to kind of write for more of an American audience. And it's nice to really get into the nitty gritty about Canadian finance. So welcome. With that, I want to kind of start off, you know, tell me a little bit about yourself. I know you've been writing about personal finance for years and years and years. How did that how did you kind of get into this role and career? Yeah, so I, I always wanted to be a journalist. That's something that I decided early on where I could barely write. But I started out about a decade ago, and I was focusing mostly on economics. So I really liked public policy. And that was my way into journalism. And I actually did an internship at the Wall Street Journal

in New York. And the year was 2009. And I spent a lot of, I love the experience, but it really was all about interviewing people who had just lost their job. And it was all about, and I was in the US, Right. So the financial crisis was serious in Canada, too, but but even more so in the States. And there was all this doom and gloom. And for young people, it was just like there were no jobs anywhere. Oh, I know. I was one of those unemployed people. I know sometimes you talk to economists here in Canada and we're like, oh, you know, it wasn't that bad in Canada. But frankly, I mean, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was like

because I was in 2009. I was in the US. But then in 2010, I crossed the border and I was in Canada. I was like, you know, it really felt really bad. Yeah. I mean, it depends on like who you're asking. Right. Like some people were like, oh, wasn't it bad? It's like, well, if you're like me and lots of other millennials who graduated during that time, and you're like, hey, cannot find a job for the life of me, and I'll literally take anything. Yeah, not wasn't fun. No, exactly. Gosh, well, that's a that's an interesting time to start your journalism career. Yeah, yeah, it was it was uphill. So that's how I started. And then I, in Canada, I started out at McLean's. And yeah, I was covering the economy a lot and loved it. But eventually, you know, a few years, I would say like five years

later, I was kind of like, you know, I really like covering the economy. What I like the most is covering how the economy is affecting people, you know, their everyday stories. And I wanted to take a more, a closer look at how these big, big economic trends that I'd been covering as an economics reporter were affecting people's finances. I wanted to look at it from the ground up rather than the top down. And that's why I switched to personal finance, which is what I've been doing for the past five years. That's interesting. I'm curious. So I feel like even in the past five years, personal finance has changed. Just the world of finance has changed so much.

Like I started my first personal finance blog in the end of 2011. And so it makes me feel old saying that. But also when I look back to kind of the information and articles I was reading back then to now, but even in the past five years, it so much has, you know, evolved and changed some for the better, some for the worse. I'm curious what your perspective has been reporting on pretty much everything I bet under the sun personal finance for the past five years. What what has what have reporter, which is the theme of Money Like You Mean It, is that it's tough out there. Personal finance, you know, like it's particularly tough for millennials and Gen Z, which is the main audience of the book for reasons we all know, right? Like the housing market is completely bonkers. Student debt drags you down just when you're trying to take off in life. But I would say personal finance is getting more complicated for everyone, even, you know,

for every age and every generation. And so beyond housing and, you know, student debt and the particular challenges that millennials and Gen Z face, which is a big topic of the book, I also look at how personal finance is becoming, there's more and more choices, more and more kind of sneaky trends that work against you and kind of nudge you in the wrong direction. And I'm thinking about the explosion of subscription services and the new BNPL apps,

for example. But I'm also thinking about investing, right? It's become so easy to put your money in the stock market or in crypto or whatever, which, you know, it's great that we now all have access to investing, which used to be a very elite thing, but it cuts both ways, right? Like no one, I'm willing to bet no one taught you unless you did an MBA or studied it in school, the principle, you know, the basics of investing. So it's very easy with a few thumb strokes to make mistakes with money that you can't afford to lose. And even when it comes to things like home insurance, for example, right, it used to be this very straightforward thing where you would buy a house back in the days when you could and then get home insurance. And everyone knew that you have to have home insurance.

And that was that. Whereas now you really should know whether you're at risk of flooding or sewer backup. And if you are, you need to ask for that additional coverage, which is not standard, it's optional, and you need to know to ask for it. And I feel like there's a lot in personal finance these days that you need to know to ask. And so the bar is higher. Yeah, I feel like what's frustrating is a lot of the information I remember getting when I was younger from my parents and grandparents was,

you know, you work with a professional in the financial field, they're going to guide you, they're going to advise you, they're going to take care of you. There's trust involved. And I feel like that trust has not existed since I became an adult. And it really is about you need to be informed. Otherwise, they may take advantage of your lack of financial literacy. And so you're like, okay, great. That's propelled me into this career of educating people with the, you know, the tools that you need. But it's also really frustrating that it seems like everyone is out to kind of get you and you have to be on the lookout the whole time. Yes, like it's whether you're DIYing it or you're relying on someone else. You need to know what you're doing. Yeah,

I am. But even like with that home insurance, it's like, that is so relevant to me. It's like my parents in law, my, you know, my husband's parents, you know, they live in the Vancouver area, and they just had a flood because of the the rain pour and we bought a new place. And I know that is a we have a basement. So that's something front of mind. But yeah, like I said, it's like, I talked to so many people every single day about, you know, and answering their questions and hearing their concerns. And it's there is so much to know as somebody who's been like researching this for, you know, a decade and is also, you know, pursuing my CFP just so I can get

more educated. There's so much to know, it would be impossible for everyone to just know all this stuff if they didn't also dedicate a lot of time to finding out this information, which is frustrating. Good that there's more access to this information, but frustrating that it's then, you know, as soon as you learn something, it changes. And you mentioned so many new things that have been popping up. I kind of want to talk about one that I feel like I've talked to a lot of people about, you know, the Buy Now, Pay Later apps. I feel like those exploded because of the pandemic and we were all home alone shopping

online. You want to kind of share a little bit more about why people should be just more aware about those types of, you know, apps or features of the checkout cart when you're shopping online? Yes, absolutely. So you're right, they absolutely took off during the pandemic. And I was kind of monitoring it because it was already on my radar because I had had an interview with a behavioral economist in the US before the pandemic. And they had casually mentioned these things, which I hadn't seen in Canada yet. So I was like, wait, wait, wait, what is this that you speak of? And so, you know,

I was expecting this to eventually, you know, grow popular in Canada as well. And during the pandemic is when I saw it suddenly show up in my, you know, if I was browsing online, I started seeing the option of, well, do you want to buy this, you know, if I was browsing online, I started seeing the option of, well, do you want to buy this, you know, with a single payment as you normally would? Or do you want to split this relatively small purchase into, say, you know, four or five even smaller installment payments? And so, and that's what Buy Now, Pay Later is. You can do it like that, or you can even download these apps and then sort

of browse within the apps at several retailers and buy whatever it is that you want to buy in small installments. And so behavioral economists really point out how this new version of buy now, pay later is really quite tricky. And it really does two things. So the one thing is it anchors your brain, it focuses your brain on the smaller amount of the monthly payment. So of course, say you're buying a pair of shoes for $150, right? Rationally, you know, that's, you know, the price is $150. But what you really end up thinking is, oh, I can pay 50 bucks a month for this. And 50 bucks a

month sounds eminently affordable. So instead of really thinking about, can I afford, can I really afford to drop $150 on shoes? You're now thinking, well, I can't afford 50 bucks a month. And so that's one problem. The other problem is if you continue to use this buy now, pay later, little by little, you're going to have a lot of small payments that come out of your account and it becomes very tricky to keep track of them. So maybe you have 50 bucks plus, you know, maybe you bought something else and it's like 30 bucks a month and now you have 80 bucks that come out of your account. And it's a really, it's really a slippery slope. And the same, you know, behavioral research shows that we're pretty good at, like, we know what the big bills are that come out of our budget every month, but we do not pay attention to smaller payments, which is frankly something

that the whole subscription creep phenomenon also exploits, right? Like if it's not the NPL, a lot of what we buy these days is based on a subscription, which is also like, hey, it's only $9.99 a month. You can afford that. Yeah. But like it adds up and you're not paying attention and they make it really hard to, to cancel subscriptions. So it really takes an enormous amount of willpower and organization to actually clean up your subscriptions and keep track of them. And, and it's really this like explosion of what I call micropayments, which are insidious and they're turning a lot of what used to be discretionary expenses in your budget into fixed expenses. And it's funny, too, because I remember there is, you know, when I first moved out on my own, which was, I think, in 2010. And I it was kind of great because we were just in this mode where that was

at the point where everything was kind of free. Like, you know, music was free, because you can still like, you know, stream things for free or download them for free. And you can find TV for free online. And then eventually, that kind of got solved and monetized, which I think is better. But now it's I remember there was a point where I'm like, Oh, that's great. I just need one Netflix subscription. And I'm going to save so much money because I'll never have to pay for cable, which is so much more expensive. And then cut to now where it's like, I think I've got four TV, you know, four subscriptions to different, you know, providers, which is adding up to almost as much as cable. So we're at this phase where it's like now it's it all kind of bounced out to

where it used to be. And I'm not no one's really saving money. And like you said, it's just this subscription. And for me, I'm very aware of it because I track my spending every single month. But if you don't do that, it is very easy to forget where your money goes. I want to shift gears a little bit just because you also mentioned, you know, one of the great things in the past, you know, decade that's happened is just the kind of more access to investing, which I think ultimately is good. I remember learning about investing 10 years ago and thinking, I have no idea how to even make an account somewhere. And it says that you need at least $10,000 to start to open up a discount brokerage, like I don't know how to do that. And so what do you do, you just definitely go to the bank and

just deal with an advisor and get into mutual funds like everyone else, you know, does. But now you can open up your own account using an app and get started right funds like everyone else, you know, does. But now you can open up your own account using an app and get started right away. Sounds great. But I'm sure you've talked to so many people about this, too. It's like it you can also see how dangerous it can be. I talked to so many people on a daily basis talking about, oh, yeah, I started using this app and, you know, just playing around, just bought a few stocks. And I'm like, you know, that's real money, though. Like it's not you can't play with your own money. Like if you're just starting to invest and it's and I see a lot of that in the States, too, and people talking about the dangers of like Robin Hood and things like that. It's it can be kind of scary, but also good in some ways, because it's now making it easier for people to invest. I'm curious what your thoughts are seeing kind of how things have evolved. Is this a really great time for investors or especially new investors? Or is this also just like, okay,

we just need to be just as diligent and aware of some of the potential pitfalls? Yeah, so on the one hand, I think it's great that people, especially I would say younger millennials and Gen Z, especially during the pandemic, they really embraced investing. And there's this attitude that I can do it. Investing is not scary, which was the attitude I think of, you know, you often find in older generations, I would say even, even older millennials like me, especially, especially in the U.S. I think, you know, when people are coming of age in the financial crisis,

it really scared a lot of older millennials away from the stock market. So it's really great to see people enthusiastic about learning about stocks and investing. And they're like, you know, I'm going to buy the dip. You know, which is something that people have really struggled with psychologically in the past, the idea that, you know, when the stock market goes down, it's a good time to buy.

At the same time, though, I think it's really easy to feel good about yourself and about your, you know, the choices you made as an investor if you started investing you know right after the the stock market bounced back you know in April of 2020 like we've had a great run and and I think people are a lot of people are overconfident and you know, and it's become a form of entertainment, right? Like people get a kick out of it. And there's, if you're in it for the long term, which is what you should be, and if it's about growing your savings so that you can retire one day, because so very few of us have any kind of pensions to speak of, then you need to

play the long game and you need to understand certain basic concepts about investing that have nothing to do with sophisticated strategies and options and derivatives or picking single stocks. Really, index investing works so well if it's simple and it's kind of become uncool almost. Which, you know what, I'm okay with that. Because I feel like there is a period where everyone and still online, I see lots of people like, oh, indexing. I'm like, yeah, that's great. And now we're moving away. Everyone's just like, no, those are so uncool. NFTs and cryptocurrency to the moon, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, that's great and now we're moving away everyone's just like no those are so uncool nfts and cryptocurrency to the moon etc etc i'm like that's cool you go be the reason that indexing still works right yeah i'm kind of boring is good boring is good exactly simple and boring like how can it yeah yeah but i i totally agree i feel like i had so many messages, you know, in March, when things in

March 2020, rather, when things started going crazy, from people being like, Oh, my gosh, is this the time to start investing? What should I buy? What should I invest? I'm like, that is the worst way you can start. That is not how you want to get into the market, just buying whatever and just taking someone on Instagram's advice, which I would obviously never tell anyone to do something like that. But it's because people were told, oh, this is the dip, you're supposed to buy the dip, but they weren't given any other information as to but what that is that? What does that actually mean? What is your long term plan? What's your goal, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's, I just found in the, you know, a couple past couple years because of the pandemic and I feel like I've talked about this a lot on the podcast it's it's nice to see that there is more people getting

interested in investing and just personal finance in general but also because we're they're getting a lot of that information online from social media they're just reading like the headline and not really the meat of the the story which is actually where the good information is. And so all they know is buy the dip, but not necessarily what to buy at that dip or how difficult it actually is to do that. Consistently, right? Consistently, yeah. If you were gonna start investing

in the spring of 2020 anyways, because it was time and you were ready and you happened to start in a dip, fantastic. But consistently, you know, trying to, yeah, timing the market is just a fool's game. And so, yeah, no. So what I try to do in the, what I do in the investing chapter is try to deliver sort of the basics that people need to understand to make good investment decisions. So what is risk? How do you manage it? You know, what's the idea behind diversification, asset allocation? In very, very simple terms, no jargon. You can totally follow even if you don't know what's a

stock and what's a bond, but it just gives you just the basics that you need to, you know, to really get the fundamental concepts behind the idea of investing. Yeah, which is definitely difficult with all the jargon out there. I think that's the biggest barrier I see with people is like, I just don't understand it. And people don't want to take the time to explain it. So if you can translate that into real people language, which is difficult to do, I think that's the key thing. Because yeah, it's, that was the biggest thing, I think why I didn't start investing or investing in the right way for me as early as I wish I had is because it was intimidating. And I just felt like an idiot. And I feel like so many other people feel like that, which is why they delay

investing. But since you mentioned timing the market, I think this would be a good transition to talking about another chapter I really appreciated in your book, which is really talking about homeownership, which has been obviously a big topic. I've been obviously, you know, moving and buying a new place in Toronto, no less. And homeownership, since I was in my 20s, it was always a big goal for me. But things have changed even to an extent that I could have never I could have never seen this. I mean, I'm from Vancouver originally. And so yeah, over 10 years ago, when I was starting to learn all this stuff, like, oh, gosh, I'll never be able to afford a house. I but and at those prices, I thought that was like the, the top it was going to be and maybe the bubble was going to burst and 10 years later,

no, it's just gotten more expensive somehow. What what you know you do talk a little bit about like what are you know what should people think about especially young people gen z gen y you know trying to get in the housing market is it possible or you know you did kind of mention lots of the advice i feel we get from like you know boomers being like well if you can't afford something move out of the city that's what i've always gotten like but what if I want to live in the city? So I would love to kind of get your thoughts on home ownership since it's just, I feel like, yeah, it's gotten even crazier. Is it still worth it?

Or is it just, again, about the mentality of not timing the market, just getting into the market? Yeah, so home ownership is, I think, the biggest issue, bar none, for millennials and Gen Z. And I would say there's starting to be a real divide between older millennials who kind of got in just in time. Like, frankly, I count myself as one of those. Like, I bought in 2015 and I dodged two huge housing booms in Toronto just by sheer luck, like the birth year lottery there. Yeah, I got in at the middle of 2016. And at the time, I didn't think that that was a good time to buy.

But again, we just got in. We're like, well, this is something we can afford. And looking back now, I'm like, wow, we could not have foreseen things just escalating as much as they did. Yeah. And so what I what I tried to do in the chapter on housing is try to give people a framework for deciding between renting and and buying. And on the one hand, you know, there's all this prejudice against renting. And in theory, you know, as I say, so full disclosure, I grew up in Italy and I had no concept, like this was actually completely foreign to me when I came to Canada as, you know, after high school or after undergrad, that there was a problem with renting. Like I, you, in Italy, everyone lives in an apartment.

So even the stock of housing, it's all the same. You can't tell at all who owns and who's renting. And so this all seemed like very silly to me. And then I spent several years renting, both in Canada and in the US, and I was like, not impressed. Yeah. I was like, I get the stigma against renting.

It's because it is often as sort of, you know, an option B and it's treated as such. And it is, there's a lifestyle penalty often that comes with renting, right? The way the apartment buildings are built, like we're building a lot of condos with investors in mind, more than owners, like paper-thin walls, closet-sized units. You know, you may have to move out at a moment's notice. Your rent, you might get rent evicted. It's very difficult if you want to, you know, if you're thinking of being a long-term renter.

I mean, it sounds good if you're just talking about the math, perhaps, in some markets. But talk to me about trying to get a rental that's big enough for a family if you want to have one, right? And also, like in a lot of smaller towns in Canada, there just isn't that much to rent, period. And so I wanted to take this into account when I'm trying to give people a framework for deciding. So there is no, you know, the whole idea that you're throwing money out the window, renting, I completely reject that. In theory, like if the quality of life of renting and, you know, owning a home was equivalent, then it really comes down to the math. And what you really have to do, which is like step one of what I, of what I suggest people do is try to compare the cost

of renting to the unrecoverable costs of owning. Because, and this is something that I think a lot of people, this is a big surprise for me becoming a homeowner and perhaps for you too, like I was shocked at the amount of money that goes into your house. Money pit. No matter how new the house is, something will break and you'll spend thousands of dollars every year trying to repair it. And so there's a lot of unrecoverable costs of owning, repairs and maintenance, upkeep, property taxes, all kinds of stuff. So you need to compare that. And there's a little simple formula that I provide in the book to compare that to the cost of renting.

And that gives you an idea. So if the cost of renting is less than the unrecoverable cost of owning a comparable home, then you're living in a renter's market and maybe you should give renting a real hard look. But the second step, which I think is often neglected in common sort of rent versus buy discussions is you may very well be in a renter's market, but you have to compare the rent to your income. As a renter, like as anybody, you really need to save and invest, but even more so as a renter, because you don't have that emergency, you know, last ditch fallback of being able to borrow against your house or sell your house if you need liquidity. So you really, really need to build

up your savings and you need to be a pretty savvy investor if you want to pursue returns that could potentially match what you would get from appreciating real estate. So you may be in a renter's market, but if the rent is so high that you don't have any room to save, then you can't rent either. And that's a really important consideration. And finally, even if you know renter's market and you can afford to rent, then you really have to set the math aside and think about, okay, can I rent and have the quality of life that I want?

And I've spoken to some Canadians and frankly, a lot of them in Alberta. I've spoken to a lot of happy renters who've been renters for a long time, who have families and things are working out fine for them. But, you know, renters in Alberta are not moving, are not increasing nearly as fast as they are in places like Toronto and Vancouver. So it really depends where you are. And if you get to the point where you can't afford to buy and you can't afford to rent, then unfortunately it comes down to this really difficult decision of you need to figure out

whether you can increase your income or you need to figure out if you can decrease your housing costs, which generally means moving somewhere else. And I'm not going to lie, that's a very difficult decision. I hate it when people go like, well, just move. It's like, well, this is my home. I grew up here. We don't necessarily choose a place based off like, oh, the affordability and how much rent will be. It's like you typically choose a place like, well, this, my quality, like the affordability and how much rent will be it's like you typically choose a place like, well, this is where my place of work is. And I want to be near work. Or this is just Yeah, this is where my family is my home. This is my home. Like I'm not originally from Toronto. But this is my home. And we definitely did consider, you know, like,

you know, I'm sure everyone during the pandemic is that we were definitely going to move should we move outside of the city center? Should we move to like, gosh, you know, we were definitely going to move should we move outside of the city center should we move to like gosh you know we were considering Prince Edward County and you know a bunch of places outside and I personally probably would have been fine but I'm a bit of a hermit so I could just live in the country and not be anywhere near a person I'd be just fine husband not so much he loves the community that he's built in Toronto so it's like it's not as easy and that used to be my biggest pet peeve is you know in my 20s and older people would be like, well, just move somewhere else. It's like, it's not that easy. And also, it's easy for you to say because you're comfortable in your home in the place that you wish to live, you know? a hard time like I love the city I kind of almost wish I didn't because it would make my life so much easier but I also reject the idea that living in a big city should be this like thing just for the ultra wealthy you know yeah an elite thing it's like no it's problematic it's a huge problem

yeah it's a big problem and yeah it's it's I think that's the and you do kind of touch on this in the book that, you know, the affordability factor, especially in some of the big cities, and because the pandemic, so many other cities outside of the big cities and smaller towns, or, you know, their property, you know, prices have increased exponentially, making it then I hear this all the time from people, and I get it, from people outside of the cities be like, Oh, like oh you city folk you know moving to where our town is now increasing the property values here making it unaffordable for people who were from here to buy and it's like i know everyone's screwed and i'm sorry i don't have to tell you but uh it's you know what are your thoughts i guess you know i'm sure you get this question all the time or writing articles about this all the time it's like what can we do or what can be done to fix this? Is there any fixing this? Is there any way of leveling this off and getting some balance? Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a big question. Yeah. I know. And not one I try to, to tackle in the book. But, but, but what I do say in the book is, you know, there, sometimes sometimes you hear, I think people are starting

to have a lot of homeownership guilt. Perhaps the older millennials, right? Like the ones that got in just in time or got in because of help from their parents. There isn't just the guilt about asking your parents to help you. There's also the guilt that you have something that a lot of your friends can't have, right? And so what I try to address in the book is like, I understand the guilt. I kind of feel it myself. Yeah, I feel it for sure. But on the other hand, and we don't want to go, and it does, it kind of does perpetuate sort of wealth inequality, right? Like if your parents are we're on the property ladder,, you need a house. You're not speculating. If you can get a house to live in, the house that you need, just be honest about it so your friends are not wondering how it is that you, you know, what kind of financial wizardry you practiced to get into the housing market. Just let them know what exactly happened. You don't need to spill your guts and, you know, tell them exactly how much money you got.

But be honest that you got a lot of help. And this is a problem. It's a public policy problem. It's something that we need to tackle as a society. And we need some real fresh thinking about our housing policy, about making rent more appealing. It certainly is. I lived in Germany for a while and, you know, they have their own rent rental problems there now, but it's so much better to rent in Germany than it is here. It really is an attractive alternative to homeownership. So there's a lot of like thinking outside the box that we can do as a country to improve the situation. And I think the biggest thing for me as a millennial too was,

well, A, there's guilt now that I'm a homeowner, but again, it's like I'm closer to 40 than I am 20. But then there's a lot of guilt for not being a homeowner in my 20s because my parents were able to buy a house so much younger. I had friends who didn't go to university. They just went right into a job and were thus able to buy a home much sooner than I was. And so then there was also that shame of like, oh, my gosh, I'm doing it wrong. Like I'm throwing away my money because I'm renting and they're owning and stuff like that. I feel like there's so much wrapped into kind of our identities or just, you know, that perceived level of success when we think about home ownership and i think we also need to kind of rethink that it just means you know you are you have shelter whether you own it

or you're renting it um but we need to kind of let go of this idea that it's like one of those things that if you're a homeowner then you're more successful than someone who wasn't able to or or chooses not to um buy a home absolutely um one last thing I kind of want to touch on, because I think this is also super important, you know, and a big kind of theme they talk about in the book is also and you kind of touched on like, you know, how can you afford something like home ownership? Well, one of the, you know, ways is to increase your income, which also has been, you know, easier said than done. That's something I feel like also, you know, I've struggled with throughout my whole career, I finally feel like I'm, you know, in the past few years, but it's only been because

I've run my own business now, you know, making, you know, money that I'm like, okay, here we go. Finally, I'm kind of catching up to my peers. But, you know, as someone who did, you know, go through the recession and everything like that and was working contract jobs and had a side hustle. And I think so many other millennials and even, you know, Gen Z's as well are going to experience that as well. It's difficult to make a good living to afford just the expensive life that we're supposed to or we think we're supposed to. Do you want to kind of touch on, you know, when we're thinking about

increasing our income, what should we think about? I know you kind of shared some thoughts about side hustles. And, and this is also another thing that I've seen a lot in the personal finance community about side hustles were such a big thing, and they still are. But now it's kind of like, there's this counter to it about like burnout and hustle culture and how it's bad. Yeah, so I have an entire chapter devoted to working and making money, which I think is something that personal finance really forgets about. Yeah. They just talk about the cutting down the expenses, but you're like, well, that's one half of the equation. Exactly. And so I talk about work and I, as I do throughout the book, I sort of give a little bit know, how you can try to increase your income. First step would be to know exactly how much you're making.

So I think as the which sounds so elementary, but frankly, I figured I only figured out that there were 52 weeks in a year when I got my first paycheck and it didn't line up what I expected. But, and that's all about, you know, really figuring out what your expenses are. And if you're self-employed, then you're used to, you know, or more used to tracking your expenses and thinking really about what your net take-home pay is. But I think the pandemic really showed that there are so many costs involved with

just going to work. And suddenly people, when they stopped having to dress up for the office and having to, you know, pay for the hairdresser and, you know, new clothes and the commute and this, that, and the other, suddenly they had, you know, a lot more money in their bank account than they usually did. And so it's really important to just take stock of how much your work is costing you and really sort of reassess that on a regular basis so that, you know, if you need to maybe change something, that you're aware of it. And then I, you know, I talk about job hopping, you know, very popular concept, especially now in this great labor market that, that we're

having something that I haven't seen or I know, I wish that was around when I was, you know, still an employee. I was always told when you brought up, you know, job hopping in the book, it's, it's so funny, because now I'm kind of pro job hopping, and not so much that like every couple months, go find a new job. But I was always told from my parents, you need to stay at a job for at least three years. Otherwise, no one will hire you that everyone will think that you're unreliable, you'll never get another job. So I always stayed at my job for like two and a half to three years, every single job, even if it and looking back, like, kind of regret some of those choices, because I every time I did move to another job, it was an opportunity for me to make, you know, new money, obviously, depends on everyone's personal

situation and what industry you work in and stuff like that. But sometimes I feel like, yeah, it's really about assessing the information you get. And then also seeing like, well, is this still applicable? Like at this current moment? It may not make sense. You may have a better opportunity to get it somewhere else. Yeah. And certainly the aggregate, so there isn't a ton of aggregate, you know, in-depth sort of studies of job hopping and whether it works or not. But some of the best data that we have, which comes from the U.S., suggests that the tighter the labor market is, the bigger the reward for job hopping. So job hopping in a labor market like we have now, which is quite tight with employers kind of desperate to hire and workers sort of having the upper hand for once, this is a good time to job hop. And that's what generally the evidence suggests. And then another important

thing to know if you're job hopping is that it doesn't seem to work as well for every single job. And so there was an interesting study by Payscale that used a really big data set. And the interesting finding that they had was that job hopping tend to work really well for jobs that didn't put a lot of premium on sort of being an insider in the company. So, you know, maybe a lot of technical roles where, you know, you can do your thing wherever you are and there isn't much, um, more that you add from, you know, really knowing the company inside and out. Uh, whereas someone like maybe, um, an administrative assistant, you know, that's a job where knowing

everybody, uh, really having built relationships, like can really give you an advantage. And maybe then job hopping or switching jobs frequently is not such a great idea or there won't be as much of a return from job hopping. But the basic idea behind job hopping is that it can be really difficult to get a decent raise as an existing employee. And so when you switch jobs, you've done your job interviews, they've chosen you among a lot of other candidates, and now you have a lot more bargaining power and you need to use it and you need to know how to negotiate, which is another topic of the book. And use that leverage to really, you know, jump ahead and boost your own boost your pay. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people think, oh, what's the big deal? Just negotiate a raise with your boss or the powers that be at your job. You don't really have much leverage because if you don't get it,

you may just stick around and keep doing your job. Exactly. Like I've only gotten one raise in this many jobs I've ever had. And it was really more of a cost of living raise because I was being very much underpaid. But every other place, yeah, stingy because they knew I, at the time,

I didn't have, I think think a lot of confidence in myself and my my own self-worth and uh they knew if I you know I'd just go back to work and I did so yeah yeah and I've seen that yeah I've seen I've definitely that's happened to me too and I've seen it and and that's but the job hopping it's so important it's not just about job hopping it's about knowing you know how to negotiate which I certainly didn't know how to do for such a long time yeah there's so there's so many great resources to learn how to do that now and I mean honestly I look back and I'm so embarrassed like the last corporate job I had I was there for almost three years I didn't even think about negotiating and they did it in a very like kind of not sneaky way.

I was still thrilled because it was a big pay bump for my previous job. But how it worked was I was interviewing them kind of on the sly at my lunch break and stuff. And then they hired me. I'm still I hadn't given my notice quite yet. They gave me the employment contract to sign. They're like, yeah, just go to the office. It'll be at the reception. You just have to sign it. So there wasn't even really like a moment for me to, and that was when they revealed how much pay it would get. So there was no opportunity for me to talk to a person. Very well, I could have taken that with me,

emailed them, had a call and negotiated. But I was just like, well, I guess this is it. And just signed it and didn't think back. And I look back, Jessica, you were leaving money on the table. That is really sneaky. It was sneaky. It was a law firm to be fair.

So they knew what they were doing um anyways i know i could probably talk to your ear off for a while but there's so much great stuff in your book honestly going through it like this i wish i had this book when i was uh it really goes through everything that you could possibly want and again like i mentioned really nice to hear from a peer um and you talk about relevant things, you talk about the pandemic, which I think has really made a big shift in everything. And also from a Canadian specific perspective, which is amazing. So where can people find more information about you, Erica, and all your wonderful, you know, reporting that you do, but also grab a copy of Money Like You Mean It? Yeah, so Money Like You Mean It is available wherever you buy a book. So obviously, Amazon, Indigo, but also many,

many indie bookstores. So, you know, if you if you like to buy from independent support, independent bookstores, you know, check it out. It should be there at E. Alini. You can find me obviously on Global News and I also write a weekly newsletter called Money123. If you Google that and subscribe to Money123, you will find a link that you can use to subscribe and it includes a Q&A section. So you can send in your money questions. And I will

find a personal finance expert that I know and trust and get them to give you some tips that maybe can help you with whatever you're dealing with. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thanks again for coming on the show it was a pleasure having you on thank you so much for having me and that was episode 311 of the more money podcast with the wonderful erica alini so you can follow her on twitter at e alini that's at e-a-l-i-n-i um i will just link to her in the show notes for this episode, go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 311 or 311. And also make sure to grab a copy of her book, of course, money like you mean it, you can find it online at every online bookstore or go to your local bookstore to

support local of course. But again, I will include links so you can grab a copy really quick in the show notes for this episode, jessicamorehouse.com slash 311 you can also find the show notes for every episode ever in existence that i put out if you just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast and like i mentioned at the beginning of this episode i am giving away a copy of her book so make sure to go to jessicamorehouse.com slash contests and that's where you can find her book. And I will be adding more books to that contest as new guests appear on the show. And like I also mentioned, I did a big book giveaway last season of the podcast, wrap that up, you know, drew all the names. So if you did not win, I'm sorry, but this is your chance to, you know, get another crack at it because I do my best my due diligence

to make sure I never pick the same winner twice. So you've got a good chance of winning a copy this year. So you know, good luck and get to it. I've got so much stuff to share with you. So I hope you do not go away. I'm just going to share a few words about this podcast episode sponsor and then I've got so many so many things to share. Stay with me. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Harvest ETFs. Looking to add some sustainability or growth equities to your portfolio, but still want to be a long-term index investor like myself? Well, that's why I've got index funds in my core portfolio and a satellite portfolio to explore other types of securities that are non-index

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I'm officially in my new house, which is crazy. It is still a work in progress. I am. I made this makeshift office in our living room because I don't have access to my bedroom upstairs. We're doing a few little rentals, basically just some simple stuff have to redo kind of the stairs and the carpet super fun. But until that gets done, we cannot move anything upstairs. Besides we do have our bed up there because I was not going to sleep in the living room. But otherwise, I do not have a permanent office yet. So if it is, I know my podcast editors probably listening to this and it does not sound amazing. And maybe my you know, laundry is going off right now. You know, I'm just trying my best so it will get better. I have so many amazing plans to add like sound treatment and to make this sound so nice. Instead of all the

random places I've had to record this podcast in the past several months, like I was in my empty townhouse and then an Airbnb for a bit. Now we're in this weird kind of, I don't know, limbo in this house. But anyways, yeah, we're in the new house and I'm super, super excited. It is so interesting and I can't wait to, I will be doing a solo episode probably in the next few weeks once I feel like I've gotten my life together because I just feel like I'm running around doing all these chores and just don't, I haven had a moment to like, sit down and really think about what the heck happened. So look forward to that coming soon. But yeah, I'm so excited to not I'm never moving again. Well, I will eventually move again, obviously, probably not going to die in this house. But

I am not moving for a very long time because this was so, it was just so much time and effort and energy and stress. I just don't want to do this again for a very long time. That's all I want. But yeah, so exciting news in the new house. What else? So over the holidays, like I kind of mentioned, I took that, you know, I always take a little break over the holidays to spend with my family, was able to get to Vancouver to visit my family, which was such a treat. But of course, because of this great little thing called Omicron, we basically were like, quarantining with our families. Like I only saw my family, my parents in law and one friend. And I was there for three weeks, because everything was like shut down. So it is what it is. But at least I got to see my

family. So I was really happy about that because the previous in 2020, yeah, we had to stay in Toronto. We were in lockdown. So we were not allowed to visit. So that was, you know, it's just it is what it is. We're in this weird world. We're getting to like the two year anniversary. Really, I feel like like or maybe we have already hit it. But I was kind of think of March as like the the starting point of the pandemic, because that's when things started getting really serious. Because I remember specifically, in February 2020, I did my last in person on air news segment, and we were chatting, I was chatting with some of the other guests who were on the panel about what's going on the news and this news, the pandemic,'m like oh I don't think people are blowing it out of proportion and I

I'm sure it's not going to be that bad because I never experienced anything like this and I just couldn't imagine what actually happened and I had to eat my words a few weeks later when everything got shut down and got really scary and then there was like no food in the grocery stores and oh man that like that will I feel like it's a millennial too, and maybe you can relate to this. If you experienced like the, you know, 2008 market crash and the subsequent recession, and then you've dealt with this, I feel like we've dealt with some like big traumas in our life that like, this is going to stay with me for ever. This fear of just like, the scarcity of everyone just like, you know, you can get toilet

paper for a little bit and all that kind of stuff is a freaky time. But you know what? We haven't passed that a little bit. I mean, we're two years out and things have improved in some respects. We're still in a weird, you know, we're still not back to normal. Who knows if that will ever be the case. But all I'm trying to say, not to be a big downer, is, you know, I'm really still grateful that I got the opportunity to go back home and visit my family. And now we're just, you know, spending the winter here doing some little things with our house. And hopefully like my kind of I've got like, because I'm a nerd, all of my like kind of goals organized and I got a little schedule for like career goals and money goals and life goals and stuff like that.

Yeah, I'm excited to kind of, you know, just hunker down at home and get some of these things done. I always kind of like to hibernate a little bit in the winter. And now I'm kind of forced to because we're in a weird other semi lockdown or something. They're not calling it a lockdown, but lots of things are closed. So here we are. Fun stuff. But hey, that also the other great thing, because I've been getting lots of questions about this is, you know, what's the best thing about being in this place? And like, I would say that we do not have neighbors above us. Like, you know, I was complaining a lot about our neighbors above us. And oh my gosh, it is so nice to not have to deal with that anymore. And but also, it's actually taken me a long time to

recognize that we don't have neighbors because every, every place I've ever lived in, once I moved out of my parents, when I was like in my early twenties, um, I've always had neighbors, um, below me or above me or beside me. Um, and so the first couple of nights of us staying in this house, we were like watching TV on my laptop and, uh, like in our bedroom. And I'm like, oh, this is kind of loud. Like we should probably turn it down. And then me and my husband looked at each other. I'm like, oh my gosh, wait, we don't have neighbors above us. So it's okay. Like it would just kind of hit me. I'm like, oh, right. Like I was, I was being quiet for people like for no reason. Cause I was just like so conditioned to be like, oh, quiet down. The neighbors are right

next to you. So that's kind of exciting. So yeah, anyway, so that's like the big, real big news. Some other things too, that I want to let you know about some of the things that I will be working on this winter. So obviously, I still have my wealth building blueprint for Canadians course, which is exciting in February, it will be its one year anniversary, I did raise the price. So if you have not, you know, enrolled, well, it is going to be a little bit more expensive than last year. But still, this is a great time to, you know, get your stuff together when it comes to investing. This is obviously a course specifically for Canadians, and it's about passive investing. So investing in a diversified portfolio of index ETFs. So if you want to learn more about what's, you know,

involved in the course, and also see all the number of amazing testimonials from students who are in the course, make sure to just go to JessicaMoorhouse.com slash WBB. It is on my website. And you can also find the link to it in the show notes for this episode. And I've gotten some lots of questions because I have mentioned over the past year, I am working on a second course is more kind of about how to create a holistic financial plan. So all the other aspects of getting your finances together besides investing that is in the works. I'm basically doing a big update of my investing course, just to refresh it because it's a new year, we're gonna keep it fresh. And so once that's done, I'm hoping that it'll be done to keep it fresh. And so once that's done, I'm hoping

that it'll be done by late January, early February. Once that's done, I'm going to full force work on this second course that is, I really, really want to put it out and get it out there because I think it's really great. There was something else that just popped into my mind that I wanted to talk about. Oh yeah. So it was that I am going to be getting a new website finally. So, you know, my current website is okay, but it is something that I built myself and I am not a web designer and don't need to make my own websites anymore. I was I think I built that website. And this was Yeah, maybe five or six years ago, I think I built it. And yeah, I kind of realized why are we why are we still trying to do everything ourselves, Jessica get a professional to actually make your website so in the process of doing that I have

to get some like new headshots and a bunch of other stuff but exciting I'm very excited to reveal that it probably won't be ready until end of March um but yeah that will be very exciting to have because it's time for it's time it's time for a refresh like I don't have short hair anymore I don't have those, you know, kind of the brand colors. I think I updated the brand colors on the current website, but you know, it just needs, it needs some, some, I don't know, something. It needs something. Yeah. Anyway, so that's, that's it for me. Thank you so much for listening. A big shout out to my wonderful podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And yeah, I'll be back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode

of the More Money Podcast. And, you know, have a good rest of your week and I'll see you next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.