More Money Podcast - 360 How to Start a New Life in Canada - Bisola Tijani, Founder of WhizQueen

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

You might remember that a few months ago I was invited to join a YouTube accelerator program and through that, I was lucky enough to meet other Toronto-based creators. One of those creators I really enjoyed getting to know and so now she's on the show! Bisola Tijani aka WhizQueen is a YouTube and Instagram content creator whose content focuses on personal finance, being new to Canada, lifestyle and so much more! Bisola is originally from Nigeria, but in 2019 applied and was accepted to become a permanent resident in Canada. She’s a business analyst by day, but her passions include personal finance and sharing her journey of making a new life for herself in Toronto. In this episode, Bisola shares what it was like coming to Canada without any support system and how she managed to find a job, housing, and friends in a new country. We also talk about what it was like starting her financial life including opening a bank account, getting her first credit card, and building up a credit score. I’m so happy to have Bisola on the show and to hear her unique perspective on being an immigrant to Canada. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/360 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse, and this is episode 360. And I'm so excited to have my next guest on the show. I know you're going to love it. I've never done an episode about this topic, surprisingly. So when I met Basola Tajani, and I'll share a little bit more about that in a moment, I knew I needed to have her on the show because it's crazy that I haven't had an episode about this. You think with this many years and this many episodes, I would have touched everything. Apparently not. But that's also kind of the beauty of, you know, personal finance or just kind of this kind of sphere. You never run out of things to talk about. Thank goodness. Thank goodness,

because this is my career. I don't want to run out of things to talk about. So I met Basola back in, I guess, November, December. We were both part of this YouTube accelerator program for kind of budding YouTubers, which is why I was part of it, which I found so flattering that I was, you know, someone saw something in my little YouTube channel. And we just kind of learned some of the ins and outs of being a YouTuber and how to grow on the platform. Well, I really connected with Basila not only because she does work as a business analyst in the financial industry as her day job. So we kind of connected on that and can talk about money stuff. But, you know, she talks a lot about money on her own YouTube channel, but also her immigration story and being a newcomer to Canada specifically. And just she shares a lot of great advice and tips for new immigrants who just, you know, don't know where to start. Like,

it's very intimidating. And I asked her on the show, like, how did she also know what to do when she got to Canada? And she, you know, looked at lots of resources like YouTube and stuff to help her. And so because she made the big bold move, and she's in her 20s still, and I can't even imagine. I mean, no, I can't imagine doing that. The only thing I kind of referenced in the episode is I've been able to move provinces from BC to Ontario. And that was a big, big change in my life. I can't imagine moving to a different country. And so she's originally from Nigeria. She made the move by herself to Canada and now is thriving. And so I wanted to have her

on the show for anyone who was thinking of moving to Canada or recently has and still feels really overwhelmed and still has some questions. We go through it all. So hopefully you can feel a little bit better and realize, guess what? You're going to get through it. Everything's going to be just fine. Everything's going to be fine. So let's get to that interview with Bisola. Also, just to mention this, listen at the end. I want to share a little life update, but also I'm doing an event, a virtual event that you can attend. So make sure to listen to the end. But without further ado, let's get to that interview with Basola. Welcome to the More Money Podcast, Basola. I'm so excited to have you on the show to talk about a

topic. Honestly, I don't think I've really, I've never done a full on episode about it. So I, and it's necessary because I mean, there's, I don't know what the stats are. I probably should have looked this up before I hit record, but there's a ton of new people coming to Canada every single year and starting their new lives. And I can only imagine how intimidating that is. Like, I found it very intimidating moving from British Columbia to Ontario. Same country, but it was like, you know, there's different provincial rules and stuff like that. It was like kind of scary. I'm like, wait, there's a different health card. Moving to a different country, that seems wild to me. And this is something that you did. You want to kind of share a little bit more about your experience moving to Canada? Yeah, sure. Thank you very much, Jessica. I'm happy to be here. Definitely very intimidating and stressful mentally. I moved to Canada at the age of 23 by myself. I've literally never lived abroad. I had no friends or family in Canada.

I just woke up one day and said, you know what? I'm tired of my home country. Time to start researching on somewhere new. And I found out about Canada, did some research, started to apply for my PR process. And luckily for me, I was eligible to apply for permanent residency from Nigeria, which is my home country. And I just applied right away. I got it after a couple of months and it was time to make the big move, packed my bag and moved to Canada. And I got here and I was like, oh my God, what did I just do? Yeah. Especially when it's your first winter.

I'm sure that was a shock. Yeah. So what did I just do? Oh, no. Okay, so where do I start from? And it was really stressful mentally. But thankfully, the government has a lot of programs in place that helps you integrate smoothly. And I was able to take advantage of some of those programs. And I also tried my best to

try to interact with people online living in Canada already before moving here. So that definitely made my transition much smoother. So I'm curious, since you did your research about, you know, moving to Canada, that was ultimately your decision. Were you looking at, you know, the United States, the UK and what made you choose Canada? Definitely. I had like options between the US and Canada. If I had chosen the US, I would have had to go there as a student to get my master's degree. But if I was going to choose Canada, then I would become a permanent resident right away so at that time going back to school was really not a priority for me I was already working I had like my

professional qualifications I was already making money then going back to school when it's not like I'm really really an academic person I just figured going back to the US to school would just be a waste of my time and waste of money and in the., it's like you're not sure about your residency even right after school. So it was literally a no-brainer to choose the U.S. So Canada, it was for me. Yeah, right on. So walk me through, yeah, kind of what were your first steps once you made that decision? How much preparation did you have to do before you, you know, bought your plane ticket and made the move? Was there quite a bit of work you had to do before you could, you know, get here? Yeah, definitely. To even be eligible for the program,

there you have to like put certain things in place, like getting your credential assessment done. So that would be you converting your foreign education into Canadian standards. So they look at your education and see if it's equivalent to what they have in Canada. And once that is done, you would also need to write the English language test, which is IELTS that I did, just to prove that yes, you can speak English, you can communicate in English and whatnot. Then once that is done, you put in an application then once your application is approved then you start to prepare so like leaving to go to Canada you have to start with things like getting ready for the job market because job market in Canada is totally different from how we have it

back home we use things like LinkedIn but it's pretty much just LinkedIn and our resume style is totally different so I was able to to work with some of the government program experts to help me with my resume, help me with my LinkedIn, writing cover letters. They were different trainings that I participated in that helped me get ready for the labor market or job market in Canada. Then also, after doing that, you have to resign from your current workplace get your documents ready and like like let your family know that okay this is the final goodbyes i'm about to leave just a

few weeks time and when i remember telling my dad that dad i'm leaving to canada like in two months ago my residency approved he had sleepless night the whole time it's like i'm your like you're my first daughter how you leave it like you're leaving leave it then you have to ask how long is your visa for i said it's not like a visa with duration i'm leaving permanently he's like oh no oh no oh no he had sleepless night the whole time woke up the next morning asking me if i'm really sure about this decision and all that because it's not really something anyone in my family has done and i'm also the first child so making that big move is literally a very bold move and for a

female a 23 year old coming from this kind of household it's like very very rare so he asked me if i was really sure but i've always been someone that makes a decision. And when I look left and right, I try to do my analysis. I just go for it and decide, okay, I think the risk is well taken. And that was it for me. But even when I was ready to leave, I had it at the back of my mind that just in case Canada doesn't turn out to be what I expect for it to be, I can always come back home. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I mean, again, not really the same because it was just provinces, but I'm like, we'll give it a year in Ontario and if we hate it, we'll just move back.

So that's, yeah, that's always an option. You mentioned that there was a couple of programs that you took advantage of when you moved here, some government programs to help you get settled. What were some of those programs and what did they offer? There is a newcomer's program for employment. There's also access employment. Access employment was the one I eventually used because they work with you based on the province you're planning to relocate to. And access employment was the one for Ontario. Okay, awesome. Yeah. And was all that fairly easy to find information about? Was it just like doing some Googling, looking on the Canada website? Yes. So right after when my application was approved, the next few emails that you'd be getting, we'd be letting you know about like

things you need to do to prepare for your move. So in that email, they will have like links to a lot of resources and it will be up to you to choose which one to sign up for and which one you think you'd benefit from. So for me in that email, I just made sure to select the employment one because obviously I'm moving as a resident and coming to work here would be the most important thing to me. There were other things like getting your health card, getting a family doctor and all that. I didn't really prioritize getting a family doctor because I don't know, I just feel like I have good health. But if you're a family person with kids, of course, that would be very important for you to prioritize. So

all of those information was in the email that you received after your application is approved. Oh, great. Yeah, that sounds a lot more helpful. But I'm sure, too, I'm curious, what was your experience like getting your first place? Because even, yeah, moving here, and me and my husband, we moved to Toronto after quitting both of our jobs. We were both unemployed and looking for a place,

and we had to get my dad to co-sign our rental apartment in order to get it. What was your experience like finding a place of your own when you moved here was it difficult yeah yeah it was for sure so um when i on my move day for sure i had planned to stay in an airbnb which is something most people do not explore for sometimes most people when they move to canada they are looking to rent an apartment right away from their home country but for me I wanted to make sure to see the place first and be sure of even what city I would be residing in so I just booked

an Airbnb for like a month and I felt like having a month would give me enough time to decide what city to stay in and when I eventually landed looking out places, I offered to pay my first and last month's rent. And I decided to just downsize. I went for a room in the house where they were sharing a different room. And that was it for me. That was very easy compared to if I was looking to get an apartment. Because obviously, I wouldn't have a credit score. I wouldn't have a job offer yet.

I wouldn't have all of those things that would be required. So I just decided to go for a a short term rental for six months. And it was also furnished. So I didn't need to buy furnitures or figure out all of that. Oh, that's great. That's super helpful. And then I guess the other things that you have to do besides, you know, shelter, obviously. And of course, you're then, you you know trying to set up um finding employment but the other kind of things on the more personal finance side is you know setting up

uh your your financial life your your bank accounts your credit cards you know trying to build that credit score from zero what was that experience like so um because i'm a finance person and i do enjoy those things before coming here i started to study the finance lifestyle in canada because it's totally different from what i'm used to back home we don't have things like credit card or credit score it's not something that is very popular there so prior to moving um in that same email that we get from the government services you would see information regarding banking you see information regarding credit cards so i just explored some of those resources that was provided and I also did my own personal research regarding banks in Canada and at that time RBC was offering free banking for one year

for newcomers without fees and they were going to give like credit card um with like a credit limit of i think 1500 so that seemed like okay yeah this sounds like a good deal for me and that was the option that i explored but if i were to rewrite that situation now i'd have probably considered um like banks that has no fees like no fee banking because i think that would be cheaper because after the one year i'll be starting to hit me with this charge. Of course they do. Yeah. I guess when you are, you know, getting started to setting those things up, that is kind of

probably one area you'd probably look into is like which bank does have some sort of program for newcomers. I think all the big banks in Canada do. And sometimes I find with lots of those no fee banks, online banks, sometimes they require you to already have a bank account elsewhere. So that's kind of a difficult thing. So yeah, it's one of those things where it's like you can take advantage of that program for a year. And then once you've kind of built up that experience and some credit score, then you can maybe look into a better option before you

have to start paying those high fees. Because that's what they're trying to do is they're trying to like get those newcomers in and, you hey it's all free and then eventually start charging them fees and hope they won't notice and hope that they will like lock in those you know customers for life. Exactly that was what happened to me once I got in I got the one year free banking and by the new year I'd forgotten to follow up with the bank and for like three months I was already paying fees and I one day just looked at my credit card statement my bank statement and so what is this charges I had to call to say okay I don't understand what these charges are and they explained to me that yeah if you want to waive these fees you'd have to have two investment

accounts with us and do this and do that so those those options were on the table for me, which was what I eventually explored. But at that time, I already paid like fees for a couple of months. And that's what these banks want. Yeah, of course. I'm curious, too, when, you know, after especially after a year, a lot has changed after, you know, being settled here for a year. At what point, too, were you looking into, OK, now maybe I do want to start, you know, not just having some cash in a savings account, but I want to look into my options in terms of investing, like your TFSA, your RRSP. When was that kind of available to you or when was that, you know, something that you were thinking

about? Yeah, I think that option would have been available right away, but it wasn't something I considered. At the time when I follow up with RBC to see why I was getting those fees and they gave me the option of opening an investment account I got a meeting with one of the financial advisors there to speak about investment options and she had kitted me on mutual funds and some other investment options that he had available at that time I went for mutual fund of which right now I know for sure I would have gone for mutual fund but that's what they're always going to sell you because it's definitely more expensive yeah those things always happen anyway so she was able to sell me into some of the mutual funds and over time I started to learn more about

using your TFSA account and RRSP and when should you use what account at that time I think I started to learn more about using your TFSA account and RRSP. And when should you use what account? At that time, I think I started to use my RRSP, even though I was still a low income earner at that time. But then the financial advisor just said, yeah, just invest in anyone. It's the same thing. It's tax free. You just get to invest with mutual funds, this and that. They just sell you into all these products.

Of course, they don't know. They just want to sell you. Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah it's so frustrating i feel like that's the the running kind of commentary on this podcast is you just got to be so careful well that's the thing it's like it's one thing to be you know uh aware and you know conscious of uh the people at the bank you know they're selling products but especially when you're a newcomer and it's a completely different financial system than when you're coming from, you know, really, how would you know? You're kind of like putting your trust in these people. They're called advisors. They're giving you advice. No, but I mean, I guess that's a learning lesson.

That was the same thing for me. You know, when I was getting all of those advice from the advisor, I felt like, hmm, this is really nice that this is a free service someone telling you about all of these programs like giving you the details about what this mutual fund entails like literally everything that you need to know and i was really impressed she also talked about like my budgeting just let me know oh based on your income how much you should be saving how much you should be able to spend and how much you should be able to spare for investing so like this is really nice that these banks offers like this kind of services i should have used it this whole time and years later it made me realize that okay she'll just try to sell me into this mutual fund well maybe you got some good advice with like the budgeting and stuff like that but

yeah that's that's the thing it's like ultimately nothing is for free is it no such thing as a free lunch um i'm curious because it kind of sounds like you kind of alluded to some things you're the thing. It's like, ultimately, nothing's for free, is it? No such thing as a free lunch. I'm curious, because it kind of sounds like you kind of alluded to some things you're like, oh, I wish I did this differently. What and you know, you have an amazing YouTube channel. And you talk about a lot of what we're discussing on there, because I'm sure a lot of newcomers like, oh, my gosh, I've been trying to find the answer. And I can't find it. So such a breath of fresh air to have someone who's experienced it firsthand and can then be like, this is what you should do, what you shouldn't do. What are some of like the most common mistakes that newcomers to Canada experience or, you know, things that people should be really aware of? So, you know, mistakes to avoid. Yeah. A couple of mistakes,

definitely. The first thing is to try as much as possible to conserve money on rent, especially if you are yet to start earning income. You don't want to be the first person to go and rent a high-rise condo, an expensive condo downtown Toronto, when you know you don't have an income for it. Because these landlords are not here to play. Once it's first of the month, they want to get their check. Otherwise, you're out.

Otherwise, you're out. Otherwise, you're out. Someone is ready to replace you right away. Second thing, be careful with the car. You don't need to buy a brand new car right away. Give it some time. If you're living in Canada permanently, you have several years to be able to get the fancy car, Tesla, your dream vehicle. You can always get it whenever you're ready. You don't have to do right away because

in canada the option of exploring financing options is there for you but when you're back from your home country financing is not really a thing anything you're buying you have to buy it outrightly so now most immigrants come here and they're excited with this oh my gosh i can get a brand new phone you get a brand new car without paying anything. I'll just be paying it in bits for the next 25 years or whatever. And they just get into it because they're too excited about it. So be careful. It takes your time. Don't let them sell you into anything.

You can get a car. Just get something that you could pay off with cash. Then after a few years, you can buy a brand new car if that's what you want to go for. But just give it some time then another advice i would say is try as much as you can to interact with people try to build a community reach out to people connect because it could really get lonely in canada i moved to canada with our family with our friends no keys literally just me so every morning or every night i'm literally staying at this so bold like so bold. Like I can't.

What do I do today? Yeah. It's really a bold move, I know. But now, today, I look back at that decision. I'm like, yeah, I'm glad I did that. I really did that. Yeah. When did you, how long have you been here?

When did you move? Yeah, 2019. I've just applied for my citizenship a few months ago in October last year. So waiting for my passport. Yeah. And so within that time frame, you came here, didn't know anyone, and you feel like you have a good sense of how things work and were able to build a community from scratch? Yes. Yes. I was able to do that. There's like, there are different ways to connect with people. You can connect on online these days, especially because I was able to do that. There's like, there are different ways to connect with people. You can connect online these days, especially because I moved just a few months before COVID. We had to make sure to explore interacting with people online, which I think ended up turning out to be much easier than it would have been if I had to interact with people in person.

Because so where do I meet all of these people if I need to interact with them but due to COVID we all we all had to interact virtually and build these relationships then when we're allowed to go out we all met in person and now it's like you already have a friend group without even realizing that you had one so that that was how I was able to like build connections and I also take it very intentionally on my part to stay in touch and reach out to people as well. Because sometimes you may have connections, but if you don't reach out or you don't keep in touch, then before you know it, in a few years time, you no longer have that connection. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good, just a good life lesson making. I've been like, I read a book recently about, you know, friendship and adulthood and how it's different.

And a lot of us just don't have those skills or we forget those skills, especially to if you know, a lot of people if they just live in their, you know, hometown forever, you've got that built in community, those built in friends, but if you move and you're starting from scratch, it's difficult to start. I'm curious, where did you start? Like, how did you find some of those communities? Even if I mean, I can't even imagine that you did this and also then COVID hit. I'm so sorry that you had experienced that. That's wild that you, and you're like, you're like, it all worked out in the end. How did you find some of those communities? Was it just like looking for people that have similar interests than you or like where'd you look online? Yeah. So first of all, I downloaded this app Meetup. Meetupup there are different groups where you can connect with people of similar interest so i used meetup quite a lot i joined like the photographic groups the videographic groups the group for people in tech bankers like all of those groups i joined them some of them i we actually met in person before the lockdown started i went for like this photography at island garden downtown and it

was really nice met two people take took like really nice pictures and stuff so that was really fun that was one way i was able to meet people then on the whatsapp i just requested for people that are already in canada to join some whatsapp groups i did that then on social media you just follow people that you see toronto in their bio You know, okay, this person lives probably in Toronto or somewhere. You connect with them, follow them on Instagram. Then for the professional side of things, I also checked on LinkedIn. I saw people that had experience and they were working in fields that was of my interest. Then I connected with them, just have like a nice short custom message that, hey, I'm new in the city.

I'm just looking to connect with people in similar industries I'm looking to participate or join there that was what I did and some of them would respond most of them will probably not but some of them will respond and build this connection and just chat once in a while about work professional space and that was how I did that and I've gotten quite like up to five people that has connected with me on LinkedIn based on oh they're new in Canada they're just trying to build their connections and connect with people that are in this space so just like that has really been nice yeah and and I'm sure too you're able to continue to build your community and get to know people through your YouTube channel because you have yeah you know a pretty you know a significant following on there

uh when did you start that channel and was it i mean it was it during lockdown or like uh i started the youtube channel before moving to canada actually but i didn't take it that much seriously so when i moved here i had like literally everything that I needed to like be more serious about my YouTube channel. So yeah, I started YouTube before moving to Canada. And what made you want to, I guess, share? Because I know your channel is, you know, a lot of its information about moving to Canada, but also, you know, you're a personal finance nerd like myself. So you also have lots of videos about taxes and budgeting. What made you want to, I guess, kind of also explore those topics? Like I said about my chats with the financial advisor, I felt like, hmm, some of this information, if I had known, I wouldn't have done this. If I had

known, I wouldn't have done that. So it's like just putting this information out there for new immigrants to take advantage of. And also considering when I moved here, I didn't see as much information for newcomers regarding getting into finance or understanding how finance and money works in Canada. So I just felt, okay, there's a gap for this and there's a need for information regarding newcomers in Canada for setting up their finances, building their investments and all of that. So that made me consider doing it from an immigrant perspective. Yeah. And I know, I mean, how we met was obviously through a program that was focused on YouTube. I'm curious, what do you hope to kind of, you know, produce in the future on your channel? Do you want to continue with lots of these topics? Do you want to explore something new?

With YouTube, I've been trying a little bit of everything. But in the future, I would still continue to share more finance-related content and lifestyle content. Maybe more towards lifestyle than finance, because I find that my audience for finance is not so strong, simply because if Canada is just a country that you're aspiring to be in then you wouldn't really take it as much seriously to learn about investing in Canada right now so now I'm just focusing more on content that my audience wants and maybe in the future I would start something that would be more of core finance based and I would enjoy that well I'm curious like you know since this may be in the future that you put more of those kind of

more personal finance focused videos out, but is there anything that you, you know, would like to share? Like, you know, you've been here for several years now, you've learned a lot and, you know, again, it sounds very different than where you're originally from. So what are some of like the best kind of,

you know, nuggets of personal finance that you've learned that you'd like to share with people listening? I think one would be to explore ETFs before mutual funds if you are going to invest. For sure, mutual funds should be the last thing on your list if you were to consider it. Then to be careful with your investments. Try to do your own personal research for sure then another advice would be to try as much as you can to use your credit card but use it wisely do not utilize more than 30 percent of your credit card limit that's something that once my brother landed in Canada that was the first thing I told him that be careful with your credit card don't see it as free money

because you find that some immigrants they see it as though because they don't understand it it's like okay so what am I how am I supposed to use this you find some people too scared to use it and you find some people that are overusing it so you have to be in the middle yeah use your credit cards just so that you can build your credit score. You can get more purchase protection. You can also get like points from it, but do not over-utilize it. The utilization rate that I recommend is 30% of your credit card limit. So if you find that you're over-utilizing your credit card,

just pay it off, then you can have more room for it. Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like that's probably a really common thing because I mean mean as you've probably recognized there's so many people that are more than happy to sell you whatever kind of financial product but they may not actually explain all of the details because if you knew all the details you may not actually buy the product or sign up or you know how these credit card companies make money is by people paying you know late or paying interest and so why would they really want to be like oh but make sure you use your credit cards response

responsibly we're going to put that information in the fine print and or just say it right at the end of the meeting when you've already signed your application or something like that so yeah it is buyer beware like you've just got to be so like that's the unfortunate reality of the situation is you know there's there's so much great information out there and it's never been more accessible, like investing in everything under the sun, personal finance, but you're still responsible and you still have to learn it. And if you make a mistake, you're the one who has to pay the consequence, unfortunately. I think everyone should take some time to educate themselves on the financial system

before getting into anything. It's really good to take some time to educate yourself then with time you don't have to rush it with time you grow and get to understand how it works yeah i'm curious when you were learning about you know how things were were different here any resources or books that were really helpful um there are a lot of resources online i used youtube quite a lot i also used um i signed up to this newsletter world or some or something i get this newsletter every day and there are usually links to other valuable resources then the cra also has like information lots of information that people do not even have idea of yeah no i know it sounds lame but yeah the cra website is actually pretty good it is yeah and i guess the other thing is if you don't know because again when you you first

get here you may not know where to to look i mean one thing that helped you was connecting with people that were already here to see where should i start hey i don't know where to find these resources and and ask around that's part of the the real big importance of why community is so vital because you can't do this alone and it's already lonely enough. You want to be able to get help when you need it, right? Yeah, that's for sure. Well, before I let you go,

where can people find you if they want to follow you on Instagram, on YouTube? Where can they find you? Yeah, sure. You can always follow me on Instagram at whiz underscore queen. I use the same handle on instagram and on twitter it's w-h-i-z underscore queen q-w-q-u-w-e-n what what is the name about i'm like whiz queen

what's that what's it from or what's it mean oh so when i was much younger i used to use slim queen then growing up i realized okay i'm no longer so slim anymore oh then i had to think of something more creative and i found that um you could be a whiz because you're like very talented you have skills in almost everything so why don't just go for whiz like the wizard yeah i love that And I wanted to change the spelling just so the spelling is not like W-I-Z. Yeah, it's just... Just to do something different.

I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It was a pleasure. And I'm going to link to a bunch of, you know, helpful resources that you were able to mention in this episode for anyone who's listening

or if anyone knows anyone who is thinking of moving to Canada and they're looking for some guidance. I know you would be a great resource on your YouTube channel. But again, some of the great resources you mentioned, I'll link in the show notes for this episode. But thanks again for joining me. Thank you very much, Jessica, for having me. It was a pleasure. And that was episode 360 of the More Money podcast with Bisola Tajani. You can find her on YouTube at youtube.com slash whizqueen. So that's W-H-I-Z queen. And you can also find her on Twitter and Instagram at whiz underscore queen. I will of course link to everything. She's also on TikTok under at whizqueen, but I will link to everything in the show notes for this episode.

Just go jessicamorehouse.com slash 360. And if you want to find any episode I've ever done, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast or jessicamorehouse.com slash the number of that particular episode to find the show notes for that particular episode. So make sure to check her out, give her a little subscriber follow and, you know, learn a little something, you know, why not? Okay, so since I mentioned this really quickly at the beginning of this episode, if you are interested, so this is what I'm going to be up to next week. And I'm very excited because it's only really happened once for me.

I will be flying out to beautiful Montreal next week. I've only ever been flown out to a location for kind of a speaking engagement once. And the first time was very like, I mean, this is the first crazy and scary. And I feel like even at that time, there was just rumblings of COVID. I was flown out by Desjardins to do this kind of small roundtable events that I moderated and hosted. And because I'm originally from Vancouver, I just stayed at my parents. So they saved some money, didn't have to pay for a hotel. I don't know why I didn't ask for a hotel, but I don't know. I was trying to be nice, I guess. And so that was fun. That was the last live event I did for years because of COVID. But now I'm going to Montreal this week, which is really exciting, to host an event called Invest in You by National Bank and you can attend. It is free. It is virtual. It is only an hour long and it is taking place on Wednesday, March 22nd at 3pm Eastern Time. And it is really, you know, we're talking about a lot of really important themes in my view. We're talking about finances and family,

inheritances, inflation, and really specifically from the female lens because it's me and an amazing group of guest speakers who are, I mean, I'm telling you, we've done some run-throughs. They're amazing. So you're going to want to attend. I'm going to include a link in the show notes for this episode. But honestly, if you just go to NBC.ca, there's like a big banner right on that front page so you can register and attend. So just wanted to put that out there. I'm doing an event. It's a virtual.

And you can attend no matter where you are in the world. Now, as for next week, I've got Houston Loke joining me. He is the Executive Vice President of Market Conduct at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, or FSRA. And I wanted to have him on the show to talk about industry regulation. This is something that I know that sounds maybe super dry, me saying it. But honestly, I got so many questions about how can we trust anyone that works in the industry? Because it seems like they all have their own agendas or they're just selling me stuff. How are these people kept in line and

kept in check to make sure that any bad apples are not kept within the industry or hidden away. And if there is, you know, something that, you know, happens, how can I make a complaint? How can I blow the whistle? How can, you know, I make sure that no one experiences that as well. And so that's why I wanted to have Houston on the show. There is regulation in the industry. I don't think it's perfect, but it exists. And we need to talk about how the structure exists within Canada. So I think you're going to enjoy that episode. But that's really it for me. So thank you so much for listening. A big shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I will see you back here for a fresh new episode next Wednesday. Have a good rest of your week. See you soon. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.