More Money Podcast - 314 How to Get Rid of Debt and Level up Your Financial Life - Anthony ONeal, Author, Speaker and Podcast Host

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

I always find by February, the initial buzz of the new year and all those goals we’ve made have subsided. That’s why today’s episode is the perfect injection of motivation to get us all excited about our goals again. Joining me on the podcast today is bestselling author Anthony ONeal to inspire you to get rid of your debt and start living your life on your terms Anthony ONeal is an author and speaker who has helped over 250,000 people set out on a path towards a debt-free life with his chart-topping book Debt-Free Degree. He’s also reached over 15 million people in 15 different countries through his podcast The Table. In addition to helping people climb out of debt, he's also on a mission to help singles maximize their single season with both intention and grace with his new course The Single’s Blueprint: 8 Pillars to Maximize Your Single Season. In this episode, Anthony explains the starting points for getting out of debt, including having a vision for your money and zeroing in on the WHY of it all. He also shares what it means to maximize your single season and why taking control of your finances and life today will save you more time and money in the long run. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/314 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, Lulu. Welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is episode 314 and this is your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to have my next guest on the show. He really is one of those guests that just makes you feel really excited and motivated to take action. I just felt so pumped after my interview with him, like, I need to do something. And so I know you're if you are needing like a little, you know, boost of, you know, inspiration or confidence, or, you know, just that little push. This is this is the guest for you, you're gonna love this episode. So I have Anthony O'Neill on the show. He's number one national bestselling author and has helped over

250,000 people set out on a path towards a debt-free life with his chart-topping book, Debt-Free Degree. He's also reached over 15 million people in 15 different countries through his podcast called The Table, where he always keeps it real, relevant, and relatable. And he also has a course called The Singles Blueprint, which we will kind of discuss in this episode and also at the end of the episode, I can let you know where it is. But basically, he is on a mission just to help people but also specifically singles maximize their single season with both intention and grace. And basically, he is your kind of personal cheerleader. Like I feel like if you were looking for someone to,

you know, help you as you are on your personal finance journey, Anthony is that guy. And so I'm so excited to have him on this show. Before I get to that interview with Anthony, I just want to share a few words about this podcast episode sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Oxio. Have you had it with the big internet providers in Canada? The contracts, constantly shifting prices, and customer service that will keep you on hold for hours? If only

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I'm thrilled to have you on the show. Thanks for taking the time to be here. Jessica, man, thank you so much for having me on. It's such an honor to be on your podcast and to bless and share some thoughts with your people. Yeah, no, absolutely. So you have a pretty incredible story, definitely one of those stories that will get you motivated to kind of change your life if you're not happy with it. So I kind of like to start there because I love these stories. Tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you, you know, go from where you were at 19 years old to now, you know, having bestselling books and teaching hundreds of thousands of people about how to manage their money? Yeah, Jessica, such a good question. And again, thanks for having me on. But,

you know, when we rewind, right, back to the early, let's go back to the 1990s. You don't have to reveal your age, but I'll reveal my age. You know, I grew up in a very strong Christian faith home, right? And I have four loving parents, four. My biological mom, biological dad, and then two step-parents, step-mom and step-dad, right? So one side of my family lives in California with my siblings, and the other side lives in the South Carolina, North Carolina area. And so growing up, Jess, I had two important conversations as a teenager. One of them was what to do if you get put over by a police officer. Then the next person was, hey, here's how you get into heaven and not go to, you know what. And I was like, okay, cool. And when it came to money, Jess, the only conversation that I had about money was,

if you get $100, give $10 to the church. Then the other $90, you keep that, you buy your own school supplies, you buy your own school shoes. You do all that. But no one really taught me just how to build wealth. What's the difference between a credit card or debit card? Or, hey, here's how you get into college without racking up debt. Or here's what debt does. So without the wisdom and knowledge growing up around finances, I made some poor decisions in college. And when I did that, here's the thing. I racked up about $35,000 in debt before I even turned 19. I graduated at 18. 19, I'm $35,000 in debt, homeless, sleeping in the back of my car. I got kicked out of college. I lost my job.

My family wouldn't allow me to come back home because they were disappointed in some of the decisions that I made. All my friends and the girlfriends at the time who I was trying to impress, they didn't allow me to come and take a shower. So at 19, I'm drowning in debt, sleeping in my car, taking showers at the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club, asking people for money. And just to fast forward so we can get into some more practical steps for your tribe, for about six months of my life, I contemplated suicide. For six months of my life, I was questioning, is God even real?

For six months of my life, I was in a low of lows. And I just made a decision. I said, you know what? I'm going to change my life. I'm going to change my situation. I quickly realized that the caliber of my future will be determined by the choices that I make today. And that if I want to change today, then I need to change the decisions

and the choices that I've been making. And so I did just that. You know, I went back home, apologized to my parents, told them I'm ready to learn how to become a man, got three jobs, got out of debt, started really searching for wisdom around finances. And that's when I learned about Dave Ramsey and took his Financial Peace University while I was working my jobs and started reading books like Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Napoleon Hill's

book, Think and Grow Rich. Started really just doing some self-studying because my family didn't know how to build wealth. So I taught myself that. So fast forward today, I'm 37 years old and I'm 100% debt free, excluding my mortgage. And I'm just traveling around the world teaching millennials and teaching minorities and teaching single people really how to maximize their single season and teaching people how to get out of debt and build wealth. Wow, that's incredible. I'm curious, you mentioned something happened for you to kind of realize there is something to live for and I need to change my actions to have a better future. What was it that kind of gave you that clarity to be like, okay, we need to do something? Because I think a lot of people, sometimes they're waiting for that thing or that sign and it never happens. Yeah. You know, that sign for me was actually something, it was

a sign that was there all along, you know. Me and my friends growing up in Oceanside, California, right, we're literally on the side of the ocean. That's why it's called Oceanside. And so every Friday we will all wash our cars and we will all go park at the beach because we wanted to see the ladies. We wanted to see the honeys back in the days. And me and my friend washed my car at the time that I had, went out there to the beach, and we both sit there, and we were gross. Like, we were just sick of what we saw because we're sitting in a clean finance Ford Explorer with 22-inch spinning wheels. I don't know if your tribe remembers them back in the day. I remember those.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The wheels, when you stop, they keep spinning. Yeah. That were financed. We saw all of our friends pull up in Range Rovers, BMWs, Lexuses, Mercedes, all these big cars with all these financed cars and wheels. And we started looking at everyone, including ourselves, like, man, all of us either live with our parents, we either live with our parents, we live in the basement of our grandparents' house, or we all live in a house, but we got like 10 roommates. And just the other day, he asked me

for $5 to get something to eat at McDonald's, but you're pulling up in a BMW with 22 inch wheels on it. Your car payment is 600 bucks. Your wheels were three grand a piece, not a piece, but your wheels were three grands, but you can't afford to go to McDonald's and get something to eat. And me and my friend looked at each other and was like, yo, this ain't the life, bro. Like this, this is not the life to fake it, to look like we have money, but we don't have any money. And that was a rude awakening for me. And, you know, I didn't, I'm not going to say I stopped making poor decisions with my money then, because I think we all tend to make, you know, some bad decisions with our money every now and then here and there. But that was the moment that shifted my perspective that I don't want to look like I have money. I want to have money.

I want to have financial freedom. I want to have options and choices that I could do with my money. I want the nice stuff, but I don't want the nice stuff to have me. So that was my awakening point. No, I like that. I like that. You don't want the money to, there's a part in your book that you don't want money to control you. You want to control money or something to that effect, which I think is this idea that,

you know, a lot of people maybe need that kind of reminder. It's like, you do need to kind of take responsibility. I think a lot of people fall into the rhythm of like, well, this happened to me. It's like, well, you don't want life to happen to you. Of course, there's things that are beyond your control. But ultimately, you always have a decision of to go this path or that path. So it's amazing that you're able to still get that, you know, have that realization still at a very young age, lots of people take another decade, you know, once they hit 30, then they start to wake up and like, oh, wait, and then you just miss 10 years of potential, you know, wealth generation or paying off your debt. I did want to kind of dig into the debt. Like I mentioned, I bought your book, Destroy Your Student Loan Debt, which I think is a great thing, because

we've been taught, I mean, you know, the topic of student loans have been, you know, a big topic for the last couple years. And you even talk about like how lots of people and I've heard this from a lot of people there, especially in the US., are really just hoping that they'll get that loan forgiveness and that they won't have to worry about. They're like, oh, I'm not going to worry about my debt because I'm sure it'll get forgiven. And you're like, that is not a great way. You should never, I think, in my view, having that kind of rationale is just hoping that you're like, oh, I'm not going to worry about my financial situation. I'll win the lottery one day, right? Because that's basically your same chances of getting your loan forgiveness.

Yeah, and let's really step back and look at it. How has the student loan forgiveness program worked thus far? You know, let's look at the stats. Take away Anthony O'Neill's opinion. Go study the facts. Only 3% of the people who actually qualify for student loan forgiveness have actually gotten the loans forgiven. Three percent out of the people who have done everything to qualify, they have actually done that. My philosophy is I'm not going to allow and wait for the White

House to take care of my house. I'm going to take care of my own house. I signed the dotted lines to go to school. Now, here is the truth. We're not educating our young people on the decision that they're making by signing those dotted lines. But still, at the end of the day, we signed them. So let's take responsibility and attack these student loans. Right now is a great time because, let's be honest, facts have shown you're not going to get them forgiven as of right now. I'm not saying it's not going to never happen, but the facts are showing us, history has shown us, it probably won't happen. So while you're not being taxed and added with any interest, go ahead and start attacking these student loans now. Because this way you can save yourself a whole lot of money. This student loan

epidemic is ridiculous. It is preventing people from purchasing homes. It is preventing people from building wealth. It's preventing people, some people, from actually getting an actual job because their student loans are delinquent. So, you know, I wrote the book Debt-Free Degree when I was with my mentor and friend for seven years, Dave Ramsey. And while we were out on book tour, man, so many parents came to me, Jess, and I was like, yo, this is so great. This is gonna get my kid through school 100% debt-free, but I jacked up. Like, I screwed up. What can I do? And I was like, yo, that's a good question. And I think that one of the things that you can do, I need to put it in a mini book. So I literally wrote that mini book, Destroy Your

Student Loan Debt, to really help people who already are in student loans. Here's the best way about getting out of student loan debt. Yeah. And I think, yeah, like you mentioned, I think that's a great book for that reason. A lot of people that are already in that situation think it's too late for them. Oh, I should have saved for my own college education. I should have worked during school or taken out less loans or done a longer degree, all these kinds of things. But obviously, you can't go back in time. So it's like, what can you realistically do now? So I know, you know, in your book, and probably, you know, in all of your teachings, you do have a specific structure that you use to kind of motivate people. And I think that's the key

thing. I always hear people talk. They just want a guide. They want some steps. I know you talk about the baby steps, which are very famous. A lot of people have utilized them. Do you want to kind of talk a little bit about what these steps are and kind of how some people you've worked with or, you know, you have lots of personal stories of people that you've helped over the years, you know, how it's actually improved their finances.

Just one last thing, because you mentioned, if you're waiting around for student loan forgiveness, that's the thing, you're waiting around. And you have several examples of people in the book who were able to crush their, it seemed like an insurmountable debt load in just a few years. So it's like, time goes by so fast.

I'm in my mid, I'm 35. Time goes by so quickly. Two years. I mean, we're almost at two years since, you know, March 2020 when the whole world changed. You could have paid off your student loans in those two years, right? Absolutely. And here's the thing, man. It's simple, right? When it comes to getting out of any kind of debt, student loan debt, credit card debt,

the best philosophy is my mentor's philosophy, Dave Ramsey, the seven baby steps, right? You have baby step number one, which I focus on the first three when it comes to destroy your student loan debt. But before we get into the practical, here's what I tell people the key of anything when it comes to getting out of student loan debt. You got to write down your why. Why do you want to get out of student loan debt? Because if your why doesn't make you cry, watch this, the price of commitment will make you cry. So you need something that is so strong that's going to push you through the seasons that you feel like giving up.

That's going to push you through the times where you don't see that student loan debt dropping because the interest is just so freaking high. And so I tell everyone, before we get into the baby steps, before we get into the practical things of doing this, write down your why. Why do you want to be out of debt? And ask yourself five things. Why? And ask again.

Why? Ask again. Why? Get deep. And by the time you get deep, deep, deep, you should be a little emotional. Tears just fall out of your eye. You should be like, yo, this is, I got to do this. And when I think about for me, debt robs me of being a provider for my family. Debt robs me of being able to take my kids to Israel and to study the Bible in Israel. Debt robs me of the opportunity to tell my wife, my future wife, yes, to certain things, because that's what I want to do. So for me, when I think about my why, I get emotional. I've never been to

Disneyland. You know why? Because my family couldn't afford it, because they were drowning in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. So my why is I want to take my kids to Disneyland. And when they go for the first time, I'm going for the first time. And I get excited for that. I get emotional about that. And I'm scared of debt because if I rack up debt, I won't be able to take my kids on a Disney cruise. I won't be able to take them to Disney World.

I won't be able to give my wife a wedding. And neither sides of my family had a wedding because they couldn't afford it. So when you get the why, that gives you the motivation. Then from there, you got to get a vision for your money. I'm going to be real with you, Jess. I don't really like the word budget, but it is a practical word. But budgeting in these days and time is like, ugh. And so I kind of like the word vision.

What's the vision for your money? What are you doing with your money? Where are you going? And inside of a vision, it has to be written, and you got to make some adjustments. So you need to go inside your vision, a.k.a. a budget, and say, you know what? Here are some things I'm going to eliminate so I can accomplish this vision of paying off my student loans. I'm going to cut off Netflix, or I'm going to cut off H paying off my student loans. I'm going to cut off Netflix or I'm going to cut off Hulu and just keep Netflix. I'm going to cut off cable and keep

Netflix. Instead of having Spotify and Apple Music, I'm going to cut off Spotify. You know what? Me and my husband or me and my girl, we eat out every other day. We're going to cut that down, buy some groceries, and we're going to eat at the house. You know what? I'm single and I've been taking these girls out on expensive dates. I'm about to tell these girlfriends, nah, I can't take you out no more. You know, so you got to make some adjustments inside of your vision so you can reach your ultimate vision, which is to be debt free. So when you get on a solid vision for your money, which I practice a zero-based budget philosophy, right? So I list all of my income, I minus my expenses, and it should equal zero. I make adjustments. And I look

at this vision while I was getting out of debt. I suggest people to look at this vision at least once a week. Figure out and just say, okay, wait, can I cut here? Can I cut there? Can I cut here? Here's the thing. When you get that vision and you see that you was able to find another $500 in your budget to go towards your student loans, you're going to get really excited because it's like, wow, I didn't know. Well, here's why you didn't know, because you didn't have a vision. You didn't know what you were doing. You were just spending on whatever. And so that's number two. And then number three, of course, it's just follow the proven baby steps, you know, put a thousand dollars in your emergency fund and just line up all of your debt, your student loan debt, smallest to largest. So let's say if you only have

student loans, let's say you have five student loans. What you're going to do is you're going to put the smallest student loan very first and the last, the largest one last. You're going to make all the minimum payments, but then you're going to put everything on that first one. And I'm telling you right now, when you have a vision, this is what I love about a vision. When you have a vision for your life, you have a vision for your money, they work hand in hand. When someone comes up to you and says, hey, let's go to, it's spring break. Let's go to the Bahamas for a week. You're going to be like, nah, I can't. Why can't you? Because I got a vision. And when you really see movement, when you really see progression, you get real, real, real excited. So those are the practical

ways of getting out of student loan debt. I'm curious because I think a lot of people are like, that sounds great, but it is going to take me years to pay off all of my debt. What do you do to continue to motivate yourself? Because, you know, like any goal, sometimes you get off track. Sometimes you lose steam. How, if it's going to take me five years to become fully debt-free, how do you maintain that same kind of vision and motivation? Man, it's easy.

You know, my answer is not popular. All right, Jess, I'm going to be real. I'm going to be honest with you. It may take you a while. But if you don't attack it, you're in it forever. So five years compared to the next 25 years sounds so good to me. And this is what I tell people is that the average person takes them about 20 to 22 years to pay off their student loans. Now, if we go deep, Jessica, the average minority is going to be about 25 years to pay off their student loans.

And so for me, if you look at it and you say, you know what, it's going to take me five years, five years sounds much better than the average. And so my philosophy to this is people would rather stay in their situation and remain comfortable paying the minimum payment forever than to get aggressive, than to be a little uncomfortable and attack it for the next five years. I had a young lady. I sat down with her, and I showed her a game plan just to get out of it in 12 years.

I mean, in 12 months. And she's like, oh, my God, I won't be able to enjoy life. I can't go out with my girls. I can't get my nails done. Oh, my God, I can't get my hair done. Like, what? I got to get my hair done. I said, cool, great. Let's get your hair done. All right. Let's get your hair done. I get that part. You can do your nails at the house for one year. And she was complaining. She was complaining. So I said, all right, let's look at it. Check this out. I looked at her statements, Jess. And I said, all right, cool. So if you just make the minimum payments, it's going to take you 12 years to get out of student loan debt.

And she was only paying like $53 a month. And I was like, so let me get this straight. You don't want to be uncomfortable for 12 months so you can get 12 years of your life back? Think about it. You would rather spend 12 years and pay an extra $11,000 in interest than to spend the next 12 months and save yourself about $12,000 in interest. She was like, I didn't think about that. Yeah. And I think also another issue, and there's been studies that talk about this, a lot of people have a hard time actually envisioning their future selves and they can only really understand their present selves. But there's one part in your book that you talk about, like the importance of accountability. And I feel like that is kind of the missing element for lots of people is money is such a weird thing. A lot of people in your circle may not talk about it.

So you do need to actually find an accountability partner or support group, whether that's online or offline or whatever, to for people that are doing the same thing as you, because, you know, it's like the same thing. It's like, if you want to be a runner, a great way to start running is be part of a running club, because you're all running together. And then you feel like you're not doing this alone. And I think that's the hardest thing is, especially when it comes to debt, specifically, a lot of people feel really alone. And then there's all those, you know, feelings of shame and embarrassment. But if you're part of a group, or even just one or two other people that you know, that are working towards the same goal, it makes you feel like it normalizes it.

And then maybe we'll help you kind of move forward. So I appreciate that. I want to kind of shift gears and talk about you have a course coming out. And I thought it was interesting. So do you want to kind of talk a little bit about what does a single season mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have a course coming out called The Singles Blueprint, Eight Pillars to Maximizing Your Single Season, Gain Clarity on Your Vision,

and Really Start Building a Legacy Now. You know, oftentimes when I think of single people, we don't really focus on ourselves and how do we steward and maximize this season, this season of we don't have any major responsibilities as we don't have a spouse. Some of us may have kids, you know, but we don't, we're not responsible and we don't have another person telling us what we have to do. And I think oftentimes singles, what we do is we focus on the career. We chase the bag and we don't really, and we're chasing a relationship. But when is the last time we actually stepped back and chased ourselves? When is the last time we stepped back and said, you know what? Let me maximize this season that I'm in right now. Let me maximize this opportunity of being single. Let me work solely on me.

Everyone is always saying, Anthony, man, you've built so much success and you got all these people following you. You have this great show, man. You had an opportunity to work with Dave Ramsey, Bishop Jakes, you've been on this show, been on that show. How are you doing? And I'm like, yo, I'm taking every opportunity during this single season seriously. I'm maximizing every opportunity that I have. And so this course, I'm maximizing every opportunity that I have. And so this course, I'm really walking through the eight things that single people need to maximize. If you're looking for that job promotion, if you're looking for to really get a better understanding of yourself, if you're saying, you know what, Anthony, I need to get clarity on my vision.

I need to get clarity on where am I going and how am I going to get there? I just don't know where to start. This course is for you. This course is not about here's how you make a lot of money and here's how you pay off your debt and here's how you get your boyfriend and girlfriend. No, this course is about here's how you become a better version of you while you're single. And when we become a better and healthier version of ourselves while we're single, oh yes, getting out of debt is going to be easier. Getting that job promotion is going to be easier. Building wealth is going to be easier. Starting that business is going to be easier because we have clarity on who we are. One of the pillars inside of my course is called Mind Your Business,

right? And everyone hears that, you know, they go straight to one part of it. There's two parts of Mind Your Business. The first part is, yeah, Mind Your Business. Stay out of Jessica's business. Listen to her podcast. Get the wisdom and get the knowledge for yourself. But you don't have to be like Jessica. You don't have to be like her.

She's doing what she's called to do, but you're not called to do what she's called to do. Get the wisdom and knowledge from what she's providing, but no, you don't have to, oh man, she's going to this and she's driving that and she's doing this and she got, man, I need, no. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. What's inside of you? So get the wisdom, get the knowledge,

but focus on you. Mind your business. Man, if your homegirls are calling So get the wisdom, get the knowledge, but focus on you. Mind your business. Man, if your homegirls are calling you all the time, gossiping about what they did, what they said, that's not the kind of friend you want to be around. Mind your business. Then on the flip side, it's mind your business. Your mind is a business. So it's like, what are you putting inside of your mind that's going to help you evolve? That's going to help you mature. That's going to help you get out of debt. That's going to help you build wealth. That's going to even bring peace to your mind. So I'm really diving in on this particular pillar on how do we mind our business and how do we build our mind,

which is a business, our number one business. And I don't want to go too much into it because you got to get a part of the course. But I mean, I'm telling you right now, there's eight pillars that, you know, I've been able to build a level of success. And I'm excited because when I do get married, I'm bringing a lot to the table. I'm still a flawed man. God is still working on me in a lot of areas, but I have the practical stuff in place and I'm teaching singles. Okay. Here are the things that I've been able to maximize. I've been able to steward well, and it's going to make me a better man, not just for my wife, not just for my kids, but for the community. And if you're,

and if you're an employee, it's gonna make you a better candidate for that job promotion. It's going to make you a better friend. It's going to make you a better lover. It's going to make you a better, just an individual first. So this course is really for, I wish they, there's two, like two courses that I wish high schools would teach. One is personal finances. I really wish that all of our high schools and even colleges would teach something on, hey, here's what you need to know going into the real world. And then two, here are the things that you need to focus on while you don't have a family, while you don't have a spouse. So this way, when you do get to that season, you're a healthier and wiser individual. And that's exactly what this course is.

That's amazing. So yeah, really focusing on how to kind of build your own foundation before you start that family or find a person. And I think, yeah, sometimes people are waiting around to start that family or find that partner for themselves and like, then I'll take care of it. It's like, well, why wait though? And it's also like, you're worth it. You deserve to have a really good, amazing life as a single person and enjoy it. And there's a lot of benefits that can come into that. I think that's amazing. And it's something different. I don't think I've heard of anything quite like that. So I think that's really special that you're really kind of focusing on that. And yeah, I kind of think back. I mean, I met my husband when I was 20. But I quite I didn't really have too much uh time for being

single but one thing at least I feel like this could even be like relevant for couples too just uh we I think part of the reason our relationship is successful is because we don't do everything together and we we really do um support each other individually and I think and also like yeah it's like if basically, I always want to make sure, especially as like a woman just to be independent and financially independent as well. It's like if he dies, or we divorce, I'm still going to be good because I've set up these things. And I think that's like a really good way to kind of think about it. It's like, take care of yourself before you can maybe be ready for kind of that next step. And just Yeah,

think about things a little bit differently. That's amazing. So before I let you go, I mean, you just have so much wisdom and a great way to just like explain things. Like I'm already feeling like super excited and motivated for people to listen to this episode. I think they're going to get so much out of it. Is there anything that you want to leave, you know, kind of a tidbit or just some words of wisdom you want to leave listeners with? Man, I will leave this, this word of wisdom that, and I said this earlier, and I really want people to really understand this, right? That the caliber of your future will be determined by the choices you make today. I really want people to really think about where do you really want to be at 65, at 55? You know, for me, I sit back and I ask myself, I did some studying.

Studies show that the average African-American male lives to about 77. And studies also show that we see retirement age is right around 65. So this means I'm going to work all the way up to 65 to only enjoy 12 years of my life. And I said no. No thanks. I'm not doing that. I'm going to make better decisions now in my 30s. That sets me up to do whatever I want to do in my late 30s up to 40s.

And debt is one of the things that will prevent you from being able to make that decision that early. And so I want your listeners who are listening to us right now to really cut off your cell phone, get off of social media. If you have kids, put them in their room. And if you're married, get your spouse. If you're single, turn off all distractions, turn off the lights. And I really want you to sit back and think about what decisions are you making today that is setting you up to win tomorrow? And when I say tomorrow, I literally mean tomorrow, because I don't want you to have to work up until 55, 65 years old. I want you to work, but while you're working, you're enjoying your life. You're not living paycheck to paycheck. You can go and travel and do whatever you want to do.

You can build something, but if we don't make the right decisions today, our tomorrow is going to be upset. And then the next day is going to be upset with this. So that's one tidbit that I would encourage you. And if you need help understanding and how to make better decisions, continue listening to this podcast and join me at The Single's Blueprint. And even if you're married and you just want to learn these pillars as well, you and your spouse, come get it because I'm telling you, this course is not just a course, Jess. I'm making myself available for eight weeks. They're going to have my direct email. They're going to have my direct cell phone. And eight weeks, I'm

going to be going live with everyone. And we're going to be bringing in some more experts and we're going to really dive in deep on how do we really maximize each pillar, each season that we're in. And you'll be able to email me questions. You'll be able to get some one-on-ones with me and the price is very affordable. So I really want to help you reach your goals

in the year of 2022. So please come join us over there. And I think you can click the link in the show links or whatever it is and go from there. Amazing. So, yeah, where can people find more information about you and your books and your course and all that good stuff? Yeah, if you go to anthonyoneal.com, you'll be able to find more information about my books, the course and everything like that. Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join me for this episode.

It was a pleasure having you on. Oh, thank you, Jessica, so much. It means a lot. And that was episode 314 of the More Money Podcast with Anthony O'Neill. You can find more information about him at anthonyoneill.com. And of course, he's easy to find on Twitter and Instagram because his handle is simply Anthony O'Neill. But I will include all of that information in the show notes for this episode. Just go to JessicaMorehouse.com slash 314. I'll also include a link to his course, The Singles Blueprint. So you if you want to sign up or just look more information into it, you know, have at it. He also again has his podcast called The Table. I will link to that also in the show notes for this episode. but I'm assuming you can just find it on any podcast platform. Wherever you're listening to

this, you can find that podcast as well. I'm also going to be giving away a copy of his mini book, Destroy Your Student Loan Debt, the step-by-step plan to pay off your student loans faster. I know there's a lot of people listening who have student loans. And honestly, it's a very short and easy read. So you can honestly read it in just a few short hours, but get some really great information about okay, how can I tackle this student loan debt because it is crushing me and it is, you know, preventing me from doing other things in my personal finance, you know, life, I want to get this under control. So I'm going to be giving away a copy of his book. There's also a couple other books I'm giving away. Like last week, I had Spencer Jacob on the show, I'm going to be giving away a copy of his book. There's also a couple other books I'm giving away. Like last week, I had Spencer Jacob on the show. I'm giving away his book, The Revolution That Wasn't. I'm also giving away a copy of Money Like You Mean It by Erika Alini. If you go to

jessicamorehouse.com slash contest, you can find all those books and enter to win a copy. Or again, I will link to it in the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 314. I've got some things to share with you, so do not go away. I just want to share a few words about this podcast episode sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Oxio. Empathy, radical transparency, simplicity, free spirit. When you hear these words, I doubt the first thing you'd associate them with is an internet company. Oxio wants to change that.

They believe in disrupting the internet provider space in Canada and putting the customer first, finally. And they've been doing just this by providing local and friendly customer service, unlimited internet, no contracts, and competitive pricing to customers in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia since 2019. Want more reasons to consider ditching your big telecom provider for Oxio? How about one month free and an Eero 6 router for faster internet speeds and better privacy controls at no extra cost? You can even get $25 credited to your account for every friend you refer to Oxio. That's why I'm making the switch to Oxio myself. Want to give it a try too? Well, just visit Oxio.ca and use promo code MOREMONEY to try out Oxio for free for one month. It's as simple as that. Once again, visit Oxio.ca, that's O-X-I-O dot C-A, and use promo code MOREMONEY to try Oxio for free for one month.

Okay, so if you listened to last week's episode, especially the end part, which I always encourage you to do, because I always share important information that you're going to want to know. I shared, I kind of, you know, dropped some important information at the end of that episode that I was doing a webinar that evening, which was February 2nd, about setting your financial goals. And it was called like 2022, your thriving year, I got a lot of questions about, hey, are you going to be doing this again? Or where can I find the replay or blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so I have hosted the replay of that or you know, the recording of that webinar in my free resource library. So So if you go to Jessica Morehouse.com slash resources, that is where you can find my free resource library. If you're not already signed up, sign up, then you can get access to that. Also some

past webinars, also a few of my free budget spreadsheets and some other helpful guides. I will be updating it, I think in the next few months. Just, you know, I like to kind of update everything once a year just to make sure all the information is fresh, but it's all free. And that's kind of the point of it. So if you go to JessicaMorris.com slash resources, you can pop in there. But again, if you already have an account, you can just log in and the replay of that webinar will be in there. Very exciting. Also, too, because I mentioned this at the end of last week's episode, if you aren't aware, I have an investing course. And I feel like this might be timely because of what's just going on with the market. Everyone's just freaking out. I feel like this might be timely because of what's just going on

with the market. Everyone's just freaking out. I feel like there's two sides of it. I think everyone is panicking because they're seeing their investment portfolio plummet or all the information that they're seeing online, even in the regular traditional media, is about meme stocks or cryptocurrency or NFTss um and it's getting confusing to be like wait should i just dump all of my money in to nfts like for me like i cannot wrap my head around all these huge celebrities promoting like people that are so random like gwyneth paltrow and reese witherspoon like to me that's kind of random but okay like sure okay um and and so for me it's like listen that's there of random, but okay. Like, sure. Okay. And so for me, it's like,

listen, that's there. There's a space for that too, if you want. But I feel like for most people like me, and possibly you, you're just looking for a way you don't want to get rich quick. You're just honestly looking for a frickin way to save for like retirement or a home down payment or just like regular things. And you don't want to maybe invest in something pretty speculative and very new and unregulated. And so what are your options? Well, that is why I have my wealth blueprint for Canadians course. It is a course about boring index investing. And I'm very happy to say that because I am not about like how to like pick stocks and winning stocks and how to like get a 10 beggar or whatever this crap is. Yeah, no, that's not how I like roll. I am all about,

let's, you know, learn the fundamentals of investing. So we actually understand how investing works in Canada. Sorry, this is specifically for Canadians. Let's build an investment plan that takes into consideration, you know, some really key principles we should, you know, activate like diversification and the proper asset allocation and your risk tolerance and your investment goal and your time horizon, all these really important things. And then from there, let's build a portfolio of boring old index ETFs. And then let's just, you know, chill, like invest in chill and just like, you know, methodically contribute to your portfolio, whether it's on lump sums or, you know,

on the regular. And when these things happen, like right now, we're seeing this big kind of market correction, I'd say, you don't have to panic because you're in it for the long haul, you are a long term investor. And you know, what you're supposed to do, which is to not panic when you see red in your account, or you see your account plummet, you're you've got a plan, you just need to ride it out. And do like everything, you know, like, it's just like crazy to me that people are like, Oh, like, I swear, it's just like, are we on like, is this record on repeat? Every time this happens? It's like, it's never happened before. But this has happened a lot of times before, like this happens every at least 10 years, you know, So it's like,

if not more, I mean, there's corrections are more often, but this is a part of the natural cycle of the market. So why are we all freaking out and panicking, thinking, oh my gosh, this is it. It's the end of the world. I'm like, didn't we think that in March 2020? Didn't we think that in 2008? What's going on, guys? Anyways, this is a little bit of a rant, but it's really supposed to be me promoting my investing course. Anyways, if you want to find more information about my boring old index investing course, you can find more information in the show notes or go to jessicamorehouse.com slash WBB. You can take a look at all the testimonials from all of the students. There's hundreds of students in the

course. And there's so much great stuff in the course. I do say so myself, there's, you know, it's not just like the curriculum, but so many extras, I do a bi weekly, live q&a session over zoom that you can join. There's a Facebook group that's private, and then you can ask whatever question you want. I also for every student so far, I'm still like having this as a thing, but I'm maybe when the course gets too crazy and busy, I may end it. But right now, if you take the course and you finish it, you get a free one on one with me to debrief and I can answer whatever questions I can. So there's a lot of me time and direct feedback in this course to help you along your journey so you can figure it out on your own and feel confident about your investment. So anyways, that's the spiel.

JessicaMoorhouse.com slash WBB is where you can find more information about that. Otherwise, you know, check me out on the Instagram. I'm so freaking close to getting to 10,000 followers. I'm pretty excited. And I don't know how because honestly, I haven't posted something in like weeks because I've just been busy working. But I don't know. I guess that's how the algorithm works. I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it. I don't know. I don't care. It is what it is. But I'm hopeful that in the coming weeks, because we're starting to, we're going to get like that one little renovation. I feel like I mentioned at one point, we're getting our like stairs redone and new carpet.

Once that's done, which fingers crossed will be very, very soon, I'll be actually able to move my desk upstairs instead of in the front of my house like I'm the receptionist for a doctor's office and uh you know actually have an office and like I just feel I feel like I'm gonna be so much more productive and there's gonna be lots of exciting things lots of exciting things I'm gonna be able to do including more YouTube videos which I honestly have not made in the longest time because I just haven't had a space to do it. So anyways, that's me. That's what's going on for me. Thanks for listening to the ranty rant. Especially my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. Thank you so much for listening to all this and editing every single

episode of my show. So big shout out to you for being awesome. So that's really it for me. Thanks for listening. I will see you back here next Wednesday. Thanks for being awesome. Have a good rest of your day and weekend. see you back here next Wednesday. Thanks for being awesome. Have a good rest of your day and weekend. See you back here next week. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.