More Money Podcast - 390 What Every Canadian Should Know About Money - Academic Director of McGill Personal Finance Essentials Benjamin Croitoru

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

When my Canadian listeners ask me "I want to get a hold of my money, but I don't know where to start, also I'm looking for something that's free..." that's when I direct them to one of the best free personal finance resources around — the McGill Personal Finance Essentials course. Having first launched in November 2019 as free way to improve Canadians' financial literacy, it now boasts over 200,000 participants, and lucky you (and me), I've got Dr. Benjamin Croitoru on the podcast to talk all about it! Benjamin serves as the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and an Assistant Professor of Finance, McGill Desautels Faculty of Management. But more importantly, he's the Academic Director of the McGill Personal Finance Essentials online course and has been vital in its development and in helping so many Canadians level up their financial lives over the past 5 years. I wanted to bring him on the show to share why the course was built, what you can expect as a student, and some of the key things every Canadian should know about money. He even shares some of his best money tips, financial pitfalls to avoid and top book recommendations too. So I hope after you listen to today's episode, you'll take another step on your personal finance journey and take this free 8-module course. Did I mention you get a certificate upon completion to boot? I'll also be giving away copies of books featured on this season of the show, so make sure to visit jessicamoorhouse.com/contest to enter to win. Follow me: Instagram @jessicaimoorhouse Threads @jessicaimoorhouse TikTok @jessicaimoorhouse Facebook @jessicaimoorhouse YouTube @jessicamoorhouse LinkedIn - Jessica Moorhouse For full episode show notes and transcript visit jessicamoorhouse.com/390 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse, and this is episode 390 of the show. And I have, as I teased last week, if you were listening, I have Benjamin Quattaroo on the show, or should I say doctor, because he is a professor and has a PhD and, you know, just sounds fancier. But But Dr. Benjamin Quateru, he is on the show to share some of his wisdom and insight into something that he's been a part of since 2019. And I'm talking about the very popular McGill Personal Finance Essentials free online course, which has been super, super successful. I've taken it myself, of course, because it's free. And over 200,000 other people have signed up for it. So, I mean, you myself, of course, because it's free. And over 200,000

other people have signed up for it. So I mean, you're going to sign up for it after listening to this episode, I guarantee it. But a little bit more about Benjamin. So he joined McGill University's Faculty of Management in 2000, where he still teaches introductory finance, investments, and theoretical asset pricing at the undergrad, master's, and doctoral levels. And so it only kind of makes sense that he got involved and is the academic director of the McGill Personal Finance Essentials online course. But not only that, besides being a professor and being involved in this course, he is also

a researcher, obviously, and has presented some of his incredible research at the American Finance Association and the Western Finance Association meetings, as well as other conferences and universities in Europe and North America. And his research has even been published in leading journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science, and the Review of Financial Studies. Long story short, this guy knows a thing or two about money, and we really get into it in this episode. So I know you're going to absolutely love it. So without further ado, and also just a reminder, if you want to watch this episode instead of just listening to it, if you want to see what we both look like, why not just go to my

YouTube channel. It is there, jessicamorehouse.com slash YouTube, or just type in Jessica Morehouse into YouTube and you will find the channel. You can subscribe and you can see all of my videos, but also all of the podcast episodes that are now video podcasts for your viewing pleasure. But anyways, let's get to that episode with Benjamin. Welcome, Benjamin. Thank you so much for joining me on the More Money Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on because I think this course that has been around now, I think, for a few years, the McGill Personal Finance Essentials course, which is absolutely free. What a great resource. I took it myself, I think, several years ago, so I'm sure it's gone through many iterations and updates since then. So I think this is, I'm really excited to share so people can try it out for themselves.

So welcome. Good morning, Jessica. Yeah, I'm very excited too. I'm very proud of this course and very pleased with the success it has obtained over the last few years. Yeah. So let's start with you first, because I know you had a very important hand in creating it and launching it. How did

it all get started? It actually started with a discussion between our dean at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. Our dean had a conversation with people from RBC, from the Royal Bank, and they were launching a big initiative, something they call Future Launch. And the objective is to invest as part of their philanthropic activities. The objective was to better prepare young Canadians for life. Give them life skills. Yeah, something that we're not really prepared for. I mean, I'm sure you hear it from people who finish the course being like, I wish something like this existed when I was in high school and earlier. And unfortunately, most of us don't start our personal finance education until, I mean, for me, it was after university.

No, absolutely. I think basic personal finance should be taught in high school, if not junior high school, because yes, finance, if you want to know everything, if you want to have a career in finance, maybe it's complicated, but I really feel what makes, in my opinion, at least 90% of the difference is pretty basic. And absolutely, everybody is able to understand and to learn how to evoke the big mistakes. Absolutely. So how long has the course been around now? It's been around for, it's about four years now. And we're, I don't have the latest figure, but we're definitely, we're well over a quarter million people. So hopefully we might have reached 300,000. I'm not sure, but absolutely. It's been very pleased with this. It's been more successful

than what we expected. So of course that shows that there's also really great. People love a certificate. You get a certificate after the course. People love that. I like it. You get that little, here, you accomplished something. So I'm curious, what is kind of some of the general feedback you're getting from students who finish it? The feedback has been very positive. I think we found the right format that's attractive to people. We've had a really good technical team. I mean, it's been done with a professional. It's not been done on Zoom in my office. It's been done with a professional video production team. That's very good. So I think we found the right format. I think we found the right topics. By the way, as you mentioned, so the course has been around for four years, but we have been updating the modules.

And we've also launched some recently two new optional modules on the crypto assets and sustainable investing. So we've been trying to teach people the basics about some of the topics that are really topical, trendy these days. Yeah, I think because I'm still on the email list, I got an email saying, oh, there's some new bonus material. I think that's amazing because that's the other thing with finance is, although the foundations are pretty much, they're pretty standard budgeting, investing. Like, it's pretty standard. There are, as we've seen over just the course of, you know 10 15 years there's been so many new developments like esu was not something that we talked about back then crypto was not something that we talked about but now they're being talked about and i think it's really important to have some you know very uh organized

and and fact-checked information in the course because i'm sure what you've seen too is a lot of there's a lot of information out there, a lot of misinformation. Absolutely. But I like what you said about the basic principles of finance are not changing. You know, they've been around for hundreds of years and the kind of bubbles that we've seen recently for certain types of investments, they've literally been around for hundreds of years. So I think the key thing is that, yes, there are innovations, and a lot of them, you know, of course, there's been a lot of negative things in the news.

You know what happened with some crypto assets, for example. But I think there have been many positive developments in recent years, basically a more democratic access to investing at a lower cost than what used to be available. So lots of exciting developments, some good, but also some additional risks. But the basic principles of finance, you know, the basic mistakes that people make and that people should learn how to avoid, they're not changing that much. Yeah, which for me is like, you know, that's a nice thing, because what the feedback I get from people, especially as they are starting to like listen to my podcast, start to educate themselves about personal finance, it can be overwhelming. There's a lot to know. Like you

said, if you want to have a career in this, that is kind of a different situation. You can go so many different routes, it can be as complex as you want. But when it comes to like organizing it, doing it on your own, it doesn't have to be that simple. So I'm curious when you created the syllabus for the course, how did you know what should be in there? What was crucial to be in there for students? I think we have to convince. So when we talked about the people, so by the way, one thing that I want to say is that um so as i mentioned the course has been funded by rbc by the royal bank foundation but i want to and we talked to them at the beginning of the course uh we talked about the general topics we would discuss but i want to stress that they've

been very good uh they've not influenced the contents there's not like yeah and you know so one thing by the way, I wanted to say when I heard you talk about finance looking complicated is that I think one reason for this is that the financial industry has a tendency to make it look more complicated than it should be because of course it makes it easier for them to charge more money and inflate their profits. So I'm often very suspicious about the financial industry. And I think people should be.

I think it's good to have a good level, just a baseline level of suspiciousness, of suspicion, the exact same way. It's like you've always got to take everything with a grain of salt, be careful. But this is why I think it's so important for people. And this is what I've been telling people for years and years and years. Why it's so important that you have to take your finances in your own hands? You cannot just hand it over to a professional and hope that they are going to do a great job. Because how will you know if they are if you of good people good finance professionals that can help you but you cannot get 100 percent of your information from people who are trying to sell you something i tell people you have to educate yourself and get your information well from sources that are

more objective and i believe the course the course is one of them So I'm hoping that people will get more information, read. There are a lot of great books that exist. But you're like, are you saying this because it's true, it's factual, or you believe it? Or are you saying this because you're getting paid to say it, or you have some other, you are a professional working for this bank or whatever. It's like any industry, there's always going to be other factors out there. But again, that's why it's so important to educate yourself so you can figure those things out or take everything with a grain of salt, right? Yeah, but it's not just people who are paid to pass a message, just people get too excited. And of course, nowadays with the internet, anybody can post whatever they want. So you cannot... Everyone has a strong opinion about something.

Yeah. You cannot... They don't always exactly know what they're talking about. Yeah. So when people ask me where to get information, there are some very good books.

I would say that typically... Well, I'm curious, what are some of your top books, ones that you'd like to recommend? So there's a classic. So it's a book that has been around for 50 years, but it's actually been updated regularly. And there's a new edition that came out,

I think, just the last few months. It's a book that's called A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. And I think it's a fantastic book. Yeah, and what's interesting, when it came out 50 years ago, it was quite innovative. And it came under heavy criticism, I'm sure. But it's been, as you know,

more data has been available over the last 50 years. The central message of this book has only become stronger. I mean, there are a few, certainly some other resources. There's an offer that I like very much. I would say the majority of these books are maybe a tad too advanced for somebody who would be just starting. But he actually wrote a very short pamphlet that's available for free online.

And it's called If You Can. So I believe that if you just Google If You Can, it's the first thing that shows up. And the author's name is William Bernstein. And what's interesting is that he was not originally a finance professional. He's actually a doctor. And he got interested in finance and he wrote some great books. And now I think he does that for a living. But there's a short pamphlet that's targeted toward young people. rested in finance and he wrote some great books. And now I think he does that for a living. But there's a short pamphlet that's targeted toward young people. And it includes some suggestions for further reading. So if you want to read one thing that's fun, that's very accessible,

that probably takes less than one hour to read, just Google if you can available for free. And yeah, I think that's the other important thing i'm just thinking back to when i was starting my journey when it comes to books it is i feel like actually very important to start with books that are at your kind of uh literacy level because i remember reading some that were more complex and then it honestly had the opposite effect it wasn't like oh i learned all this stuff that was more advanced it it scared me. Then I didn't want, then I retreated. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. And then it just like hits your confidence a little bit.

So it's really important to like find those books that are at your level. And then as you develop, you know, more, you know, literacy, you can, you know, keep going. I can give you one other example, something that came out recently that I thought. So don't agree with 100% but I still feel overall it's very good, very accessible. It's a book called Balance by Andrew. I think the author is Andrew Hallam. I love Andrew. That's a great book.

Yeah. It's very accessible. And yeah, what I like is that he talks about personal finance. The way I think people should talk about it is that it's part of wellness, right? People are very, a lot of people are very interested you know what they eat how to exercise but they feel finance is too complicated they don't want to touch that but actually i don't think it's more complicated plus for a lot of

people uh money is the number one source of stress you know so so finance, it's not just about having more money. It's about feeling more secure and eventually happier. Having balance in your life in all areas. But yeah, it's so true that you say that. I talk to people all the time and it's like everything else in my life is good. The one thing I just keep avoiding or I cannot figure out is money. And absolutely. And I'm not saying that money buys happiness. I don't think that's the case. But sadly, money troubles are a major, major obstacle. Yeah.

And if you understand money and you can figure out a way to get enough to cover your needs and everything else, I mean, yeah, that's what I found. I struggled and I did have maybe more issues in other areas of my life whether that was my health my fitness my mental health when i didn't have the finance stuff figured out and once we can integrate that into your life and then you realize it's not that complex you absolutely are capable and i believe just like you everyone is capable of learning this stuff and integrate into their lives it may take time and that's okay it will you'll see an improvement in all the other areas of your life. Everything else will seem less amplified and

intense. You're like, oh, okay, we can breathe again. Yeah, completely. So with that, I want to kind of dive into some of the components in the course. I think it's really well organized. I also really appreciate that there's even a section on behavioral finance, which I think is being talked about more and more kind of broad things. Like I talk about it a lot on the podcast now because, you know, for when I first started in personal finance, everyone was just talking about the how to's, the numbers, the math of it. They never talked about behavior. And that's usually the thing that trips people up is why do I keep I know what to do and I'm just not doing it. I don't know why it's the behavior, but to kind of go back to the beginning of this course, we really start at the kind of foundation, budgeting and saving. I feel like people get sick of hearing that term budgeting, but it is one of

those components where it's like, if you don't have that, you can't really move forward with other areas. You want to kind of talk a little bit about what are some of those key elements so people can start off on the right foot? Yeah. well, we try, you know, to organize the course, basically around the main steps in someone's financial journey. So yes, before, obviously, before you can do anything, well, you need to start saving at least a little bit. And having a budget might help. So there's a module of budgeting, a module of borrowing, because of course, it's nice to save, but in many circumstances, it makes sense to borrow money. But there are many different ways to borrow money, and they're not all the same. There are big differences.

There's a module about investing, a module, so maybe something that doesn't sound too exciting for young people, a retirement planning. Which I think doesn't sound too exciting for young people, retirement planning. Which I think is really important because like you said, we talk, especially young people, we talk about investing. We don't really talk about the key elements of retirement planning. And that can be like just so, so, so, so important to figure out, especially as a Canadian. I don't think most people understand some of the programs that we have. Absolutely.

And I think, again, I understand maybe for millennials, it's not very exciting to think about retirement, but people should think about the purpose. You know, what are they investing for? And for most people, it's for retirement and to take care of your kids, of your family. Okay, so definitely understanding how retirement works, how much you might need. Well, that can help a lot in your planning and having realistic expectations. How much do you have to save? That's very helpful. We do have a module about

real estate. So, of course, we cannot tell people, you know, should they buy? When is the time to buy? We don't tell them that, but still we give them, I think, a good idea of the main factors to take into consideration. And for real estate, is it investing in real estate or home ownership? No, we're talking mostly about home ownership. Okay. Because i think for most people it's the for a lot of people it's really the number one financial decision in in your life yes uh we do have a module as you mentioned on behavioral finance so learning a little bit about your psychology how interacts with how it interacts with financial issues i think it's very useful. Unfortunately, human psychology is not very well adapted

to finance, to investing. So I think if you know, and probably it has to do with the fact that humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, and for most of that time, there was no finance. There were no financial markets right so um yeah just naturally people may don't naturally take um make the right decisions so i think knowing a little more about basic human psychology knowing about the mistakes that you're likely to make if you're not very careful can be very powerful to help you avoid the main mistakes.

Absolutely. Especially, I feel like often when we make a financial mistake, we blame ourselves as an individual on the individual level, thinking like, oh my gosh, I'm bad at money, or I don't know, what have you. Yeah, exactly. Everyone's actually naturally bad at money. I've improved. I've learned. I tell people a lot, here are the mistakes to avoid. Sometimes maybe I forget to mention, I've made all the mistakes. historically, we're still running off of, you know, behaviors that were learned back in the Stone Ages that we have not unlearned. And so we have to constantly try to regulate that and figure out a path forward, which is not easy to do at all times, especially, I mean, I'm sure you saw a lot of this too, during COVID, when everyone was just freaking out and didn't know what to do, that people made a lot of mistakes because we were just running

the show off of emotions and not logic, which is difficult to manage. Yeah, I tell one thing I like to tell people, and it's probably something I read in a book that stuck with me, is that investing, I think it's relatively simple. Again, maybe if you want to know everything, it's not simple, but I really feel that what makes at least 90% of the difference is very simple. But simple is not the same thing as easy. And it's like, and one thing, and again, it's something I read somewhere, but I think it's a good comparison.

It's a little like losing weight, you know. Losing weight is simple because you know that if you eat less, if you move more, you are going to lose weight. It's a certainty. But it's not easy to do. Not easy to put it into practice. Certainly, I'm an example of that. It's like a lifetime struggle.

It's like, I know what to do. It's just hard to actually do it. And that's the exact same thing with money, isn't it? It's the same thing with investing. Yeah, it sounds simple, but it's not easy to avoid the big mistakes because you have to fight your own psychology and to some extent you have to fight the financial industry that you know you you have to realize that well they they make money by taking it from their customers which is fine of course because they provide a valuable service and we want financial institutions that are profitable

because it makes the financial system safer but that's not a reason to give them more than the than what's fair than the minimum okay and of course well they're they're not charities they want to make money they can't resist the temptation to take a little more from investors, from their clients, well, than the minimum, certainly. They spend a lot of marketing money to make you spend more than the minimum in financial services. And there's certain, I mean, yeah, just talking about the marketing of it all. I mean, one thing that I hear often from people in my audience or people who enter, I have an investing course that I sell as well. And the number one thing that I hear is like, you know, I asked like, are you currently investing? They're like, yeah, sort of. I don't really know what I'm

doing, but I'm using Wellsimple. And I'm like, that makes sense because Wellsimple spent a lot of money on marketing. But the thing that they didn't really provide that we need to kind of fill in that gap, unfortunately, as our own people, individuals, is the education component. You don't want to just open an account and then you're like, shoot, I don't actually know what I'm doing. You know, so it's again, there's always some gaps. And it's like, this is why this course, I think, is so valuable. This will be a great entry point into filling in some of those gaps. So you can feel more confident and knowledgeable and feel good about what you're doing, whether it's sticking with what you're doing and they're like, okay, great.

I am doing it right. Or be like, oh gosh, no, this is not right. I need to change something. No, no. I tell people there's most likely, so that stuff is very important, of course, but most likely there's no emergency. It can wait. Whatever you do with your investments, for example, it can wait a few weeks. Yeah, nothing's really going to happen in a few weeks.

It's unlikely. Spend a little bit of time getting some knowledge from objective sources that are not trying to sell you anything. And then you can think about a plan. There's no need to rush. Yeah. No, I think that's something that does not get talked about. You hear a lot of, oh, the sooner you start, the better. And I think that's what creates that sense of urgency.

Like, well, I got to start now. But it's like, you can take a few days. You can take a few weeks. You can take a few months. Don't take a few years. If you can, start sooner than later. But you don't have to rush. You don't have to do something and then be like wait what was i doing you know like you're not just like just going back to the fitness idea it's like you're not going to just start a detox

because you want to start losing weight right away it's like whoa maybe do some research to be like is that actually healthy is that actually going to work is you know find out all the details before diving in um just to kind of talk a touch on the few bonus components, because I know those are relatively new. The responsible investing component. Do you want to kind of speak to that? Because that is definitely a topic that is becoming a lot more popular. People want to talk about, especially young people.

Yeah, I mean, we just tried to clarify what it means. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so about responsible investing, okay, it's something I feel a little uncomfortable talking about it because I don't want to look like a bad person. But I just feel, I think there's a lot of people

who feel that by doing this, they're going to get higher returns. And I don't think it's completely realistic. So I'm not against, of course, I'm not against responsible investing, but I think you have to do it for the right reasons. And I think there were some surveys that actually showed that the majority of people

felt that they would get higher returns by investing in the right businesses, the responsible businesses. And sadly, that's what I tell my students, you know, investing, it's not a morality competition. Yeah. The higher returns, doing the right thing is not always... Always, yes. Unfortunately, life is sometimes not fair and financial markets are definitely not fair.

So what I tell people about responsible investing is, well, again, don't get too excited. Don't jump in it. Don't, I would say, invest 100% of your portfolio in great businesses. And if you want to do it it do it for the right reasons and i would say well the right reasons could be because it makes you feel better and of course i think that's certainly um certainly um a good justification for doing this and also uh yes if

you if you feel you are more pessimistic than average, if you think that global warming, for example, is going to become even worse than what's expected, and certainly let's hope we're not going there, but then investing more in green businesses might make sense, basically as a risk management strategy, because this type of businesses might do better if things become even worse. But again, I tell people, don't just do it like many people because you think that's the future and that's how you're going to make more money. The other thing I want to say is that yes, companies care about sustainable investing, but

yet there are some reasons to doubt the effectiveness of sustainable investing. I can give you maybe one or two examples. For example, what you've seen, I guess I can quote one company, I don't think they care, the big food company, Nestle, what they did is that they sold their bottled water business to a private company. And bottled water, well, as you know, it's an industry that's not green, that consumes a lot of plastic. So that's one thing you see. If you're a company and your shareholders are demanding, you know, that you become greener, well, some things that might happen is what I explained. Basically, selling the part of your business that are not so green to people, to private companies, which mean companies that are extremely difficult to control.

So there's definitely the potential for some unintended consequences of sustainable investing that might be dangerous. Yeah, it's like that didn't actually fix the problem. Nestle just looks better. And they made some money from selling that part of their business. You're like, this didn't actually do any good. And I just to kind of reiterate one of your points that I think you were getting at is when a lot of people are focused on I want to do

responsible investing, they can do what some other investors do if they're really into tech or some, you know, particular sectors, get too concentrated and just be investing in those types of companies where it's like diversification is key. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, no. And one example I want to give is that I think a lot of people, again, are investing in green businesses because they think it's the future. And yeah, yeah, that might be true. But one thing that's true in investing, it's been true for a long time, is that having an industry that you think is the future, well, it does not mean it's going to deliver great performance for investors. And there's a great example of this, and it's something that I read a long time ago,

but it really stuck with me. I read that in an interview of Warren Buffett, the legendary investor. So I think it's a credible name in investing. And he gave the following example. He gave the example of, you know, if you can think of one industry that throughout during the 20th century completely changed people's lives and went through incredible growth. So I asked my students and well, usually people guess pretty fast. It's the car industry, right? The car industry basically barely existed at the beginning of the 20th century. And of course it went through incredible growth. So then you might

think, well, it's such a pity that my great, great, great grandparents didn't invest in the car industry, all their invest in the car industry all their money in the car industry at the beginning of the 20th century would be multi-millionaires by now but actually that's absolutely not true the car industry as a whole has not been generous has not been good to investors and one way to see this is that how many car manufacturers have existed at some point in the u.s in the 20th century i also asked my students and the answer is actually uh several thousand and what happened to probably 99 of those several thousand i think buffett counted about warren buffett counted about 3 000 but he he said interview he does not think he was able to get a comprehensive list.

Well, most of them went out of business. Unless you invested in Ford or something, maybe. But yeah, most people probably think of just those big companies, but not 3,000 others that did not last. So that's something. Another similar example is airlines. That's also an industry that changed people's life, went through incredible growth. It's been a disaster for investors. Very, very bad returns.

And I think there's a little bit of the same expectations about green investing, green businesses. So, yes, there might be the future. And let's hope they're part of the future because, well, we need to do something about climate change, right? But potential for future growth and changing people's lives does not mean automatically great, good returns for investors.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's really important. Kind of along the same lines, talking about like the future and future growth, that's where I think the other bonus module about crypto is so important in blockchain. And a lot of people were talking about it, especially during COVID when we're all stuck in our houses and people just like this is the future. We're not going to have cash anymore. It's all going to be crypto. And then it didn't really go that way. People are starting to talk about it again now. But they were silent for a good while. What is involved in that module? What are some of the key things that you wanted people to know? Because I'm sure you've seen this too. There's a lot of confusing and misinformation out there.

No, I would say the number one thing I tell people about crypto, and that it's something very basic, but that people seem to forget. Let's compare an investment in crypto and an investment in a stock. I mean, when you invest in stocks, you, as I'm sure your listeners know, you own a little portion of a company and hopefully the company is going to make profits that go to investors. So what this means is that when you invest in stocks, there's some money coming from outside the market that go to investors. So what this means is that when you invest in stocks, there's some money coming from outside the market that go to investors. And what this implies is that, yes, the stock market is very risky,

especially in the short term, but the odds are in your favor because there's that money coming from outside the system, outside the market that go to investors. So even if you're not very good with stocks, it's possible to make mistakes, of course. But on average, the odds are in your favor. Even if you're not very good, you can expect to make money. Crypto, well, that's not the same because there's no, with very few exceptions,

but that are basically negligible. With crypto, it's not the same. There's no money coming from outside the market that goes to investors. So if you invest in crypto, well, the only way that you're going to make money is if you find another investor who's willing to buy your crypto for a higher price. And, well, if you look at history, that kind of phenomenon, you can't really rely on this. Okay, so the odds are not in your favor with crypto. So yeah, people have a tendency to forget that maybe cryptocurrencies have a role to play as a means of payment.

And even that is very questionable because of, well, you've seen all the problems with the volatility and the safety issues. The fraud that has been taking place. So people, I guess lots of people were excited, you know, getting out of the traditional financial system, a decentralizing thing. But maybe what the last few years have shown is that, yes, the financial system is maybe too complicated, but there's a reason why we have all these institutions and these regulations, because they greatly reduce the likelihood of fraud.

But I think people have had the tendency to forget that, yes, it's possible that crypto is going to change our life, that it's going to become very important as a mean of exchange of payment. But it does not mean that it's going to make a great investment. It's a little same thing as, well, keeping a pile of dollars under your mattress, that's a terrible investment. Okay, even though, of course, dollars are used so much as a means of payment. You mentioned something, and I'm sure maybe this is touched on in the behavioral finance section, but how even though, like you said earlier, you can look at the history to see what's probably going to happen in the future, because it's kind of the same stuff, maybe at different points in time,

but it's pretty like, oh, I've seen something similar like this before. Why do you think we have such bad memories? I mean, people just forget or they just don't want to look back on the past. I think it's just the psychology. But I like what you said, that history has a tendency to repeat itself in financial markets. But of course, it repeats itself in a way that it's a bit different every time it does not repeat itself in a way that would make it easy to forecast what's coming next but still uh no i tell people one of the best investments you can make with your time is learn about financial history because you'll have an idea of the of the risks the risks that are there and the mistakes not to not to repeat but uh yes people i think uh have a short

memory because they're um i mean the big crisis happen in financial markets but they don't happen that often yeah yeah yeah okay and um i think it's basically human human psychology that uh yeah it's just very hard to resist the temptation when a new type of investments uh sounds very exciting so what i remember very well so it was the beginning of my investing life around the dot-com craze around 1990, 2000. For a short time, I had the impression that everybody except me was making a killing in financial markets. And, you know, even though I knew, I mean, I knew about bubbles, people knew about bubbles still.

When you have the impression that everybody except you is making a killing in financial markets, it's very, very hard to resist the temptation. It really is, isn't it? That's what I was saying about investing being simple but not easy. Well, it's not easy to resist the temptation, even if you know about bubbles. It's not easy to resist the temptation, even if you know about bubbles. It's not easy to resist the temptation when you think that everybody's doubling their money in a few months by investing in dot-coms or cryptos.

Yeah, you feel like if they're doing it and I'm not doing it, am I the idiot? Right? Right. Yeah. And the problem is that in this type of situation, there are always some very convincing and qualified experts and very smart people who are telling you, no, it's not a bubble. This time it's different. I tell people when you hear a version of this sentence, this time it not different. Look at it. Yeah. Crack open those history books and see something similar. Yeah. I feel like I see that. I saw that especially because I feel like the bubble and the crash and correction we saw during COVID, which it was different in that it was very condensed and quick because, again, we hadn't really experienced a pandemic like that before but it was the first time that I'd ever really recognized I'm like this actually feels very similar to 2007 2008 what was going on there different scenario but the feeling in the air feels very you know similar but even with that just everybody else, it was hard for me to not feel that anxiety of like, should I take like, you know, people were like, should I put all my money into these, you know, Tesla and all these tech stocks? Or should I take all my money out? Because the money, you know, the market's going down. And I'm like, it was really hard just to take the advice

that I give every person ever, which is like, stick with whatever, if you made a plan that's solid, stick with it and don't do anything different. Very difficult to put that into practice. Especially when all the financial headlines, literally we're saying different versions of this time is different. Everyone panic. No, absolutely. But you remember what happened with the COVID crisis?

The market went down over 30% in a very short time. And it actually recovered amazingly quickly. And I know very, very smart people who sold, and I think who lost quite a bit short time. And it actually recovered amazingly quickly. And I know very, very smart people who sold and I think who lost quite a bit of money. Yeah, no. So I know there's so many great nuggets of information and additional resources that you recommend people to dive into.

I think personally, this course is such a great starting point. Or even if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've done research. I mean, I took this course just to see what was in there. I thought it was really well organized and the content was so, I mean, again, it's like there's professors who are doing this. This is really, really great and put together. Where can people find more information? How can they register? Is it always available for people to register? How does it work? McGillPersonalFinance.com. And you just Google McGill Personal Finance. So I feel a little embarrassed because it used to be that for technical reason, it was closed once in a while. I believe it's not the case. I believe it's not the case anymore. Yeah, I'm looking on the website

and there's no timeline. So I think it might be just open enrollment now, which is great because what a great thing to do. You know, this episode is airing in the new year. This is a great thing

to do in the new year. I always tell people, it's like if you, you know, maybe spent a little too much or didn't maybe make some of the best decisions in 2023, that's okay. 2024 is here and you can right those mistakes. And this is a great opportunity that you can do from the comfort of your own home online for free. For free.

Again, it's absolutely free. It's been designed to be accessible to everyone who's willing to spend a few hours. And yeah, again, the information is, I'm not saying we're always right about everything, but at least we're objective. We are not trying to sell you anything. Yeah, no, I think that's really important and hard to find. So thank you so much, Benjamin, for coming on the show. Again, I think this is such a great resource for Canadians, and I'm so glad it's around. I'm excited to see more students enroll. So thank you so much for taking the time to coming on the podcast. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much, Jessica. It was my pleasure.

And that was episode 390 with Benjamin Quatturo. Make sure to check out the course that we were talking about throughout this episode. It's called the McGill Personal Finance Essentials online course. Again, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, over 200,000 people have already signed up since it launched in 2019. And it is free and you can find it at mcgillpersonalfinance.com. That is mcgillpersonalfinance.com. Or you can just check out the show notes for this episode, jessicamorehouse.com slash 390. I will link it in there. And it will also include information of things that we talked about, the transcripts, some key takeaways from this episode, and of course,

the video of this interview. If you want to check that out, share it with friends, whatever you want to do. A few reminders. So I am giving away a few books of past guests. So I'm giving away a copy of Career Forward from last week's guest. And I'm also giving away a copy of The Pandemic Paradox from our first guest of the season, Scott Fulford. That was episode 389. And just a reference, last week was episode 389 with Grace Puma and Christiana Smith-Shi. So if you want to enter to win those books, please do jessicamorehouse.com slash contest is where you can find that information. Also, if you don't know, because we kind of talked about, you know, online courses, I do have an online course. It's called Wealth Building Blueprint

for Canadians. It's been around for over three years now. What? How did that happen? Over 400 students are in it. It is by application and admin. It's by me only. So you do have to go through a few hoops to make sure it is a good fit for you and you're a good fit for the course. But if you want to find more information about it, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash course. But it is my investing course all about boring, passive investing. That's right. I don't care about getting rich quick. I just want to get rich slowly, but eventually. okay? That is how I live my life. And so if you want to learn all the ins and outs of investing, if you're Canadian, and how to,

you know, build a diversified portfolio of index funds so you can reach your goals, whatever they are, retirement, buying a home one day, short, long-term goals, whatever, all the information is in this course that is pretty comprehensive. You can check out reviews and you can ask me whatever question you want if you apply. And then you get accepted for a phone call with me. And then you have a call with me over Zoom to chat and I can answer any questions that you have and make sure it's a good fit for what you want to do. So jessicamorehouse.com slash course. And lastly, if you want to get your financial house together, I always recommend a budget. And hey, I actually have some budget spreadsheets on my website, jessicamorehouse.com slash shop if you want to check those out. I have them for

literally any situation. If you work for a company, if you work for a company and have a side hustle, if you work for a company, but your husband or wife or partner of any sort is self-employed. You know, like any situation I could think of, I made a spreadsheet for it. So yeah, check it out. JessicaMorris.com slash shop. I think that's all I have to share at the minute. And of course, a big thank you to my wonderful podcast team. Video edit done by Justice Carrar and produced by MRAVCanada.com.

So thanks again for sticking around. I will see you back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode of the More Money Podcast. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network