More Money Podcast - 312 Is Investing in Real Estate Still Possible in This Housing Market? - Griffin Milks, Entrepreneur and Youtuber

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

If you’ve been a listener for any amount of time then you know investing is one of my favourite topics. I’ve talked a lot about investing in stocks and index funds, but I haven't really tackled investing in real estate...until today’s episode! Joining me on the podcast is entrepreneur and real estate investor Griffin Milks.  Griffin is 25 years old and has already bought 15 houses and flipped 3 of them. After landing a government job after graduating from the University of Ottawa, where he studied business and commerce, Griffin started his YouTube channel that focuses on personal finance, stock, and real estate investing. As his YouTube channel and real estate portfolio grew, he was able to leave his 9-to-5 and become a full-time entrepreneur.  In this episode, I pick Griffin’s mind about how he’s been able to build up a real estate portfolio at such a young age, and what his long-term strategy is. Griffin also shares his investing philosophy for building wealth and why he advocates for taking your time to do your research instead of getting sucked into the clickbaity world of TikTok and Reddit. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/312 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is your host, Jessica Morehouse, and this is episode 312 of the show. I am thrilled to be back with the podcast, quite honestly. I always need a good little break over the holidays, but it's really good to be back. And I honestly, I've been on top of this podcast in terms of booking guests. I have guests booked out until, gosh, mid-April already. And, you know, it's only January 20th as of the day that I'm recording this intro. So I'm pretty proud of myself for getting and some really, really good guests. So I can't wait.

And this was an interview that I actually recorded right before I went on holiday. And it is another Canadian financial educator, who I actually discovered first on YouTube and then Instagram. And I wanted to have on the show because he comes at it from a very different perspective, probably because he's 10 years my junior, but also because he is really into kind of delving into maybe some areas that maybe I don't really delve into, such as like real estate investing and individual stock investing and cryptocurrency and just exploring the whole interesting world that is personal finance. So I have Griffin Milks on the show. So if you're on YouTube, or especially like finance YouTube, you're probably already familiar with his channel. I think it has like over 80,000 subscribers. So he's doing his thing. And he really, really is. So I'm really excited to have him on the show. So in case you're not familiar, though, he is a YouTuber, TikToker,

Instagrammer. And he is only 25. And he is also a real estate investor and owns, gosh, 15 houses. And he also flips houses as well. Gosh, I didn't have my life together at 25. My gosh, so he really is doing the thing. And now also he was able to, he talks about this in the episode, I didn't have my life together at 25. My gosh. So he really is doing the thing. And now also he was able to, he talks about this in the episode, I believe, he was able to quit his job not too long ago, and now just does this full time and is an entrepreneur, which is pretty cool. So he's on the show just to talk about, you know, what he's doing, some of the advice that he gives to other young people, young Canadians and young investors, and just give you some motivation to get stuff done and moving, you know, this January and for the rest of the year. So I know you're going to love this episode with Griffin. Just before I

get to that interview with him, though, I do want to share just a few words about this podcast episode sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Harvest ETFs. I talk a lot about ETFs on this podcast, but not all ETFs are created equal. Although in the late 90s, ETFs first started out as products that would track the movements of a broad market index like the S&P 500, now there are a plethora of active and niche ETFs to choose from. For example, if you want to ensure part of your investment portfolio is investing in clean energy companies, you may want to check out HCLN that's Harvest's Clean Energy ETF. It invests in the 40 largest clean energy issuers from North

America, Europe, and Asia. And if you're interested in future growth in the space economy, then ORBT, or Orbit, Harvest's Space Innovation Index ETF, can give you exposure to companies focused on space innovation, such as satellite owners and rocket launch technology 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, Griffin, to the More Money Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Jessica. Happy to be here.

Yeah, I'm so excited. I've been following you on social media and YouTube, especially as I have, you know, tried my best at figuring out YouTube. And you're one of the first kind of people that I started, you know, watching and really following because, you know, especially trying to find specific Canadian content too, which is, I think, always helpful as a Canadian. So super excited to have you on the show. And you have a very interesting background and story and have achieved so much in such a short amount of time, which is really exciting. So I kind of want to start, yeah,

kind of at your origin story, so to speak. Tell me, let's kind of start, because I know part of your story is you went to the University of Ottawa and studied commerce. And then you got like what most people would be like, oh, solid job, stay there forever, get that government pension, you worked at the government in Canada for several years. And then you made a big shift into, you know, educating people about personal finance and now running your own business and doing this full time. Do you want to kind of share what got you interested in the world of investing in personal finance? I'm assuming maybe you were already interested in it because you maybe studied a little bit

of that in university. Yeah, absolutely. So that's exactly correct. I went to the University of Ottawa, studied business throughout my university degree. Like I've always been someone interested in finance, like in general, money, something always something that's been of interest to me pretty pretty much just to like, grow wealth and have options, you know, at the end of the day, even when I was a teenager, I wanted certain things. So well, you can only achieve that through sound financial practices and businesses and investing. So yeah, it's always been something really of interest to

me. And then throughout my university career at the end, well, I kind of didn't really know what I was going to do. And living in Ottawa, it's a government town, essentially. Pretty much everyone works for the government, like a very high percentage. I think it's like something staggering, like 20 or 25% of a million people, which is a lot, you know. Everyone in my family works for the government. And same with even like in my neighborhood, everyone on my street worked for the government. So long story short, uh, I got a job, uh, I got a job during my last year of university as a student and then just transitioned right over. And like, it was great, as you said, stable job, great pension, great benefits, whatever.

I just wasn't really my calling. You know, I was 23 or 22, 23 at the time. And I had like a full time job at the government, which just wasn't really super of interest to me. So being an entrepreneur, like I always had businesses on the side, I'd work on them after work. And it got to a point where I just realized I've always been someone who's been interested in videography and then finance. So I just started sharing my investing journey, things I was doing, even with a very small account at the time. By account, I mean investment account.

And it kind of just took off over time. And with consistency, after a couple of years, I finally decided to take that jump, which was extremely stressful at the time, for sure. And it was definitely like a year long build up towards that leap. But it was something that was just necessary for me, for my mental health and everything and just where I was going with my vision, essentially. Wow, that's awesome. I mean, you know, going through

that transition myself now, this is like five years ago. I totally understand. Especially when you mentioned the mental health aspect, it's like, yeah, if you're working at a job, you're like, I hate waking up every day going to work. And this just isn't the, the path for me. It it's, it's draining and it really messes up your mental health. And so making that decision for you, although difficult, and I'm sure health. And so making that decision for you, although difficult, and I'm sure, you know, at least for me, I definitely experienced a lot of people questioning, like, what are you doing? That's crazy. Why would you leave such a great job, all that kind of stuff. And you having to be like, no, I, I mean, I don't quite know what

I'm doing, but I know what I'm doing in the long term. I think this will work out. Did you kind of feel like it was difficult making that transition? Cause you're kind of, I mean, I guess the other side of it, if you have the entrepreneurial spirit, you know that this is the right path for you. Yeah, well, definitely, there's always going to be that doubt in the back of your mind. But at the same time, first and foremost, I had a plan, like as much as I wanted to impulsively quit multiple times, I just made the rational decision of taking a step back and making a plan. So in that plan, there were a couple of things. Number one, I wanted to make income that was at least somewhat close to what I was making so that I'm just not taking this huge leap. And then,

okay, I'm going from one aspect of where I'm just don't like what I'm doing during my day to then I like what I'm doing, but I'm financially strapped and very stressed out in that aspect. So that's something I wanted to avoid. So making that income was the first thing. And then second of all, I really wanted to buy a house first because I knew that like if I didn't buy a house, no one would touch me for years. For a good three years. Yeah. Yeah.

Like at least. So that was something that I really wanted to accomplish as well before that. And then it took about a year for that to happen of working pretty much full time, two jobs, right. Uh, full time at work and then full time after. And it was one of those things I just needed to make that decision. If that's really something I wanted that there was just no other way around it and no one else is going to help you. Yeah. It's such a smart thing that you will, I, that you give yourself so much time to plan, though that must be also hard mentally. You're like, Oh man, I have like so many more months

until I can, you know, give my notice. But I think it's also really smart that you, you had, you know, the, the thought process to be like, I need to buy a house before I leave my job. Because yeah, it's, it's, uh, you know, as a self-employed person myself, it's not as easy getting a mortgage when you're a self-employed or newly self-employed. So that's actually what I did too. I didn't actually plan it though. I wasn't as smart as you. I didn't plan to quit my job.

I just had a bit enough. And, but I think I was subconsciously planning for it. Like I was squirreling away a bunch of money and I'm like, I bet that's why mentally. I'm like, I need to get out of of here but I bought a house before I left I'm so glad I did that um absolutely I want to kind of talk a little bit about that because I know that's one of your uh passions of what you talk about on your channel real estate investing um which is so fascinating how did you get into that like that to me I am someone who's always

been fascinated about it. But besides my principal residence, I've never delved into, you know, being a landlord or anything like that. How did you really get started? Or what kind of like, yeah, what was your starting point? I get so many questions like, how do you how do you jump into that? And what is what was your experience like? Yeah, so first of all, I'll break it down into a couple things. How did I start getting interested in just literally through reading books. Like I read books all the time about business, investing, self-help.

And then I kind of just discovered what real estate investing was all about. Really, you just fell in love with the concept. Like it blew my mind. People are buying you assets. Like what other people are paying down your loan and buying assets for you essentially. So you just need to put up a certain amount of money,

that down payment, and then pretty much if you're buying a good property, we could go into that for hours, but that's cash flowing and stuff. You're basically just having a cash flowing asset that's also paying down and your net worth is going up every month regardless of your income. That's something I just, I fell in love with the concept. So then yeah, just education on that. And then from there, I just decided, hey, hey I'm gonna save up towards a down payment so while I was still doing my stock investing I saved up for a down payment and literally just jumped into it of course you need to speak to like a mortgage broker real estate broker about your your goals and what you're looking to to purchase but yeah back in what are we now we're almost 2022 i guess it was mid 2020 uh which seems like not that long ago it really wasn't so many things that was

like you know beginning of the pandemic wow yeah yeah it must have actually it must have been end of 2019 then yeah that seems yeah yeah that seems a bit more reasonable. Yeah, actually it was in November or October, November 2019. That was a duplex, bought it for like 180K, which is unheard of now. Like that makes sense. Where is that duplex? That is unheard of. Just in my hometown of Gatineau,

which is right beside Ottawa. Yeah. Yeah, so that doesn't exist anymore really, but since the market's just gone up so much. But yeah, from there, the beauty about real estate investing is it's just this if you're strategically buying places that you can like renovate and that's what i'm i talk about a lot on my channel is buying places where you can renovate aesthetically raise the rents raise the market value and then basically just re-leverage those

properties it's really like that domino effect. And that's something that now after about two years, there's just a lot of momentum going where refinancing one place, purchasing a new one, re-leveraging. And it's just, yeah, it really starts taking off after a little while. So. Did you have skills? Because I mean, I have zero skills when it comes to any kind of home renovations. Like, did you have those skills? Like, how did you get those? Like, how do you know? Cause I remember seeing some photos on Instagram, like, damn, like you like redid your kitchen. Like that looks great. I have no idea how to do that. Uh, yeah, no, it's funny. Not at all. I'm really, have you read the book cashflow quadrant by, I haven't, I think I've heard of it, but I haven't. Uh, it's by Robert Kiyosaki, the guy who did rich dad, poor dad. Anyways, it goes into it and basically categorizes people into four different categories like

self-employed, employee, self-employed, investor, business owner. I'm very like self-employed mindset. I have a hard time like delegating a lot of tasks in my business. And so when it came to like renovating, I looked at my property and I was like, okay, I can either spend probably over a hundred K to do everything with a general, or I'm just going to pick up the hammer and it's going to take a while, but I'll, you know, I'm, I'm in my early twenties. I can afford to take that time and just increase the property's value. So no, to answer your question, I just learned everything off of YouTube, essentially. Yeah. Like some things, all the tiling I got done by others.

But other than that, yeah, I pretty much did everything myself and with a couple of buddies, really awesome friends who helped me out. That's amazing. I don't know if I could do that. I can't even paint a wall without getting, you know, paint on the trim. So I don't know if I'm a lost cause or whatever, but that's amazing. That's really amazing that you're just like, I don't know how to do this, but I'll figure it out. And, and also like, wow, what a great time for you to like get into real estate investing. I'm sure you've really seen the fruits of your labor over the past couple

years. Oh yeah. It's, it's unreal. Um, just in the past year, definitely there was some luck involved, but at the same time, I am really just of the past year definitely there was some luck involved but at the same time i am really just of the mindset that if you're purchasing properties or investments other investment classes with that longer term mindset anyways and strategy in place that you know your deal on your property might not be as attractive right now as a year and a half ago but you can still find really attractive returns in the market right now. Like literally I'm under contract to buy two properties. So, and have just purchased another one last week and not last week, two, three weeks ago, you know, so there are still deals to be had.

Maybe just people who read headlines, oh my gosh, it's so negative all the time. But no, if you actually put in the work, you can find opportunities in any market environment. Yeah. And yeah, I think especially to that long-term mindset, because so many, like you kind of mentioned, so many people are just like, oh, there's impossible to buy anything. It's like, well, you know, you're going to feel like that with any kind of investment if it's a short-term mindset. But if you think about it in the long-term, like anything is going to go up in value over time if you kind of stick with it. So, yeah, I think that's that's amazing and really inspiring, too, for, you know, people that are your age who feel totally priced out of the market. I feel like that's absolutely impossible.

But I'd assume a big kind of part of that is really, you know, buying in the right type of market, like maybe, you know, a city like Toronto where like places are just like bonkers. Maybe it doesn't make sense. And it sounds like you've kind of really focused on a couple of different markets that made the most sense like Gatineau. Yeah, exactly. So there's different, you know, markets are categorized into like primary, secondary, tertiary markets.

And so if you're in a primary market like Vancouver or Toronto, like who am I to say, pick it up, pick up your stuff and move. But at the same time, depending on your situation situation if you are able to do that especially with work from home and stuff i have i know people who literally picked up and moved to like the boonies and work from a from a cottage most of the time if they can you know of course that's not applicable to everyone but if you are able to do that maybe biting the bullet while you're for a couple years, while you're in your earlier 20s, or even 30s, it really doesn't matter and try to do that to build up some equity and gain some momentum in your finances, it might be worth it.

Now, you mentioned that you own a bunch of properties, what is your I guess, kind of strategy or goal? Do you have a set number that you'd like to own? Or is it just, you know, if you see a property that makes sense, you'll buy it? And are you like the landlord? Do you do all the work and the handyman stuff? Or do you kind of outsource that? Yeah, so yeah, we have a couple properties at this point. And I've kind of at the beginning, I used to do everything kind of myself, like in terms of the property management and decided at least six months ago to just outsource that to a property manager. And that was the best decision ever. Just from a, you know, gaining back that time and just

my new little things that are highly time consuming, but extremely low return on your invested time. So yeah, property manager isn't necessarily something I'd recommend right at the beginning. Because let's say you were to buy a rental property, it's still good to get a little bit of experience about, you know, speaking with tenants, knowing what's going on, maybe not swinging the hammer, but doing something like that, right. And then as your business grows grows it just becomes completely unrealistic to have 10 15 tenants that you're dealing with collecting payments yeah that's a full-time job in and of itself you know that is why people have a full-time business doing that so outsource that and then uh what was the other question actually i have no idea oh no they uh

i'm like i don't know i'm just so interested in what you're saying. Oh yeah. The goal. Cause it's like, you know, I hear lots of people like, I want to get this many houses by this age. Do you have anything like that? So kind of used to, and yes, I think it's really important to set goals in every aspect of your life. And so for the real estate portfolio, definitely there are some goals like over time, for sure. I want to have dozens of rental properties however right now and this is really personal to my situation real estate is a is a capital game so not having enough capital to throw into new properties is usually the biggest roadblock people face so unless I was to go out and start raising capital from a lot of like friends and family. I only have a certain amount of capital to work with. And so earlier we were talking about the domino effect.

Right now, what I've been able to do is accomplish on certain properties, a couple hundred percent return on some properties. And that's like insane, that's stellar returns. So instead of just locking up, at first I was kind of just on this longer term buy and hold strategy. Now I've kind of with the market having topped, I've sold off a couple to take that money and just put it somewhere else where I feel I can make those same types of returns instead of just leaving them in a property making 30, 40%, which is still fantastic. But just from an opportunity cost standpoint,

decided to sell a couple and put that money into other properties for projects where I can really increase the value of the property and do it over and over again. That's kind of a long answer. But no, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like it's not. I think some people think because, you know, you see on social media, people like passive income. And I'm like, most of the time, passive income is not 100% passive. It sounds like a lot of work owning real estate, even if you outsource. But it sounds like another key thing to being strategic with real estate investing is taking a look at your portfolio and saying, do we need to sell some things? Because it doesn't really make sense to hang on. It makes sense to kind of put that money elsewhere.

So you're always kind of taking a look and reassessing things. All the time, for sure. Just like a stock portfolio, every couple of months you need to reassess what's going on, where you're going, considering the market environment, considering the value of your assets, your capital on hand. Yeah, all of that. Yeah. So do you have any plans though of investing in real estate or not really? I don't know. We just, we literally just sold our townhouse, which was the first place that we ever bought and bought a house in Toronto, which was a big investment. So we're, we're gonna, you know, I'd say give it a year to get comfortable with the new cost. Uh, this is the first house we've ever owned. And so I know there's going to be new expenses that we've never experienced like

working in or, uh, living in a condo that had like, you know, maintenance that was done for us. So I'm going to like, you know, I don't know, I would love your advice, but like, I think it's always a good idea to like, give it a year, four seasons to see what you need to be aware of. And then, then maybe we'll, we'll take a look at things after that. I've been talking about getting into real estate investing for a decade, but for some reason, it could just be my own insecurities. And I'm scared of it. There seems like there's downsides. So I don't know. What if you can speak to some of the downsides, possible things to be aware of if you're thinking about getting into something like this. Yeah, for sure. Like any investment, there's going to be downsides. However, the way I approach property investing, and it's really going to depend on the market, like you said, in Toronto,

I'm really not familiar with it. However, how much does an average duplex go for? Like at least seven, eight hundred K, right? I'm assuming something like that. So like two, two, two like semi-detached houses. Oh gosh. I don't know. Um, so probably at least like a million, uh, over a million base to give you a point of reference. I think the average, um, detached house is going for 1.2 to 1.4. So a duplex would probably be more. Yeah, it's stupid. It's stupid. So if we were to do real estate investing, I don't think it would be another place in Toronto. Yeah, probably not. I mean, it really depends though, right? Because I don't know what the ratio of rent to like the actual property value is. And that's really what comes into play to

make it a good investment. But just off the top of my head, like all of the property investments I've made have been stellar returns in terms of when you're comparing that to the stock market. And the reason being is because when you're investing in real estate, you're taking advantage of the tenants paying down your debt and building equity, hopefully cash flows if you purchased a property that makes sense so that it can, first of all, cover any unexpected expenses that come up, but then also put that money in your pocket each month. And then also, if you're purchasing a property that has sort of that it's under market value from a standpoint of the rents are kind of maybe not the best, you need some aesthetic, some cosmetic repairs, you're able to force appreciate the property. I

know I'm making that sound really simple. It's not that simple. Yeah. So definitely you need some aesthetic, some cosmetic repairs, you're able to force appreciate the property. I know I'm making that sound really simple. It's not that simple. Yeah. So definitely you need to educate a lot on it and consult with a real estate broker. But that literally is what I have done. And every time I talk about this with people, it sounds very simple. It takes time. Yeah. But that's pretty much what I've done. That's just what I've done, right? People are quick to say, oh, that's not going to work in my market or whatnot. We'll figure it out. Yeah, and I guess a lot of it probably comes down to having that personal experience. Everything is scary until you try it out yourself.

You just need to jump in. Yeah, you need to jump in. And then especially for you as well, it's like you've been able to replicate what you've done, you know, over and over. And so that just confirms like, OK, the strategy works. So, yeah. So we'll see. We'll see what the future holds. I definitely will ask you for some recommendations on some books that for sure and continue watching your YouTube channel. What I would say, though, for anyone watching is to not get caught up with the frenzy of overbidding on a property, especially a rental property that doesn't make sense on paper just because you want to make a deal go through. For every, at least, I'd say I'd say I probably only go through on 10% of the properties I put

bids on because when I'm analyzing a property, I know exactly what type of return I want for the time it's going to take for a real estate investment, because it takes more time for sure than stock market investing, which is significantly more passive. So if I'm going to take my time to purchase a new property, it needs to be worth it. Like at least more than 20% return on investment in the first year minimum. So with that in mind, though, I'm able to know exactly what my bid is going to be on a property based on analyzing the income, the expenses, and look at all of that ahead of time. So yeah, not getting caught up emotionally with bidding wars and overpaying if it doesn't make sense, because that is a recipe for disaster for sure. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's great advice for even if you're just looking for

a principal property, you know, it is very easy. Principal property. Yeah. It's just you. And, you know, people get a lot more emotionally tied up with a primary residence, which is still not the best thing to do, but it's not as bad as a rental property. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to put your business mind, you know, set on when you're, you're real estate investing. Cause it's like, you're not going to live in this. This is a business investment. Um, I want to talk a little bit more, um, since you do also talk about, um, yeah, stock market investing and, and, uh, you know, different, uh, ways you can invest your, your money to diversify your portfolio on your YouTube channel.

So what is your kind of personal investing philosophy? How do you build your portfolio? How do you choose stocks or choose just what to invest in for yourself? For sure. So I always recommend on my YouTube channel when you're I talk about different stocks and ETFs all the time, by the way, for anyone watching who doesn't know what an ETF is, it's an exchange traded fund, but I'm sure you know what that is if you follow Jessica. But yeah, so I always recommend really thinking about your own personal situation before purchasing any stock or any ETF, because there are thousands of individual stocks and individual ETFs that do a whole bunch

of different things and have different goals. So if you're just blindly purchasing anything that people talk about on the internet, chances are it's not really going to suit your goals. So I, going back to myself then, I identify, okay, well, I'm in my early 20s, I have a higher risk tolerance, longer term investments. First of all, I always recommend investing

for at least minimum 10 years, like for real minimum 10 years. And the issue with that is I can say that as much as I want. But the reality is that there are I don't remember this statistic, but the amount of retail investors who came into the market in March of 2020 And since then versus before is staggering. I think it's more than like 50%. So most people don't have that much experience. And when you say 10 years, it's very hard for humans to project out 10 years. And actually you can on paper say, okay, 10 years. Yeah, cool. I'm in it for 10 10 years and as soon as market correction comes or whatever it's it's frenzy panic whatever so um yeah longer term investment for sure and then i look at myself

yeah early 20s at least i'm going to be investing for 20 30 years so therefore i can have a higher risk tolerance i really like to purchase and have a higher allocation towards equities so actual companies over like fixed income instruments like bonds, bond ETFs, preferred shares, stuff like that. So yeah, how do I pick them though? I always recommend first and foremost, just going with an S&P 500 ETF. It's just the easiest one. I also really like NASDAQ 100 ETFs because these are really passive low cost funds that expose you to hundreds of literally the best stocks in the best market in the world. And that sounds really boring and simple, but it's because it is. I'm all about the boring and simple investing. I love that.

Exactly. Yeah. If I look at my stock market portfolio, of course, I have a bunch of individual stocks, Shopify, a bunch of them that have two, three, four times X in return. But when I look at even my, let's say, VFV, which is S&P 500, it's up over 150% for doing literally absolutely nothing, zero research, zero stress, just investing in it every single month, all the time, over the past five six years you know which is which is fantastic so yeah so what would you say answer the question no no no you did i think i kind of get a sense it sounds like you know everyone's different for you we've got a big focus on equities do you invest in index funds or are you more focused on building your own portfolio

just from individual stocks oh no i invest in index funds all the time. For sure. Like 50% of my portfolio is index funds. Okay, awesome. Because yeah, I get like, you know, when you mentioned like, there's so many more investors that started investing, you know, especially since March 2020. And I think it's because there's so many, I feel like a lot of young people are starting to invest. There's more information online for free about this. And so they want to get in. I can't imagine you probably got so many comments and DMs about that during that time. I certainly did. Like, where should I invest in?

I'm like, you need to chill. Like, this is not the time to just jump in and buy whatever. You need to take some time, be cool, calm, collected, and make a plan. And also now there's lots of apps that will let you trade with no commissions, which makes it very more accessible. My biggest issue with that is I've talked to so many people being like, I opened an account and bought a bunch of stuff, but I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm like, well, that is real money that you've spent, you know, right? You need to have a plan and strategy. But yeah, like you said, it's so important to gather the information, but then, yeah, really make a plan that's based on you and not someone else

and that's kind of one thing i know you've had some videos kind of um reviewing there's you know a bunch of people that give information on tiktok and you get we're kind of giving your reviews on that which i always find so interesting so poorly oh i liked it yeah but just from a performance i use just it was that's too bad i had a good time doing it though i'm sure a lot of work like to actually put it together too which is frustrating um but yeah what is your kind of sense because you know you've been doing this for you know a number of years now um and also like creating youtube videos as i know because i am nowhere near on the caliber as you but it is a freaking lot of work putting these videos together um but then there's people online on instagram and tiktok making these really

quick videos giving what seems like honestly like advice and encouraging people to do a certain videos together. But then there's people online on Instagram and TikTok making these really quick videos giving what seems like honestly like advice and encouraging people to do a certain thing. What are your kind of thoughts on that? What are some kind of things that you want people to be aware of? Because I feel like that is where I see a lot of people making mistakes, not doing their own research and due diligence, just taking some stock pick from somebody on TikTok and buying it. Yeah, for sure. So let's take a look at my business, for example, which is my YouTube channel. The reality is that who are people watching my videos? There are people who are interested in investing and are interested in keeping up with

the markets and hearing what I have to say. So, of course, I will talk about stocks that I'm looking at that I think are interesting. But I think where a lot of people go wrong is that they will just and actually I know this for a fact of people go wrong is that they will just, and actually, I know this for a fact, because people will go and comment just the stocks I'm talking about in a video and it gets a bunch of uplikes. That's a problem because I will not necessarily be recommending purchasing XYZ stock. Rather, I am looking over it, talking about the pros, talking about the cons. So that is why for me, bottom a 10 second video on tiktok talking about stocks you you just won't get the full picture like end of story that's why for me my videos are always very

researched very scripted actually i always write scripts because the way i look at it as someone who studied business and finance at school and stuff is like, you cannot make a thesis on a company in three seconds. So and also, I'm sharing information about a company and my whole business is sharing information about investments. So I want it to be researched, planned out and actually make sense before I pick up the mic and start recording a video. So that is why I kind of have gone towards the long format. But yeah, it's crazy how in this day and age, people's attention span, they just want a two second invest in this. But that's really not how you will get wealthy over time. It's just not. You need to

do more research and you need to understand what you're investing in to get the full picture. Yeah. And if you really aren't interested in picking stocks and keeping up to date with the market, like literally just invest in index funds and you'll make great returns over time. I was looking just recently, like the NASDAQ 100 over the past 10 years has averaged 25% per year. Wow. Wow. That's significant significant that's really huge no that is massive 25 per year compounded for 10 years that's that is monumental i don't think people understand like how powerful 25 a year compounded for 10 years is it's really do you think part of it the issue is that people especially with also the um popularity of cryptocurrency and people talking

about their big gains people just can't really and you kind of already shared this people just can't think that far into the future they want that quick gain because people online are talking about sorry because people online are talking about their quick gains and stuff like that do you think that's kind of part of the issue too like we're getting more i feel like because of social media into this this mode of the get rich quick again. Whereas I feel like there was a good period when I started blogging where everyone was just talking about boring index funds. And now it's all about the quick get rich, you know, meme stocks and crypto and stuff like that. Yeah, I think having exposure to cryptocurrency definitely has its place in a portfolio but the issue is

things like meme coins and having here's the thing you can make a lot of money with it however the percentage of people who are making a bag on a trade for a for a meme coin is like 0.001 compared to everyone else who's losing money. And no one's talking about losing money on the internet, right? That's the problem. So look, as humans, it's easy to fall victim. I'll see someone online saying, oh my God, I made a hundred K on a trade. Of course, your instinct is like, oh my gosh, what am I doing here? Right? But at the end of the day, it's okay, in my opinion, to maybe do those YOLO gambles on two, three percent of your cash, two, three, four.

But anything more than that, it's just really unwise, in my opinion. That said, I have been doing a lot more research into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, some of these other smart contract tokens. And I do think they have and we won't really dive into it in this video, but I do think they have some utility in a portfolio longer term, but you have to really understand that this is highly volatile.

It is. So it's not something you can rely on and project out compounded returns. It's really something you need to just put money that you're willing to see. I'm not going to say willing to lose you're willing to see. I'm not going to say willing to lose, but willing to see fluctuate greatly over time. And I think that's the other thing that's not talked about is like the volatility of these types of investments. A

lot of people are just thinking about the future outcome, but not like the emotions and, you know, psychological pain that you're dealing with, seeing it up and down. And for me, it's like I have literally a tiny little baby bit of bitcoin that i literally just bought to make a video about how to do it but otherwise i don't know i think i'm good you know um for now just because i also understand my own risk tolerance and whenever i log into to see how's it doing it just uh like it just hurts or whenever i see it trending on like uh twitter i'm like, oh my gosh, what now? And so it's like, okay, we know where I'm at. But I think a lot of people don't realize that.

Again, they get into it and then they freak out and then they sell at a loss. And that's, you know, a lot of people like you mentioned are not talking about the other side of it. You can lose money. You've got to really be strategic. And if you're going to do something like that, you know, have a specific amount of money you're going to use and understand the risks involved with that. Definitely. And I would even recommend just if you are interested in that space, I'm not going to talk about meme coins or any of these smaller cap coins, but the big ones, if you are interested in that, really just allocating a small amount each maybe two weeks or month and really looking at this as a longer term store of value. I don't necessarily think it's going to be used as actual currency. I kind of don't really see it going that way. I see

it more of being a store of wealth just based on limited supply. We could go into it for a long time, but that's kind of how I just see it. I'm looking at just holding it for a while. I actually had like Kevin O'Leary on my channel a couple of weeks back, and he is just so bullish on crypto long term with the regulation coming through. So I think that's also going to be one really big component where, yeah, with proper regulation, it will be something that's just more accessible to people and probably less volatile over time. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see it less volatile over time

because it is crazy yeah for sure um i've actually been mining ethereum for about for about four years i have no idea how that works i've always been curious but i'm like cannot physically like visually understand so what do you want you want to share what does that mean in a nutshell it's basically using a computer to solve equations to create new blocks on the blockchain wow that is rewarded with tokens like ether tokens in this case do you have to be good at math like how do you figure out oh not at all no no you just hook it up to a program like you just buy a yeah you just buy a pretty powerful computer i guess we could could say, kind of like that. And you hook it up to a program and it just, yeah, it just solves these equations in a pool with other people. And then you're awarding coin. That's a really simple way of

explaining it, but that's kind of what it is. Yeah. Wow. That is incredible. Yeah. I don't think I'll ever be doing that. Even if like you make everything sound so simple, which I appreciate, but I'm like, I don't know. I don't know about that. That's what I try to do with my YouTube channel is make these concepts. Yeah. Well, not seem, but just more simple. Yeah. Breaking it down. So it's understandable because I think one of the issues for me when I first started investing in my early 20s was I found it very complex and hard to really get in. Thankfully, a lot has changed over the past decade. Like just just accessibility, like before it's like if you want to invest, it's like it was very difficult to even

open up a discount brokerage account without $10,000 to start. And so when I started like years back when I turned 18 i was able to have a brokerage account myself um i remember opening an account it was crazy like they literally mailed me a big stack of documents i had to send it or fill it out send it back it was a super long process i think it's a blessing and a curse this whole fact that you can create a brokerage account i definitely think there's significantly blessing and a curse, this whole fact that you can create a brokerage account. I definitely think there's significantly more benefits that you're able to just open an account quickly. It's accessible to everyone. But yeah, you need to do more research and just

understand what you're investing in. That's just what I would say to that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I definitely think there's a more positives and negatives overall. And especially, honestly, I think the biggest benefit is having more education information readily available because there really wasn't that much back in the day. And so this is really exciting and empowering for people. So before I let you go, so I'm very curious, first off, like what do you have kind of a five year or a 10 year plan? I know you are very into goal setting, which I think is great. Do you have kind of a vision for what you want, where you want to be in the near future?

Yeah, definitely. I have, I usually don't project out like five years though. It's usually just one year. So I've actually just gone through an exercise of doing my goals for 2022. Nice. I haven't even finished 2021. What am I doing here? But I'm just being, uh, uh, yeah, I'm doing that in advance. Um, you know, where, what are my plans? I'm kind of just going with the flow right now. Well, not really, but I'm very bullish on my YouTube channel. I just want to keep continue doing that, uh, investing in property, continue scaling out that business and sharing it with everyone who wants to tune in

and A, be entertained, hopefully, but then also learn from it and share their investing knowledge as well. And in the comments, I always enjoy responding to people and chatting with people who are interested in finance because I can talk about it forever. That's awesome. Yeah, actually, that's kind of what I do. I try not to, and I think that's actually a great strategy now being someone in my mid-30s because where I'm at right now was not anywhere where I thought I would be at 25.

And I think it's actually kind of great to have those goals, but maybe have a shorter kind of time horizon, like one year, because then you are more open to opportunities that you wouldn't know would be even available to you, right? So it kind of leaves you open to what could possibly happen. Exactly. Like five years ago,

I hadn't even started my government job. So how could I have ever projected out any of this? So much can happen in five years or 10 years or, you know, like it's, yeah, it's crazy. So I'm really excited to kind of see where your journey continues and I'll continue watching you, of course. So I know you have your YouTube channel, which is under your name, Griffin Milks, but you have some other things on your website, some other products like courses and stuff. Do you want to kind of share some information about that? Oh, sure. Yeah. So anyone who does want to follow me, it's pretty much just Griffin Milks. I usually, I mainly just use YouTube and Instagram. Those are my two go-tos i've tried doing tiktoks i can't stay consistent with it but yeah yeah no i'm on i've tried it when

there was the big push for like in the summer of 2020 and everyone started getting on it because we're all just locked in at home and not for me i couldn't figure it out it just wasn't my vibe well there you go and that's fair yeah um i think it's just very time consuming that's the thing like it'll take me an hour to do a tiktok and i'm just like what it took an hour i don't want to say i know if you're like that takes me five minutes you're like okay you're like i've been doing instagram reels which is basically the same thing but i feel like the people on instagram are nicer oh really TikTok. Yeah, people on TikTok can be pretty... Brutal.

Let's put it that way. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I do have a course I developed last year. Really, and by course, I'm really not trying to... It sounds guru, whatever. That's really not my goal here. My goal is I want people to go through this course. And if you don't understand how to invest

in the stock market, I want you to be able to take this course, understand everything you need to know to properly navigate the markets, know what you're looking at, how to analyze stocks, all the quote unquote stuff that is more boring and dry to see on YouTube, but then actually get that in a fun, entertaining manner through my course, and then be able to craft a portfolio that is suitable for like your profile, your investor profile, back to what we were talking about earlier, where what I invest in is not going to be the same at all as what like my dad invests in. Or what I invest in maybe, you know. There you go.

Same thing. Exactly. So really self-reflecting and tailoring a portfolio that's going to be suitable for your needs. That's really the goal of that course. So yeah, that's on griffinmilkscourses.com where you can find that. Awesome. And of course, people can just find you at Griffin Milks on social media, on Instagram. Yeah, exactly. And sneak peek, I haven't really talked about this, but in the new year, I'm gonna be doing a real estate investing course with two other awesome Canadian creators.

I was just gonna say, I'm like, you should, or I was gonna ask if you had one, and if not, you should, because I would definitely take it because I'm very curious. Yeah, no, definitely. Like, that's a great idea. Yeah, because real estate is one of those things,

it's just really hard to A, understand and grasp. And where I've felt the most value is, is someone who has actually done it. So has experience and is able to share, um, yeah, just experience with various different elements of running a real estate business from the beginning to managing tenants, right? Like you can only learn so much from a book when it comes to real estate investing because it's a lot more hands-on than other forms of investing so yeah working on that hopefully it'll be out in march but no uh yeah no yeah no set date but let's just say 2022 exactly awesome awesome well thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast it was

a pleasure having you on and i'll continue to, to watch and I encourage everyone to follow you. But yeah, thanks again for coming on the show. It's a pleasure having you. Yeah, it was awesome. Thanks for having me. And maybe in the future we can do it again. Yeah. Awesome. And that was episode 312 with Griffin milks. You can check them out on his YouTube channel, just youtube.com slash Griffin milks. How do you get one of those URLs? I feel like mine is a weird one. It's like youtube.com slash C slash Jessica Morehouse. I don't think I did it right. Anyways, that is where you can find him. You can of course also find information about his courses because he mentioned

he has a few courses. One that is about mastering the stock market. He also has a spreadsheet if you're looking to kind of improve your personal finance situation. He's got an awesome spreadsheet. And he also has kind of a mini investing course that you may want to kind of dive into and it's totally free. So you can go to griffinmilkscourses.com to find all that information. And of course, don't forget to follow him on Instagram at griffinmilks. I will include all this information in the podcast show notes for this episode. So make sure to go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 312 to find out all of that information. So I've got lots of great things to share with you. So do not go away, including a special webinar I'm doing in just a few short weeks. So stick around for that

information. You're not going to want to miss that. But before I kind of share all of that good stuff, well, you know, gotta share some great words about this podcast episode sponsor. 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 based. Now, some investors like to use their satellite portfolio to pick stocks, but you can

also use it to invest in specific ETFs for potential higher returns without having to sacrifice diversification. For example, I know a lot of us have watched traditional sports, video games, esports, and iGaming converging into a new universe of digital entertainment. The GameStop story has encapsulated that trend, and GME itself is part of HSPN, Harvest's sports and entertainment ETF that is designed to capture the massive potential for growth in the rise of digital sports and entertainment. Or maybe you want to invest in the blockchain technologies powering cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the cutting edge of digital security. Instead of picking a handful of companies to

invest in, you could buy HBLK, Harvest's blockchain technologies ETF, which holds almost 50 different companies inside it. 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. Okay, so let's get to the good stuff. But actually, before I share details about the webinar, I do want to remind you in case you forgot or missed it in last week's episode with Eric Eleni, I'm giving away books as always every

season of the podcast. I do a big book giveaway of any book that is featured on the show or whenever there's a guest that has a book available. I'm giving it away. And honestly, like I do like I don't think y'all realize this, but I like write kind of personal note cards that go with them. I mail them personally. I go to the post office myself. I buy these books so I can support these authors. And then I write a little nice little note for the winner and then I mail it myself. Like it is personal. It really is. So anyways, if you go to jessicamorehouse.com slash contest or just go to the show notes for this episode, jessicamorehouse.com slash 312, you can find information about how to enter. So currently I'm giving away erica lena's

money like you mean a book but i will always be updating um that page that landing page with new books that will be featured like whenever there's a guest on the show i'll plop a new uh book on there oh i don't like the word plop but i'm plop that's the only word i could think of at that moment so we're gonna keep that in um anyways make sure to go to jessales.com. And then basically at the end of the season, so this is looking like I'm going to end the season around early June. That's when I kind of, you know, draw the winner. So if you enter now, and you win, it'll be a very big surprise because you're going to forget that you ever entered that podcast. Okay, so that is that. And what else to remind you? Okay, so let's let's get to the good stuff about the webinar. I literally just came up with the idea last week while I was writing out my, you know,

kind of first email newsletter for my email subscribers. Also, if you're not my email list, make sure to get on there. If you go to JessicaMoorhouse.com slash subscribe, or just go to my website, it'll be right there. So get on there because I always share lots of cool things on there. But anyways, I decided, you know, it's been a very long time since I just did a webinar for me for, you know, just for my audience, basically, like, honestly, I can't remember the last time it may have been last spring. So I'm going to do one on Wednesday, February 2nd at 7pm Eastern Time. And it is all about goal setting. So setting your financial goals for the year and then breaking them down into, you know, actionable steps, figuring out how to stay

motivated and just make sure you're basically setting the wheels in motion to thrive and not just survive in 2022. Because we're still in this weird, not totally normal world. So let's, you know, just again, just do the best we can and you know, kill this year. And so the kind of title I gave the webinar is 2022, your thriving year. That is kind of I feel like my, I don't know what the term is. Is that like a manifesting thing where it's like, I'm going to manifest that this is my thriving year, I'm doing it. So I want to, you know, share some tips with you. So you can also set that intention for yourself and have a really good rest of the year.

So make sure to join me at Wednesday, February 2nd, 7pm Eastern Time. If you just go to the show notes, jessicaburrhouse.com slash 312, I will include a link to sign up for this free webinar. Also, it'll be a webinar and then also a Q&A. So you can ask me whatever the heck you want at the end. Let's see what else I got a reminder to if you do want to get your kind of money situation together, I've got a lot of great free resources on my free resource center. If you go to Jessica Morehouse.com slash resources, you can sign up and get all of the freebies all in one nice place.

Also, specifically, if you want to start investing in a passive way, you know how I talk about passive investing, index investing all the time. Well, do I have a course for you? It is called Wealth Building Blueprint for Canadians. It's almost at its one year anniversary of launching, which is really cool. There's over, I think there's getting close to 250 students in there. It is by application only, so not everyone gets into the course. So you have to be approved by me and also have a one-on-one call with me to see if you're a good fit for the course. But it is focused on you learning the fundamentals and the building blocks of investing and then how to build your own investment plan with that information and then

how to actually invest using a robo-advisor or being a DIY investor and building your own portfolio and managing it on your own. It is a very comprehensive course. If you go to jessicamorehouse.com slash WBB, or again, there is a link on like the homepage of my website. Anyways, there's also a link to the show notes, so that'll make it easy for you too. You can find more information like kind of the breakdown curriculum of the course, but also read a bunch of testimonials from students to get a kind of good idea of if this is the course for you. Anyways, we got that. We got that. I'm just looking at my little list of things that I want to make sure that I hit. I think those are kind of the main things for now. But of course, as always, there's always some exciting things just around the corner.

So, you know, stick around, you know, come back here next Wednesday for another episode. Actually, I have a really good episode for you next week that you're going to love and another book to give away. So have a good rest of your week. Thanks for listening. A big shout out to my wonderful podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I'll see you back here next Wednesday. Have a good rest of your week. I already said that, but I really mean it. I really mean it. And I'll see

you back here next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.