More Money Podcast - 330 How to Avoid Becoming House Poor as a First Time Buyer - Romana King, Real Estate Expert and Author

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

We’ve talked a lot about buying a home and investing in real estate on this podcast but what happens after you buy. What about all the costs and yearly maintenance that come with becoming a homeowner? Today those questions and so much more are being answered in today’s episode with real estate expert Romana King. Romana King has a 20-year career as a financial journalist, she currently holds the position of Director of Content at Zolo and is the former Senior Editor and real estate expert at MoneySense. She recently become a first time author and with the release of her bestselling first book, House Poor No More: 9 Steps to Grow the Value of Your Home and Net Worth.  In this episode, Romana shares why she thinks everyone needs a homeowner’s cheat sheet, so she decided to write her new book, House Poor No More. She also shares overlooked inspections and audits that should be done before you buy a home and why buying a home is part of a larger long-term goal and not simply a box to be ticked on a life checklist. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/330   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 330. And for this episode, we're doing a deep dive in being a homeowner and some things that you need to think about. Because, you know, I've had some guests over this season, the past several seasons, talking about how to buy a home. But once you become a homeowner, I feel like lots of people don't talk about what actually goes into it. And take it from me, who's now this is probably my sixth year of being a homeowner and, you know, very different now because I used to own a townhouse. It was kind of more part of a, you know, condo complex. Now I'm in a house, very different beast, a lot more work,

a lot more expensive to maintain. Well, I've got Romana King on the show. She's the director of content at Zolo, but also the author of a book that I'm going to recommend to anyone who is very new to home ownership or just needs a guide, like a really good guide on how to make sure I am doing home ownership right. It is called House Poor, No More, Nine Steps to Grow the Value of Your Home and net worth and really goes through anything that you could possibly think of in terms of what you know hey I just got a house what do I do to make sure it's all up to code you know and there's not going to be an expensive you know emergency that I didn't prepare for because I wasn't aware of it what are

some things that I should be saving up for some maintenance or some renovations? And how can I just in general improve the value of my home? So by the time I eventually want to sell it, it will, you know, be a hot commodity and people will want to buy it and it'll be nice and easy breezy. So we're going to talk about all these good things a little bit more about Ramona in case you've never come across her name, but I'm sure you honestly have. So like I've mentioned, she's currently the director of Content at Zolo, but she was also the former Senior Editor and Real Estate Expert at MoneySense. And her almost 20-year career as a financial journalist includes various awards and nominations, including the Silver Award for

Business Service article in the Canadian Online Publishing Awards in 2019, and a gold medal award in the 2014 CPA Finance Reporting Awards. And her most recent achievement was, of course, the release of her new book, House Poor No More, which is exactly what we're going to be talking about today. And since its release, the book has been a number one bestseller on Amazon. And of course, I'm going to be giving away a copy of her book. So stick around to the end of the show to learn how to enter to win. Okay, without further ado, just want to share a few words about this podcast episode sponsor, and then I'm going to get right to that interview with Romana. 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 there was another option that could provide you with the same quality internet, minus all that other BS. Oh wait, there is! OXIO, a digital internet service provider that first launched in Quebec

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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. Welcome to the More Money Podcast, Ramona. I'm so excited to have you on the show. You really did right. Honestly, I was reading your book and I'm like, this is a hefty Bible when it comes to housing. This really is like your kind of Canadian housing go-to Bible. No stone left unturned. I feel like you answered every possible question I've ever gotten in my life about housing. So I appreciate this because I feel like this will be the answer to so many people's desires, especially in the crazy housing market that we're still kind of experiencing.

I feel like at the moment, what I've been hearing from some people is like, oh, things are cooling down, but who knows? It's different across the country. So welcome to the show. I'm so excited to dive in. What a lovely intro. Thanks. Yeah. across the country. So welcome to the show. I'm so excited to dive in. What a lovely intro. Thanks. Yeah. So before we really dive in, because you really, I mean, obviously you have experience in this quite a bit, but you really go into like every aspect you could possibly think.

And what's great about it is it's a book that I can, and everyone honestly can refer back to when there's certain times of the year, you're like, oh, wait, you know, I put a little sticky tab on that, you know, just reminders and stuff like that. But I'm curious. Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background. What, you know, eventually led you to this point where you're like, I need to write this book. Well, I fell into financial journalism. I wasn't a finance person to begin with. The tragedy happened. My family, my father died suddenly. He had terminal cancer, but it was very late diagnoses.

And so we had about four days to process the diagnoses and then he passed. And so, yeah, thank you. And my father was an awesome guy. Like he's an awesome dude. And he took care of the finances and not because he didn't think women couldn't do it, because he actually taught think women couldn't do it because he actually taught me a lot. I expressed interest when I was a teenager and he took me under his wing and he showed me how to do my taxes. He talked about the importance of building up credit. He helped me get

my first loan. He helped me pay back my first loan. Not that he gave me money, but really, you have to make your payments. This is about credit. You know, you're taking a small loan. So you can, so you did all of that to help me, to help set me up. We never called it financial literacy. He just said, these are life skills. You need to know these things for life. And so when he passed, my mother wasn't given those skills as a, you know, a child or a teenager, he sort of took them on. So suddenly my mother was left with, you know, overwhelming grief, like all of us. And then also I now need to not just manage a household, but manage all the finances. And there's a life insurance sum on what do I do?

And around that time, I was graduating from school and I needed to get a job. And I had applied. At that time, I had covered construction. That was my thing, just to get me through school. I thought, well, I'll apply for a construction magazine because, well, I know that. And I did. And they were like, this is dating me, but they were very, very honest. And, and it was very illegal. And they just said, you're qualified. You're great. We can't hire you because you're a woman. And it's yes. And it's big industry and big business and only men are taken seriously. And I'm actually grateful that they told me that. And they didn't tell me that,

you know, yeah, it's your nice spot, but me that, you know, yeah, you're a nice butt. But they said, you know, we're going to put your resume on file and other editors will grab it. And so another editor did. So there's a long story to say that's how I got involved in financial journalism is another editor who is a long stalwart of, you know, financial education, financial literacy, wrote about this in the U.S. and then moved up to Canada. He found my resume and went, yep, I'm going to take her. And he took myself and there was a few others, all of whom I consider myself very fortunate to be in sort of in step with. And he nurtured us as financial journalists. And we wrote for trade publication, but we wrote just before the credit crisis in 2008, 2009. So it was a huge learning lesson about how big decisions and lack of regulation and lack of compliance can trickle all the way down and affect the everyday Joe, everyday Jane.

And it made it really poignant at that time. It was like, wow, you know, these decisions that we make, they can really hurt us and set us back. I mean, some people lost all their savings. They had to go back to work at 65. So that really leaves a mark on you. Fast forward, I've got, you know, a few years in financial journalism. I've got, you know, manager, financial planners and insurance and what have you. And then I join a consumer publication with my knowledge and say, okay, I'm going to write for the consumer now. They said, great, we have a column called Getting Started. It's about getting started investment. We'd like you to write it. I was like, I was always told you should write

what you're passionate about. I'd like to write about real estate. Oh, you can't write about real estate. That's not investments. And I was like, no, but it's personal finance. And I think we touch on it. How about you give it a go? And if it doesn't go anywhere, I'll write whatever you want. And if it goes somewhere, maybe it's, you know, a good, and they said, you know what? Okay. So they were really, there was a lot of, you know, scrutiny, but they allowed me to. And what it proved was we could actually write about real estate from a personal finance perspective. And it's not that I was the only person doing this, but I think there was only a smattering of people that actually brought the home. And I'm not talking about real estate investments, but brought the home into the holistic perspective.

And I wanted to do that because my own family went through losses because of lack of knowledge, because of not understanding how the system worked. And my father was like, well, I'm not going to do that again. And he learned and then taught me. And so I wanted to do the same. I wanted to take all, when I was writing this book, I wanted to take all of that information and just say, how can I distill it in a way where people can pick it up like a reference, like a manual, like you're talking, like I wanted a manual that if someone becomes a homeowner, they can pick this up and say, well, even if it doesn't answer every one of my questions, it's a start. And that start allows me to feel a little less intimidated and I get more information.

Yeah. That's a long answer. No, that was a great answer. That was a really great answer. It Yeah, it's a long answer. No, that was a great answer. That was a really great answer. It makes it makes a lot of sense to why you wrote this book, because, I mean, it's funny that there was even a time where it's like, oh, no one's going to read about real estate. It's like, absolutely. I mean, people are always reading about real estate because it affects all of us, whether we're a renter or not. We're always kind of paying attention to what's going on. And, you know, this is like kind of a cliche, but you know, it is the biggest financial investment we're going

to make in our lifetimes, right? Probably, for most of us. And but the thing is, it's crazy. So I recently, you know, bought my second place. So we sold our townhouse, bought a house. And even just going from the transition of like townhouse, it was a condo townhouse. So we sold our townhouse, bought a house. And even just going from the transition of like townhouse, it was a condo townhouse. So we, you know, it was very hands off the things now that we're homeowners. I'm like, Oh, we have to do that. Now we have to rake our own leaves, you know, like we have to, I guess we got to get a, you know, mower for our yard, all these things. I'm like, Oh, wow, we were really lucky being a townhouse owners. It was so easy. And now there's so many new questions that we have. And it is kind of intimidating because

I feel like too, if I go to like my parents or, you know, my husband's parents or, you know, they've been homeowners, like actual house owner for so long. It's like second nature, but for lots of new people, it's like, wait, what do I have to do? Do I have to, there's like, I feel like an idiot, but I do. I'm like, wait, what do we have to do in the spring? I feel like, and there's like a part of your book. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm going to put that in the calendar. We're going to have to like, look at the roof and all this. There's so many things to think about. But I think sometimes often we just think about the part of actually buying the home, not actually owning the home,

maintaining the home, and how to also be kind of a long-term homeowner. Because it's like, we were just in our townhouse for five years. It went by so quick. And also like, we didn't deal with any of the outside part of the house. Now there's so many things that we need to figure out. And we've only been here three months. I'm like, oh, gosh, there's a lot to learn. And it's overwhelming. Like exactly what you said, you look at your parents and your grandparents

and, you know, people before us and they're like, oh, well, you'll figure it out. You know, you just have to maintain the home. But I don't know if you have children. And when I first had my children, you know, I had my in-laws and my parents go, well, you know, you just get them to sleep. I don't know. You talk to any first time parent. I never got them to sleep. Like I, I cried when they cried and I, you know, it was a battle and it wasn't a battle because, you know, I, I wanted it done my way. It was a battle because I didn't know, I didn't know what to do. I thought it was supposed to be innate and I would just understand it. Just like if I bought a home, I just understand how to maintain it. I didn't.

I didn't understand. And over time, now I'm fortunate. I married an excellent man, bane of my existence sometimes, but he's an excellent man and he's involved in construction. And so he and I, alongside with one another, bought our first home and learned. We learned his skill set, my knowledge. We learned what all homeowners should do. And they don't need his skill set or my knowledge. What they need is a cheat sheet of, oh, I don't need to spend anything, but I do on an annual basis need to look at my roof. Because if I look at my roof, I can catch the issues.

And my husband and I, our house, we'll go into neighborhoods. We're like, oh, they've got roof problems. Oh, they've got heating in there. We can see. And it's terrible. It's like we go into a place and we're like picking it up. We don't mean to, but we see the problems. That is what you want. You want that sort of familiarity with your own home so that you know before it becomes very expensive what you need to do. And then that actually maintains your cash flow, which gives you more options. And it maintains your home, which as you said, is the largest, probably the largest purchase you'll ever make. You want that to, you know, keep its value, increase in value. And not

just because the market dictates that it will, you know, if you're going to go sell, it would be nice if you put all this effort and time into it to sell at the best possible price for that reason. Absolutely. And I think when people think of, you know, you know, being house poor or having a money pit, it's because you don't know what's going to happen and then it happens, right? We see those things in the media all the time. It's like this person is, you know, it was $30,000 renovation or whatever, or they had to fix this because this fell apart. And it's because they didn't know if you kind of knew potential things that may break that you're going to have to fix, you're going to have to redo in advance, and you can make a plan. And then it's not such a scary big thing, you could get a, you know, a home equity line of credit in

case these things happen, all that kind of stuff. But I think, yeah, like you said, you know, one of the things I was thinking, I'm curious what you think about this is, you know, when we bought our place, we did get the previous owners did do a home inspection and gave it to all prospective buyers. And I'm like, well, this is great. But I do actually want someone to come through our house again and make a checklist because we know some of the things in the report. But also, I'd like to have someone actually go through it with us and explain what's the first first thing that's gonna come crashing down that we need to pay attention to because again we don't have any experience in this we don't know what looks like a bad roof or not so yeah what what you know if someone were to kind of be a new house owner

what would be a kind of a strategy so they can kind of make these preparations i mean am i allowed to plug my book it's in the book of course i mean yeah book? It's in the book. Of course. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's in the book, but what you said is accurate. It's, you know, if you have a home inspection report, take that report. That's your first tool. Take that report and take a look. Oh, he's saying I've got 15 years left on the, on the roof. That's a ballpark. That doesn't mean you're going to have 15 years. Like, so start to consider in seven or 10 years, I need to know where that money's going to come from. And in seven or 10 years, other issues may speeden that process up. You know, maybe the whole roof is 15 years, but maybe a section of it, which I bought

a house like that. One section was in the worst condition ever, lasted five years. The rest was 25 years. So you have to take a look at everything. You want to take a look at that home inspection report and understand, okay, these are the things that I have to prioritize. Make a list. And then you have to take a look at your annual maintenance stuff. And why are you taking a look at that? Well, I need to make sure that water flows away from my home. Why? Because water is one of the worst

things for your home. Your home is a bubble. It is supposed to be a bubble that you can control the inner climate. And when you can't control the inner climate because there's cracks in it, cracks and it literally cracks and things are coming in, you have an issue. And so water is one of the worst. You want to make sure the water gets away from your home. And one of the things that I now know is if I ever buy another home, probably, if I ever buy another home or another investment property, I know that any resale home that I have, one of my criteria will be getting, you know, examination or an inspection on the drainage. And the reason being is I would say 95% of homeowners don't realize that that has a lifespan. And yes, it's long, maybe 30, maybe 40, maybe 50 years, but it is finite.

And at some point, it's going to have a problem. And I don't think I've bought a resale home yet that hasn't had some sort of issue with the drainage. And so why is that a problem? Because I will never recoup the money I put into digging it up, relaying the weeping tile, putting all the stones back in and making sure there's no soil. No one is ever going to go, oh, what beautiful stones. I'm going to give you an extra 10,000. So that's a sunk cost. But if I know that going in, I know, hey, this house looks great, but none of the fundamental foundational things, like quite literally the foundation things, have been taken care of,

that might not be the best home for me. And that's kind of the whole point of this book is, hey, I know you want to make it beautiful, but you know what? You can buy the right home and then make it your dream home. But if you buy your dream home and it's not the right home, then all that glossy beautiful, you might have to rip open the walls just to redo the electricity because, hey, the electrical is fizzing out or you don't have a big enough amp box. This is a big cost.

You want to be able to see that stuff. So I love the fact that you got an inspection or someone to come in and say, here's my checklist. What's my checklist? How am I going to do that? Because you're spending a very little amount of money upfront to make a long-term strategic plan, which is kind of how that's the way to smart homeownership, no matter how you do it. Absolutely. I know there's another thing that you mentioned in your book. I'm like,

oh, I'm going to add that to the list, was to get a home energy audit, which is like another, like not so much like, oh, things are going to break. But these are things that are if you don't really pay attention to them, they're just kind of dripping like money is just going to be just flowing out of your house. And they're very easy fix. It's kind of like a leaky kind of faucet situation. You won't notice their little amounts, but over time, they'll make a lot of money. Do you want to kind of explain what a home energy audit? I've heard about it before, something I still need to do. So I'm a huge fan of home energy audits. And the first thing I'm going to say is anyone who's thinking about any major renovation, stop and consider whether that renovation or any future upgrade is going to

include some of the biggies. Furnace, AC, windows, roof. And roof comes also insulation. And then consider if your home is hot sometimes, cold sometimes, but not regulated. And the reason why I suggest that is because those are the sort of the indications that your inner climate that you're supposed to be able to control isn't controlled well. And there are quote unquote leaks and there really are just leaks in the house. And so a home energy audit is, and some places in Canada allow you to write it off the whole cost. Some will only give you a portion rebate back. It's a cheap cost, relatively speaking, anywhere from like a couple of hundred to a thousand, depending on where you are in the size of your home. But it gives you a cheat sheet of exactly what's wrong in terms of how your home consumes energy. Where is the heat disappearing? Even a small dime size hole, you can lose hundreds of dollars in energy costs just from that dime-sized hole.

We don't realize there's lots like that. Our attic is one of the worst places. Anytime you go into an attic and you see any slivers of light around plugs or where pipes come through, that's where heat is lost. And that's just literally money up into the air going nowhere. So you want to do this home energy audit. There's companies out there that are qualified to do them. They come in, they literally seal off all the doors and then put a big fan and then they test everything. And that's how they do it. I mean, it's a bit more scientific than that. I sort of dumbed it down because that was my interpretation of how they did it. But then

they monitor and they test everything. And then you get a report. And in the report, it tells you, okay, you're losing this much through windows. You're losing, like I, my office is in a solarium. You better believe I'm losing a lot in energy. So I have to be very smart and strategic about how I heat and cool this place. So we have fans, we have, we have curtains, right? We have things to do that helps manage the inner climate. That'll give you better ideas of how you can benefit in terms of what you can do to replace things, what you can do to upgrade things. And the good thing is, is if you do a certain percentage of those that are listed in the home energy audit, you qualified for all these rebates. So if you're thinking of doing windows and nothing else, go get a home energy audit. Why? Because

that $500 you spend on it will give you rebates back on all those windows on top of any manufacturer rebates. And then you'll suddenly see all the doors. Okay. Well, well now I have a two year period where I can get these rebates. So now I can plan for it. Maybe I put it up, put, put off those new windows for one year, save up even more, do it all at once, get all of those rebates back. And it costs me less out of pocket than if I was just to wait and do it piecemeal. You have to do the math, unfortunately, but a home energy audit is one of the best kept, not secrets, secrets. Like people need to know about this. Yeah. It's not like a sexy thing, like doing a home, you know, a kitchen reno, but it's one of those things where it's like,

I mean, because this is our first winter in our house, you better believe we're going to do this audit because I know for a fact that it is freezing downstairs i'm like it's it's the windows and it's also we have this glass door into our backyard and you can just feel the cold air and you're like yep that's what's happening and you don't and that's the annoying thing it's like you don't know these things until you get into your house and live into it and then you're like okay well this is a problem that we need to to figure out even if it's in the even if it's you know in the report you don really know, even if it's not. I mean, there's so many things that you're like, oh, well, that's another thing.

I was just having a conversation with someone the other day about, you know, so much focus is just on the, you know, getting enough money to purchase that home, not enough on actually how much it costs to own a house. Like, it's expensive. The maintenance, we just got our water bill after three months. And know, it's pricey. Home ownership is expensive and people, they want to gloss over that fact. It is expensive. And we, we do gloss over that fact because we're like, oh, it's such a good asset. If you're strategic about it, if you're smart about it. And I think there are lots of, I'm a homeowner. I drank the Kool-Aid. Like I'm, I'm a big believer, but I'm also not, um, I'm not foolish enough to think that, hey, I'm going to buy this home and I'm going to do no maintenance, no cost. It's going to cost me.

It always costs me more than I think. But I live and I work in my home. My kids are being raised in my home. It is a lifestyle choice that I have decided. And yes, it means that I have less to say put away in my investments or my savings. But that doesn't mean it's in place of. I'm not doing a home instead of. I bought a home in line with the rest of my goals, which includes saving for my retirement, saving for my kids' education. So, I mean, that's the big thing. Home ownership is expensive. It is costly.

We need to be aware of that and not sugarcoat that. And then when you are aware of that, you make better decisions. Absolutely. Well, I know also, like, I really liked the beginning of your books, you talk about the reasons why you would buy a home, because I think a lot of people often think about just the financial considerations, like, well, I hear it's a good investment. It has been historically, yeah, I mean, real estate will probably always go up because the land, we're not making more land. But but yeah could you make more money renting and investing could be it really depends um but yeah probably but i think that's the reason like i bought a home not because i thought it was the best investment i could make

i bought it because i wanted to be a homeowner like so many of the things that you mentioned in your book you know reasons that people give it's like i wanted stability i think for me moving around so much renting so so many different places, I just wanted some kind of stability and also just like having a place that really is I could make it my own. I could actually paint the walls, not get in trouble, all that kind of stuff. Do you want to kind of talk why that really should be where people's focus should be right at the get go when they're trying to make the decision?

Should I, you know, continue to rent or buy? It's like, well, there's a lot of things to consider. It's not just the numbers. Oh, I think you just summed it up. It isn't just the numbers. I think the numbers actually detract from the real reasons why we do buy. And I think that's why I did put it in the book. In fact, it's kind of the motivation for why I wrote the book. I was so tired of this smart decision, not smart decision. You should buy, you shouldn't buy. And it was all based on these, like the properties is hot and you shouldn't buy. Says the homeowner who bought 30 years ago.

Like, thank you for giving me hindsight advice. Your 2020 vision looks totally different than mine. So what should I do now that I am getting married or starting a family or just want some permanence? What should I do? I should actually acknowledge that my well-being, my emotional well-being, my security actually matters. In fact, I can't really go forward on anything else. If you look at like other theories, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you can't really move forward unless you have that security. So acknowledge it, understand it. Don't justify

buying a home for financial reasons when those are the wrong reasons. Don't need to justify. You just need to acknowledge this is the reason I'm going to buy. Now, how do I do it in a smart way so that I can be okay with the emotional reasons, but then not kibosh my desire for retiring before age 85 because I have some savings to do it? Well, I guess that is the question that it's on everyone's mind, especially when housing in many cities across the country, it's just you're spending over a million dollars, no matter what you want. And I think a lot of people are worried that, you know, because we've been talking about a bubble for I swear, the last decade, and it's yet to like burst kind of like we foresee. Is this the right time to buy? Is it not? I think the biggest worry that people have is buying at the right time, I guess market timing, which, you know, as a passive investor, I'm like, just don't worry about it. Just, you know, it's a long term kind of thing. But people are worried

because you do hear stories from people like, oh, you know, I bought in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and I lost money. You hear those stories from somebody always. And people don't want to be that person. And you're like, so how do I avoid being that person? How do I have a plan? I mean, so I'm going to give you my anecdotal story, because I think it's really applicable to what happened. My husband and I decided we were going to move from Toronto to Vancouver, or lower mainland. I fell in love with Bowen Island. I don't know if you've ever been here. Oh, gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I still think it's fantastic. And I fell in love because I was

pushing around a pram on one and I was pregnant with another. And I saw a school class of kids cycling by on mountain bikes. And that was their PE class. And I was like, we need to live here. So I fell in love. And that was a two-year plan. We had a two-year plan to get out here. By the time we executed the price, they've gone astronomical. We've never gone on. It never made sense when we crunched the numbers to do that ferry, because you have to do ferry commutes, to do the ferry commute, which is about $1,000 per vehicle or per person per month on top of the housing price. So unless we could stay on the island, which we didn't think we could, so we had to let go of that. But we, I mean, two years of planning, we still came out here.

And now we're in a hot market and Toronto hasn't peaked. So we need to really hustle to try and get a really good price for our house, which is going to buy half the house here. And that's exactly what happened. So I bought it. What considered was considered then in May, 2017 as the top of the market. Sad for me, but it wasn't because I looked at my husband and I was like, even if we paid a hundred thousand and this sounds big, even if we paid a hundred thousand dollars in a lifestyle choice premium. So I paid a hundred thousand dollars extra to be in this house, in this area, you know, so that my kids could go to the school so I could be a homeowner.

I'm okay with that for a number of reasons. One, the whole renter thing didn't work for us. We looked at homes, three bedroom homes, and I needed my dedicated office, three bedroom homes with $3,500 per month and up. That was $1,000 more than any mortgage we were going to get. That's ridiculous. Okay, so I have to buy. Well, I have to buy. And what if it goes down? Who cares? I'm not going to crystallize that loss. And it did go down. So we get our tax assessment in 2018 and it's down a hundred thousand. Now, theoretically, I've spent $200,000 on a lifestyle premium. Oh, I'm okay. Do you know why? It's not an actual loss. It's what someone has valued my home if I were to sell it, but I'm not selling it. I bought this home with a five-year, 10-year and lifetime plan. That means in five

years, we can execute and sell if we wanted to. We're now at five years. We don't want to. Love the neighborhood. Don't want to go anywhere. Okay. 10 years, we'll reassess. We'll see what happens. And in 25 years, we'll reassess. Why did we do that? Because I needed, both my husband and I knew that life changes quickly. We sold our forever home in Toronto. We bought it. We're like, this is beautiful. This is our forever home. It was, but it's in Toronto and we didn't want to live there. So now we're here and we're in a home and it's lovely. Well, my husband's making it lovely and I'm okay with that. So market timing, you can't time the market unless you're an investor. I think investors really need to be far more aware of the market cycles because it's a purely mathematical equation. But a homeowner

needs to consider all the other factors. Schooling, if it's important. Dog parks, if it's important. Safe area for cats. Our area is notorious. There's no outdoor cats or they last very, very little time with all the cougars around. So you have to think about all these things. Transit, you know, do we have amenities that are important? All of that goes into purchasing a home and that has nothing to do with the market. The market is whether or not you want to buy and sell quickly, or you think your job is going to change, and you suddenly have to sell. And that's happened.

I've met people where they bought their home, renovated everything immediately, and then three years later, they got a job transfer and had to leave. And I was like, oh, but that's buying without foresight. Are you in a position in your career where you don't think you're going to be transferred to another city? Because if you're not, I would be downgrading that dream home into like a really manageable, nice home and like bank your money, either pay down the mortgage really quickly and use some of the tools to take back the equity and invest or, you know, double up on your TFSAs and your RSPs. Because in the end, homes are just bricks and

mortar. They're always going to be there. There's always going to be some sold and some bought. You can always have another choice to get into the market at any time. And trying to time the dips, if you're fortunate, great. But if you're not, okay, it's okay. It's still a good part of your financial plan if you do it strategically. Yeah. I mean, that's, I think, one of the hesitations, I think, of me and my husband buying, you know, kind of looking back, like, Oh, I wish we actually bought earlier, we could have, but part of it was, we didn't know what our lifestyle was going to be. We're originally from Vancouver moved to Toronto. And I'm like, Are we going to stay here? Or are we going to move back? We, you know, took us a few years to be like, I think we're going to stay

here for a while. But still, I'm like, I don't know don't know and even still I'm like maybe we'll move back we've been here almost 10 years um but I was like but then at a certain point you know I guess it was uh over five years ago we bought our townhouse I'm like you know what we're gonna buy this townhouse for and we're gonna stay here for at least five years five years and so I knew that we it would still be you know worthwhile even if we stayed five years and then left to go back to Vancouver or something and then you know at a certain point where like this place isn't working for us I think we're still going to stay in Toronto so let's sell this place and then buy this house and then for this house I'm like it was pricey we're staying here for at least 10 years because I kind of think 10 years will be the amount of time we really do need to figure out

because then by that point we'll be both in our mid-40s and like we're going to figure out do we want to continue to live in the city or go someplace else and I think it'll be basically we'll live here for as long as we want to live the city life and then when we want to do something a bit different like I have dreams of living in the country or something like that then at that point we'll have a better idea but yeah it's you can't think really short term and if you can't think long term, then maybe buying something is in the right time or buying something that's more flexible that you can easily rent out, like a condo or something like that. I mean, that's why I'm actually looking back. I'm like, I'm glad we didn't buy a house because I don't think we would have made a lot

of life choices that we did. Like I was still working a corporate job that I hated. And I feel like if we were kind of, you know, forced to continue to pay that, you know, much more expensive mortgage and all the home maintenance, I probably would have stayed and it wouldn't have like left and then started my own business and stuff because of the financial things. But because we waited a little bit longer, bought something way smaller and cheaper, we had more options. And I think that's always an important thing. And it's, I mean, that, that makes me happy that you guys did it that way. Okay. Are you in there?

A lot of pressure though. We had a lot of pressure to buy because everyone's like, you got to buy the land. It's stupid to buy a condo. Everyone was telling us it was because all of our friends who bought, you know, 10 years prior before us, we took, we were kind of the late bloomers when that, yeah, we always kind of felt like everyone's buying houses. I don't know how they can buy a house. We don't even own anything. And so we felt really kind of like, Oh, are we doing this backwards or something? But it's,

that's the other thing, too, is you can't get like I say this on the podcast all the time, you cannot compare yourself to other people's journeys, right? Because if you do, then you just feel like crap. Yes, I'm never gonna measure up to the people I choose to compare. I't, I don't bother look at the fact that, you know, as North Americans, we're in like the upper echelon of privilege. Don't look at that. I look at, oh, I don't have that. Well, no, but I'm, I mean, my husband and I come from a background independently where we're, I'm fortunate to be alive and I'm very happy that I, you know, am I behind my peers? Yes. Am I fortunate and lucky, like you said, to have opportunities? Oh, a hundred percent. And you know, your friends, I get where they're coming from.

I get that they should buy a house, but their, their decisions 10 years prior are totally different than your decisions. My, my brother's a good example. He's, he's a professor at here and he bought his first home last year, very late in life. And why? Because he spent 10 years after sort of, uh, master's, but not PhD travel, 10 years, 10 solid years traveling the world, did weird jobs. Some of the stuff he, you would write back and phone back and crazy stuff. But you know what it, I mean, as a professor, he has the bet. He has the best ratings. People come up and go, Oh, your stories are great. Well, all of that was an investment in the stories, an investment in who he is as a teacher and as someone who imparts knowledge to kids eventually like my kids. So I look at that and think, you

know, lifestyle does have a huge factor in this. Again, it's different if you want to buy, you know, an investment property and rent it out and then maybe take it over. Fine. But that's a different mindset than buying a home. And the home is part of you achieving all your goals, not the goal is to buy a home. And that, I emphasize that. Like the goal isn't to buy a home. It's a milestone along a series of goals. Don't take your eye off the prize. You know, I think the line I put is, you know, celebrate that you bought a home, but don't get stuck at that party. Like it's just a one-time night and we've got to get out. Like don't get all hung over and continue partying. You've got to get on with the rest of the stuff, which is maintain your home and build

your financial independence so that you can continue doing the things that you want to do. Like starting a business, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I completely agree. Now, I know some people listening are probably also really interested, and this is why your

book is so great for like the real practical stuff, like the saving money on things. One thing we kind of touched on was like the home maintenance aspect. I know you kind of talked about this in your book about, you know, there's a long standing rule of thumb, save, you know, one to 5% of like the value of your home. I always like I'm like, yeah, okay, that's a good starting point. But it's like, where did that number even come from? Because depending on what kind of home you have, it may be way less or way more. What are your kind of thoughts about because I get those questions all the time? How much should I save? Because I don't want to be in a situation where something breaks down and have money. Yeah, I mean, that's it's a great question. I do go into quite a bit

of detail. There's actually probably the genesis of the book when it first sort of came into idea 10 years ago. I'd written an article on like your ultimate home maintenance plan. And I actually went out and I've researched every single component that you had to look at and looked at like the sort of the bare minimum to keep your home in really excellent shape. Right. And I looked at that and I looked at, you know, the amortized cost of replacement, you know, because if you're in a home and you're a homeowner at some point in your homeownership career, maybe not that home, but in your homeownership career, you will have to do the electrical, the plumbing, the roof, the big stuff. And so if you look at all of that, I wanted to know, because we did buy a fixer upper money pit, my husband and I'm grateful. It's still a rental property. It's a fantastic property,

but we had to put a lot of money and a lot of work into it. My husband was actually, because you're in Toronto, you'll laugh at this. My husband was doing the roof on the, it's a row house, was doing the roof and they were doing the August, the P&E flyovers. And he almost fell off the roof because he was so shocked and startled because that's right down near there. And he's like, what the? He did a lot of work on the house. And I mean, I wanted to understand, do these rules of thumb, which are, by the way, decades old, so that 1% to 5% is decades old. Might be my age. I'm older. Might be even my parents' age. I don't know. But it's very old. Where do they come from? Well, they came from people trying to get a better grasp when homes were significantly cheaper.

So you could buy a home for $150,000. And 1% to 5% of a $150,000 home makes sense. But you're talking about a $1.5 million home? You cannot. I mean, if you can save 1% to 5% and you're not putting it away in TFSAs and you're not doing OSPs, but it's simply being socked away as an emergency fund for your phone, please phone me. I want to hear your tips. I want to hear your check. I want to know what you're doing.

Because of that, and I am also a big believer in trying to find the best spot for that earned dollar. And that's what it's all about. It's like, I don't want to just, you know, put the cash. A lot of people, I always put it in a high interest savings account, which is losing your money because inflation is higher than what you're like. You want to know how to use that dollar well. So I wanted to get a better idea. I did go into a lot of detail, a lot of a lot of calculation. And I think, you know, it came down to it's terrible that I can't remember. It's like about a dollar per square foot.

It's a little less to about four dollars a square foot. And I'm rounding I'm rounding up a little bit. But that helps you understand that, OK, if I'm a very do-it-yourselfer or if I have a newer home or lots of upgrades, I'm probably on the lower end. So if my home's 2,000 square feet, I multiply that by a dollar and now I know. That's what I'm going to put aside for maintenance. That's it. And then if you have an older home, you're going to do the higher level. But what I found, and this is the reason why I did this exercise, is when you blindly do the one to 5%, you actually leave

money on the table. And that can actually be, you know, in five years, almost $100,000. That's significant. You know, that's a down payment on a property, right? So for that reason, I really want to challenge people to say, okay, I understand you don't want to look at every little line item. I get that. But at least at the very least, put aside one, an emergency fund, because that's the just in case, oh my goodness, I need heat and it's the middle of winter and my furnace has just died. And two, put in your budget the line item that you will on every single month put aside this money so that you can actually pay for your maintenance, pay for all the stuff that has to happen. And it's about $1 to $4 per square foot. Yeah, no, I think

that's super helpful. But yeah, because I remember I posted something on Instagram, was just like, oh, I bought a house and I didn't realize I have to save like 1% to 3% of the home. And the comments were like, what? I'm like, it's just a rule of thumb, guys. It's just a rule of thumb. I'm not actually saving $100,000 or whatever per year for maintaining my home.

Like, that's ridiculous. Like, what am I doing with my house if I'm spending that much? But yeah, I think it's one of those things when people are like, Oh, you know, how much do I need to live? What should my cost of living be? I'm like, well, it really depends. You have to honestly go line by line and it's not fun, but that's why I always say you got to have a budget track you're spending. Otherwise you just, you could be potentially leaving money on the table and just having it sit in the savings account when you could put it to better use. And I know also like talking about better use, you also talk a lot about how can you improve the value of your home I think

a lot of people believe me it's so easy to get sucked into just making your house beautiful believe me I am constantly at war with myself and not just spending a ton of money because you are on Instagram or Pinterest and all these beautiful photos. But then I always remember, you know, what I did with my townhouse, which it worked. It's like I made sure that we only spent money on things that I knew that the next buyers would like. And, you know, it was very easy to find what we need to do. Rip out those disgusting carpets, all this kind of stuff. And you remind what are some key things that people should prioritize before getting to some of those more maybe more fun renovations? Yeah, I mean, I think the way I'd answer that is the first thing you should

prioritize is you need to sit down with a pen and paper homework, right? And it's not a budget, but I want you to make a list of all the things you want to do. I want a new kitchen. I want to make a list. And the reason why I say make a list is these are the things you want to spend your money on. They're going to have an emotional tug on you and then make a list of all the things you have to do. Okay. my inspection report said the roof in 10 years. So make that list. And then just sort of ballpark the figures the best you can. You go online, you know, from memory, whatever. And then also identify beside each one, is this a lifestyle? Like, is this just because I want it? Or is this a necessary? Like, in order to keep up with my,

with the Joneses, I don't want to put it that way, but I'm going to say it. If everyone else is, I don't know. I'm trying to think of something that actually, if everyone else has a garage and you don't, you're going to be seen as undervalued in the neighborhood. And so if you want to keep up with the Joneses, which is the only time you need to look at that and say, is it worth it to put 30 or 40,000 to putting into a garage or not? And then you have to weigh up those, but you want to put all of that down on paper. And this is not a judgment. This is not like, this is bad. This is good. This is inventory taking. I'm in a store. I need to know what stock I have. Let's take my inventory. And when you do that, so I say, prioritize that, make the list and then the cost and then the reasons, lifestyle, what have you. And then I say, then look at your plan. Look at your financial

plan. Where are you going to get the money to do the necessary ones and do you have anything left over to do the lifestyle ones and what I often say is if you're going to do a lifestyle one do it early not late don't do it at the end of your home ownership no you're not going to enjoy it you're right and yes I get the fact that you know five or ten years from now after I've rented my renovated my kitchen it'll be outdated but it'll cost significantly cheaper to update it a little bit than if I wait at the very last minute and have this beautiful kitchen that I only get to enjoy for a year before I have to sell my home. So I often, I feel so bad for our neighbors.

We're the renovators with the toilet on the lawn for three months. Like we're, I mean, we try and hide the stuff so it's not that bad. But we're the people that it's nice on the inside before the outside. Why? Because the inside has to be all buttoned up. I have to get it all waterproof and electrically working, et cetera. And it's all buttoned up and done. And then the outside. And so as long as I have, if I have Tyvek, which is that sheeting that they put on, I don't know, you know, if I have Tyvek on my home for three years, which I did, then it's okay because it's waterproof and I'm okay. And it doesn't look great, but I'm not selling my home. So it doesn't matter. And my neighbors, thankfully, are, I give them lots of cookies and lots of cupcakes at different times of the year,

just to keep them happy and okay with the fact that, yes, we're the long renovators. That's okay. If you're doing your renovation to prioritize it, make sure that you look at all of it, prioritize the ones that you have to do, prioritize your planning and your budget, and allow yourself those lifestyle upgrades as long as it fits your financial plan. I know that's not like a, oh, do this, do that, but I really try and emphasize that. And the only other thing that I would say is another strategy of looking at this is whenever you're looking at doing any renovation, whether it's lifestyle or not, think about what problem it's trying to solve. So a lot of times when you're looking at doing any renovation, whether it's lifestyle or not, think about what problem it's trying to solve. So a lot of times when you're looking at redoing your kitchen, it's like, well, it's so outdated.

We'll look at it. What is it? Is it a galley? Like, is it a straight line so it doesn't have that nice flow? Fix it. Because nobody is going to come into that home, no matter how glossy and shiny. And I've done a lot of walkthroughs. No matter how glossy and shiny that galley kitchen is and not see the problem, even if it looks fantastic.

So if you're going to spend the money to make it look pretty, spend the money to fix the problem. Because if you do, I can't guarantee, but I so firmly, I will solidly stand behind the statement, which is others will see value in the problems you've solved. Because they're coming in and saying, oh, they thought of that. That's, oh, that's great. And I speak from anecdotal experience. I speak from experience of friends. I mean, there's no statistics that show that,

but I really do think that there are, and there's statistics that tangentially, you know, coincidentally support it, but there's no direct, you know, dollar for dollar or stat for stat. But I do think that if you solve a problem, potential buyers see that value. And so not only do you get the benefit of solving a problem that irritated you, but then your buyers also see the sort of, oh, they've seen everything, they've thought of everything, this is a well-maintained good home. Absolutely. I'm always constantly like, I did this a lot with our last place. I'm doing this a little less with this house just because I'm like, we're staying here longer, so I'm not going

to worry too, too much. I want to actually enjoy, you know, do some of these rentals and us, you know, actually enjoy it. But I am always thinking like, will this be a nuisance when we do want to sell, you know, because we're like, we put this in and no one else is going to want it. But you know, for example, like my kitchen, it's like, it's the nicest kitchen I've ever had. Because believe me, the kitchen that we had in our last place was not as new. But it's definitely like, you know, was renovated maybe 15 years ago. And so it's like dark cabinets, kind of that's, you know, peppery kind of granite and all that stuff.

And I'm like, oh, all the houses that we saw before this were beautiful white, like white is the trend. And I'm like, you know what, though, by the time that we actually have the money to renovate, I bet the white trend is going to be on to some other trends. So I guess that's the other kind of question I have is, we obviously are always looking at, you know, photos and inspiration for things, it can get very easy to get sucked into what's kind of new and fresh. But you know, when it comes to I guess, especially like doing the big things like your kitchen, your bathrooms, what should you really prioritize in terms of like, you know, when it comes to, I guess, especially like doing the big things like your kitchen, your bathrooms, what should you really prioritize in terms of like, you know, we don't want this to be a trend that's then we sell it 10 years later and then it's an old trend.

Yeah. I mean, what I prioritize is materials. So if I'm going to do a kitchen, I need to do a kitchen that allows me to swap out colors. What do I mean by that? Are my cabinets, are they capable of taking on another coat of paint? And I don't mean like with a brush, because I cannot get that nice, but can I take all the cabinet doors off? Or can I get another company in? They actually come and they spray it all and it has that beautiful factory finish. Can they do that? If I've got cheap cabinets, because I didn't have a lot of money to do, then I'm not going to be able to do that. So I better pick a very neutral, and it might not be my favorite, but a very neutral, very bog standard, you know, color, whether it be white

or grays. And I mean, I do, I do like white kitchens. I do think that I've seen kitchens that are really fun and they're like yellow. And I had a kitchen once where my husband painted like this huge yellow wall, because I've always wanted this farmhouse, sunny yellow kitchen. And so we did that. When we went to sell, that wall disappeared because it's not everyone's taste, right? So you want to make the changes or do the upgrades based on whether or not how quickly and how inexpensive or expensive it is to change that to more of a neutral, my personality doesn't exist. And that requires a little bit of investigation of what materials. So I pay for, you know, good drawer clothing, closing. Why? Because bad drawer closing will break. And so I go to sell it in 10 years and

I got a drawer that's, you know, off kilter. That looks bad. Makes my whole kitchen look bad. So I want to make sure I've got the money where the supplies are going to last, the material is going to last, the craftsmanship is going to last. But I would never buy, and my husband used to do, he used to do a custom, well, he did here, he did custom West Vancouver homes. In Toronto, he did custom, you know, homes. And I mean, he was the first to say, if you don't have the budget for a custom kitchen, you can get some really smart off the shelf trend, like options. And you can then pay a carpenter, he's a carpenter by trade, pay a finishing carpenter to do sort of embellishes that make it look 100% custom. So there's lots of tricks and ways to make things your personality

without going way over budget. And it just requires a little bit, well, it requires a lot more research and a lot more commitment to say, my renovator, my contractor is not necessarily going to have all of these answers. But if I come with these goals in mind, hey, I want to spend this, but I want to focus on this, good contractors will help you. I remember my husband sitting down with many homeowners saying, you don't have the budget for this. But I can tell you, if this is your goal over here, you've got these three options, what do you want to do? And just those small conversations. I mean, he never advertised, he always had business. Why? Because he really worked with people to stay in budget, but also get, you know, that dream quality to their renovation, right? Yeah. And I think often like one thing that I've discovered over

the years is I think lots of us always focus on like those big ticket things like gotta do the kitchen or the bathroom. But I mean, in our last place, we made it look nice. And we never read it. I always wanted to redo the bathroom and kitchens. We didn't we just honestly put a coat of paint on them made them a little bit nicer. And there's so many things around those big ticket items that can upgrade all the things like for our place currently we don't really have to do too many renos at the moment but the first thing i did like we need to redo the carpets because they're like you know disgusting old carpet so get those out a fresh carpet literally makes such a big difference and then even updating the the staircase like the kind of banister and all that stuff they had the weirdest one set up where it honestly made the space look

small or like it looked dated and somehow smaller. I'm like, if we just update it to some of those, you know, iron kind of things that all the houses have swapped those out and we did it and like it wasn't that expensive and it makes our home look actually more new than it actually was. Just like there's so many little things that you can do or just like you know the doorknobs and all those stuff that i love doing those things because they're inexpensive and they make your house look more expensive like you have a brand new and i mean there are people that do the before and after you're like that's the same home coat of paint and some hardware if you like paint can do so much like it's like there's basically this whole house was painted white on the inside which I appreciate

but there was one room we actually just painted it this weekend it's uh it was the beige room I'm like oh this house all used to be that beige we all know that beige from the you know mid 90s that was the cool neutral thing and I'm like I'm so glad there's only one room left that we have to paint because it was it was not easy to paint it just we did three coats and I'm still not sure if we got all of it. But then once it was white, I'm like this room looks a hundred million times better. Right?

Small updates make a big difference. That's why we don't always have to do, and that's why I'm saying list everything. You know, go in and make your dream list of all the renos. We did. And we're like, oh, we're never going to get to hot tub. We're good.

We're buying a hot tub. We put a hot tub deposit down on a way too, we actually decided to do a cedar barrel, which is, but this is, we decided we would do that as part of our anniversary. It's part of us staying in a home. Like these were decisions that we made five years ago. We're pulling the trigger on them now

because we thought about what would happen. What are we going to do? Where are we going to be? If we're here, let's revisit. We revisit. And when you do those smaller or you do the less expensive or less dramatic, it's amazing. I mean, home stagers know this. They'll tell you. That's why they've got a good

business. They'll come in and say, if I swap out your furniture, I can get you a better price. That's it? Yes. It makes a world of difference. Oh my gosh. Present the best version of my home. Nobody lives with uncluttered counters. I don't care who you are. And yet when we show our homes, there's nothing on that counter, right? I feel like I could have you on the show for another like another hour, honestly. But honestly, what I would just going through this book and for all the people that have ever asked me a question about homeownership and what they should do. This is the guide, especially Canadian-focused. I think that's really important because so many things, you get advice from people down south, and it's like, well, your house is $200,000. It's a different ballgame, you know? And so it's, I think, really important, a really great book.

I highly recommend. So where can people grab a copy, and where can people maybe follow you on social media and see what else you're writing? Sure. I have a website. It's just my name, RamonaKing.com. I can be seen on Zola.ca, which is where I'm the director of content.

And the book is on Amazon. So if you go into Amazon.ca, yay, Canadian book, then you can buy it. And it is Canadian focused. You're right. And I wrote it specifically for Canadians because Canadians need this, right? We really, really do. Because, oh, man. I mean, I'm sure like

you'll never run out of content to write from all the questions you probably get. I won't, I haven't yet. And I mean, that's the other thing. I like getting readers talk to me and they do on Facebook. I don't answer over them and I don't answer always timely.

But if you catch me at the right time and I am able to answer, I mean, I've gone about for nine months helped people out just because you happen to be the lucky one and I I really do like finding out about homeowner issues or or issues and helping people because people help me so I'm paying it forward right or paying it backward I guess I don't know I love that well thank you again for joining me on the show it's a pleasure having you and sharing all of your wisdom again everyone should grab a copy of house poor no more because if you were like if you're a new homeowner

or you're thinking of becoming a homeowner or even if you've been a homeowner for a while and you're not sure if you're doing it right, this is the book you should read. And that was episode 330 with Romana King. Make sure to check her out. A few different places you can check her out. She has her own website, Romana King. So this is romA king.com. You can also find out a lot of the things that she's writing about at zolo.ca. So you can look at that. And of course, you can find her on Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm going to

link to those in the show notes for this episode to make it really easy. So just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 330. And of course, if you want to find out the show notes for any episodes you've ever listened to, all you have to do a couple things you can do actually. First, you can just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast, it will have all the episodes there. Or just go jessicamorehouse.com slash whatever the number of that episode is, hence why I give these episodes numbers so you can easily find them on my website. Lots of things to share with you, so do not go away. But first, I want to share just 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 dissociate 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're doing just that by providing local and friendly customer service, unlimited internet, no contracts, and competitive pricing to customers in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta. That's why I made the switch to Oxio myself. Not only that, when you sign up using the promo code MOREMONEY, you get your first month free. Plus, like everyone at Oxio, an Eero 6 router with ridiculously fast Wi-Fi speeds and better privacy controls is included. And once you've signed up,

you can even use Oxio's referral program to earn free internet. Want to ditch your old internet provider like me? 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, first things first, I'm giving away a copy of Romana's book, but I'm also giving away copies of 13 other books. There have been, I feel like this is a record for authors on the show, and I didn't necessarily do it intentionally. There's just a lot of new personal finance books out, I guess. I don't know. But there's a ton of books I'm giving away, and you can enter to win all of them. I mean, you'll only win one. But you have now your chances are actually

pretty good. Because, you know, I'm not getting 1000s of entries to these contests. Let me tell you, I'm getting 100. So your odds are in your favor to win one of these books. So if you just go to JessicaMorehouse.com slash contests, you can enter to win, see all the different books, and good luck to you. And the fun thing is, if you do get, if you do win, I personally email the book, like I do it like old school, I buy the book to support the author. And then I mail it to you with a nice little personalized note. So that's kind of fun. I like mailing things quite honestly. It's an excuse for me to mail things. I like sending people packages. So make sure to do that. What else? What else? What else? Oh yeah. The big news I would have to say is I

finally, and I'm sure my web designer is like, thank God this is over. Finally have a new website. This has been in the works you guys since gosh, November, I think is when we started working on this new website. And you know, these things take time, but I've had my old website for over five years. And it was something that I designed myself. And at the time, it was fine. But you know, time happens. And then you compare your website to others. You're like, Oh gosh, this needs an update, a really big update. Um, and so now I finally hired a professional and she killed it. And I have a new website, Jessica morehouse.com. That is where you can find the new website and hopefully you enjoy it. And hopefully it's easier to navigate and just looks a lot nicer. I'm really excited about it. Um, and hoping just for some other things to share with you very soon.

They're on my little to-do list, but I'm very close to having all of my budget spreadsheets updated. So I've been also working with an expert Excel, Google Sheets person from Australia, very fun, to basically take the budget spreadsheets that I've had for years and years and years. Honestly, I think I've been putting them on my website for people to download for gosh, six or seven years now. Well, they also needed to be evolved and just, you know, better. And there's a limitation to my, you know, expertise when it comes to Google Sheets and Excel. So I hired someone to take them to the next level. And I'm so excited to launch those very soon. If you are, hey, I, you know, downloaded one of your spreadsheets, or I bought one in the past, don't worry, if you're on my email list,

you will get notified of when the new version will be out. So yeah, that's something to look forward to. I'm very excited. Another thing to let you know about is my investing course, Wealth Building Blueprint for Canadians. Just a few months ago, we crossed the one-year anniversary of me launching the course. And obviously, it is an investing course specifically about passive investing, specifically for Canadians. It just also went through a huge update to make it even more comprehensive. And I'm just so excited about it. And so if you want to learn more, and if this is like, you're like, you know what, yeah, I do need to start learning how to invest my money. And I have

no idea where to start. This is literally the course that was built specifically for you. This is the course I wish existed when I was starting my investing journey and just couldn't find anything like it. And so I did the very long journey of, you know, doing the Canadian securities course and becoming an accredited financial counselor. And now I'm starting to become a CFP and have read literally hundreds of books on this topic. And no one needs to do that in order to learn how to invest for the retirement. Like that's a lot of work. And so I condensed everything I know into this course to help you, you know, retire one day or save for a home down payment and not just put it in cash, but invest it and just really

understand what goes into investing in Canada. And like, this is not like, I wouldn't really consider this like a, yeah, a basic course. You know, there's some courses out there and you get them. You're like, oh, okay. I know all of this. You will not know all this stuff. This is a very, very comprehensive, in-depth course, and you're going to get a lot out of it. So if you want to learn more, you can check out the show notes. There is a link in there, jessicamorehouse.com slash 330, or just go to

jessicamorehouse.com slash WBB. That's where you can find it. And of course, if you have any questions, I'm always happy to answer over email, jess Morehouse.com or DM me on Instagram. So there you go. Let's see anything else to share. Gosh, I mean, I don't think so. I think that's all I've got for you. So thank you so much for listening. A big shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I will see you back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode of the More Money Podcast. Have an amazing week, weekend. See you next Wednesday.

This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.