More Money Podcast - 391 Your Future Self Will Thank You: How to Retire Well - Author of Your Best Financial Life, Anne Lester

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

It's been a tough road for millennials and Gen Zs with mountains of student debt, recessions, layoffs, and housing prices going through the roof to deal with. But as my next guest shares in this episode, all hope isn't lost and it's still possible to live your best financial life and have a comfortable retirement. Anne Lester, author of Your Best Financial Life, has been hailed as a "pioneer and innovator" by Morningstar and has worked in all aspects of retirement for the past 30 years. In other words, she's seen plenty of ups and downs in the markets and people's financial lives and still believes that anyone can change their financial future if they follow the strategic path she sets out in her book. She was able to become "work optional" at 60 and hopes to teach as many people as she can how they can take control of their financial destinies and live a better financial life moving forward. I'll also be giving away a copy of her book, so make sure to visit jessicamoorhouse.com/contest to enter to win. This episode of the More Money Podcast is presented by The Globe and Mail. Visit TGAM.ca/Jessica to get unrestricted access to globeandmail.com for only $1.99/week for 52 weeks (plus tax). 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/391 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 391 of the show. And just a reminder, continue listening however you choose to listen. You do whatever you want. But in case you don't know, I am now doing a video podcast. So if you want to see, watch, and have a visual component, you can do so by checking out the full video podcast on my YouTube channel, jessicamorehouse.com slash YouTube, or just type in Jessica Morehouse into YouTube and you can find me right there. If you want to watch and see what I look like while I podcast, which is something no one's known what I look like podcasting until recently. I mean,

if you really want to be specific or like, you know, get into the truth of it. Yes, there was a season where I tried doing a video podcast. And I don't, gosh, it is on my old podcast channel. I do have a podcast channel, More Money Podcast. If you just Google it, and it'll take you right there. It has all of the previous just audiogram kind of episodes, if you want to listen. But there was one season where I did it. But I think it was too early. Too soon. It was Zoom. And it was, it wasn't pretty. Let me just tell you. It was, yeah, and just the haircut, everything. So anyways, I'm going to pretend like that didn't exist and this is my first time ever doing video podcasts. But anyways, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Let's get to

the guest. Let's get to the important thing. I've got Anne Lester on the show. She is a media commentator and a speaker who is on a mission to help Americans, but also Canadians of all walks of life to achieve a safe and secure retirement. And she's been hailed as a pioneer and innovator by the esteemed financial services company Morningstar. And Anne has worked on all aspects of retirement for the past 30 years. Most recently, she spent 15 years as head of retirement solutions for JP Morgan Asset Management, where she traveled the country and spoke to tens of thousands of investors. And she has a brand new book out called Your Best Financial Life. Save smart now for the future that you want, which is a very simple step-by-step

blueprint that anyone can use to understand retirement savings and investing for the future that you want, which is a very simple step-by-step blueprint that anyone can use to understand retirement savings and investing for the future that you deserve. So yeah, we're going to be talking about retirement, y'all. I hope you're excited, as excited as I am, because I love talking about investing in retirement, especially with someone who has been fully immersed in that world for a very long time. And of course, I'm going to be giving away a copy of her book. So listen to the end of this episode. I'll give you information on how you can enter to win her book or a bunch of other books that I'm giving away. But with that, we've got so many good nuggets to share in this interview. So let's

get to that episode. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by The Globe and Mail. We've yet to see what 2024 has in store for us when it comes to the economy, interest rates, housing prices, and inflation. But the one thing you can always be certain of is no matter what's going on in the world, you'll never regret investing in yourself by growing your financial knowledge. And what better way to do that than to check out all of the amazing resources from the Globe and Mail, Canada's leading source of business and investing news. At globeandmail.com, you can learn more about saving, investing, and reducing your debt from their expansive array of personal finance content, helpful tools like The Globe's watch list and RRSP savings calculator, podcasts, and newsletters like my personal favorite,

Carrick on Money. And for a limited time for more money listeners, The Globe is offering unrestricted access to globeandmail.com for just $1.99 per week for the first 52 weeks plus tax. For full details, visit tgam.ca slash Jessica. Once again, that's tgam.ca slash Jessica. Welcome to the More Money Podcast, and I'm so excited to have you on the show. And very excited for your book to come out, Your Best Financial Life, Save Smart Now for the Future That You Want, which I think is a great title because I feel like I talk about your best financial life or just creating a financial life that you want over and over again. And you really do have a background in all of this specifically to in the retirement planning and future planning, which I think is so important, especially for younger people,

Gen Z, millennials, but you know, every age. So do you want to kind of start off by giving a little bit of your background and how you came to want to kind of put all your expertise in one book. Jessica, first, thanks so much for having me because this is exactly what I want to be doing and why I wrote the book, which is really helping people, as you say, everybody, but especially people in their 20s and 30s, Gen Zs and millennials, understand that being young is such a gift. And it's a gift in a lot of ways, but it's really a gift financially. And one of the tricks is it doesn't feel like that when you're in the middle of it, because you feel like you're being bombarded with ways to spend your money and you never have enough. But when you're in your 20s and 30s, you have so much time. Time is magic when you're thinking about your future finances. I wrote the book after working for almost 30 years as an investment manager,

as a portfolio manager for J.P. Morgan. I designed and built target date funds for J.P. Morgan, the smart retirement funds, and managed those until I retired myself about four years ago. And when I retired, what I really want to do is help people understand the consequences of decisions they don't necessarily know they're making. Now, just from looking at you, you look fairly young to be retired. Yeah, I'm technically a boomer. I'm gonna I'm gonna be 60 this year. So okay, but still, like, even the idea of retiring at 60 is I feel like most people my age think that's just that's not possible. That's not gonna happen.

I'm not really retired. Like I left my full time. I left my full time gig. You're financially independent. Like you don't have to work. No, no, no, no. I'm a spender and not a saver. And my husband and I would be able to keep body and soul together on what we've saved, but it is not a lifestyle to which I aspire. So I'm still active. I'm on several corporate boards. I earn money from that. And I hope to be, you know, out there speaking and talking about my book. And I hope that generates some revenue, too. So I'm not I'm not I how to set yourself up and to, I mean, to be in a position at your age to, well, I don't have to work that job anymore. I can do something different is, you know, again, lots of people in their 20s, 30s, there's like, I don't know if that's ever going to be me. I know a lot of people are afraid that they're going to have to, I was looking at lots of the stats, I'm going

to have to work until my 70s and 80s. You know, just social security or pensions provided by the government are not going to be, what if they're not there or what if they're not going to be enough? How can I save up and also, you know, buy a house and all these things? Everything just seems so much more difficult for the younger generations. But it's not impossible. So I want to kind of dive into, you know, what were some of the things that you really wanted to make sure that young people knew? Because obviously, things are different than your generation, things are more expensive, things are a little bit difficult in lots of areas. But there's a lot of good things that

have also come out in the past 10-20 years. So I always kind of think it's like, some things are worse, some things are better. And ultimately, it's about kind of redefining, I guess, what, you know, financial independence or, or freedom means to you. And then honestly, kind of throwing out the old rules and kind of making your own new ones, because some of them just don't apply anymore. So I think I think you made a great point when you said that some things are worse and some things are better. And one of the things that is, I think, really challenging for people who are entering the workforce now or even did 10 years ago is housing is a lot more expensive. It takes a much bigger part of your paycheck to buy the average house

today. One thing that we don't see is that the average house is a lot nicer and a lot bigger than it was. So on the one hand, the average price is a lot higher. On the other hand, we're getting way more for that money. My parents thought they were doing really well. I grew up with two siblings. So there were five of us in a house with two bathrooms. It was maybe 16 or 1800 square feet. It was not a big house. It was not a luxurious house. It was great. And it was average or maybe a little nicer than average. Like we lived in a nice neighborhood, not the nicest neighborhood, but a good neighborhood. But today, I wouldn't, my kids wouldn't want to live in that house. I mean, we've all gotten,

you know, I want a programmable thermostat. Thank you very much. I don't want a window air conditioning unit. Like what our definition of what normal is has gotten better. That's good. That's economic progress. But one reason things are a little more expensive is that we're getting nicer stuff. Now that doesn't make it easier if you're trying to buy a house. To know that intellectually does not help. But that's a thing. I do think that some of the things that are better now for younger generations is, A, they're a heck of a lot more self-aware than I was at that age, for one. There are podcasts like this. Yeah.

People are talking about it. People have a better understanding of credit and debt, which is huge. And in America, and I think this is true in Canada as well, it's easier to save because there's more automated ways to save, and that's the best way to save, right? So there's a lot more tools at your disposal. I will say, I think some of the pessimism around retirement and government benefits, Social Security or other pensions, is a little too pessimistic. fix social security. And it certainly will fix it with enough advance notice so that people in their 20s and 30s today will be able to adjust. Social security for me is not what it was for my parents, right? They made you wait longer to get to full retirement age. They tweaked the benefit formulas. They did that when I was in my 20s or 30s. I had a long time to prepare for that, right?

So any little shifts that happen will happen with plenty of time for today's younger workers to adjust. But even if they don't do anything, you're still going to get 75 cents on the dollar of what was promised, which is not great. Let me tell you, that is not a good outcome. That is a terrible outcome, but it's not nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Because the last of the conversations, yeah, specifically with the U.S. and Social Security, people think that it's just not going to be there at all. Nope. And I don't. Yeah.

So I think there's going to be hopefully something. And again, I don't think the government would allow that. If that's actually going to happen, they would make some changes. we just introduced a CPP enhancement, the Canada Pension Plan Enhancement, which means obviously, if you earn above a certain amount, you're actually going to be contributing more to the pension. A lot of people are like, oh, taxes, I don't want it. It's like you're getting that, you're going to get that money back. It's forced savings through the government. But a lot of people just don't like that. And I get it. But I think once you do retire and you get that benefit, you're going to be really glad that it was around. and that's the same thing we get lots of you know people

worried that it's not going to be around but you know a few years back I had someone from the investment board who represented you know the board who invest the money for the plan they're like we're going to be around at least for the next 80 years and that's what we can kind of guarantee so that's definitely something that I think, yeah, there's a lot of pessimism, maybe a little bit too much pessimism. But even with that, I think the other kind of conversation around retirement is there's no, you know, kind of corporate pensions as things that, you know, were around with, you know, my mom is going to get a pension. She worked for the school board. My dad got a pension working a corporate job for a number of years. I've never gotten a pension. We had something similar, a group RRSP. I think that's

very similar to 401k. But it's nothing that I'm really doing much. It was very tiny. So I knew, and I knew this in my 20s. I started my personal finance journey in my 20s. I needed to do it on my own. And that is a scary idea knowing that, oh, you're just thrown into the real world. And you're like, oh, you need now, I mean, they used to say, you need a million dollars to retire. It's like, no, that's not going to be enough it by the time that you retire, because a million dollars, I mean, where I live in Toronto, you can buy, you can't even buy a house for a million bucks. So it's a scary idea when you're in your 20s. You're like, how much do I need? And how much am I being paid? And how much is everything? Yeah.

It's, yeah. So with that, a little bit more optimistic, there are a lot of great things. You mentioned that, and I think that's one of the biggest benefits is the innovation and advancement in technology, especially in fintech. And I mean, I used to do everything pretty much manually in my 20s. And now I automate as much as possible. Everything's digital. And it's so much easier to say, what are some tools or resources that young people can utilize today to ease that kind of burden? Or it feels like kind of a personal word, oh, I have to do it. But if you set these things up, then it's running in the background.

I think there are a couple of things that are really powerful to automate. One is the act of saving. And if you work for an employer who offers a workplace savings plan like a 401k, great, because they're doing it for you and they're matching, which is huge because that's free money. So, you know, get you need to do a little more work. You need to set up something similar for yourself, but you can talk to your bank. You can go to an online platform, a brokerage account, right? Most major banks have them, all the major brokerage firms and the investment firms all have them. And you can set up an IRA or its equivalent that will automatically take the money out of your account the day it hits it. And to me, that's the best thing you can automate. And I should also say that in addition to doing that for retirement, one of the most important things to do for retirement is make sure you have an emergency savings fund, a rainy day fund. That rainy day fund is what's going to allow you to, we were chatting about the weather, weather the storms that will hit you at some point, something's going to happen to you,

whether it's a car breaking down or a job loss or a health issue or your roof springing a leak, and you're going to need some cash. If you have an emergency savings fund that is liquid and you can access instantly, you're going to be able to protect and preserve your long-term savings, and they're going to grow even faster. So that's another thing to me that you should be automating, right? That should come right out of your paycheck. And the beauty of doing that is that you don't get used to having the money. So it doesn't hurt when you say, oh, I have to save that money because it's already happened. It happens invisibly in the background. Now, you mentioned earlier one of your roles was managing target date funds. Now,

in Canada, it's a little bit different. We do have target date mutual funds. We used to have target date ETFs by a provider that unfortunately folded. So that does not exist anymore. But I think they're a really great product. There's one robo-ad So that does not exist anymore. But I think they're a really great product. There's one robo-advisor that does offer something similar. But I want to talk a little bit about how much easier and I think, again, if you don't remember kind of the old days, it was hard to invest. You had to find a broker or you had to have money to invest. Now, you can really get started with like $20 or $100. Do you want to kind of speak to some of the changes you've seen, especially in your career of how much easier it actually is to invest, but

then the kind of, I guess the hard part is the onus does kind of get put back on the person. Now it kind of feels like we have to figure out how to do it. You mentioned 401ks. I know I've seen so many things, you know, same with, you know, in Canada, group RSPs or just RSPs, a lot of people put cash in there. I think it's invested and it's not. So what are some things to think about there? You know? Yeah.

I always say there are two mistakes you can make. Like there's no perfect answer to this. No matter what you do, it won't be right because you don't know how long you're going to live. You don't know what the markets are going to do, right? There's no perfection here, but there are two wrong things to do, right? Number one, wrong thing is not to save. That's a wrong thing. Second wrong thing to do is to leave your money that you need in 30 or 40 years in cash. That's the second wrong thing you can do. That's about the only two bad things

you can do. Maybe a little bad thing is to try to trade your account. We'll talk about that in a bit. So, so I think that the, the, the bad old days, right, of this investing, whether it was in your 401k plan or in your brokerage account or your IRA was, you know, back in the 70s and 80s and early 90s when I was getting, you know, really going in my career, which was you had to go in and make decisions. You had to decide how much in stocks, how much in bonds, you had to do mutual fund research, you had to pick stuff. And I'll be honest, I think in the 80s and even in the 90s, there was a perception that it was fun. Remember, that was during a huge bull market when everything was going up. And I think a lot of people didn't realize that

their cocktail party conversations and the fun they were having in the markets, you know, I was up 22% last year. And it's like, the market was up 34. You didn't do so well. But it was invisible because you were going up. So it felt good. It was fun. You were picking winners all the time, right?

And very few losers. There were a few, a couple notable ones. And I think that the tech crash and the sort of dot-com boom and bust really woke a lot of people up. It certainly woke up the 401k industry to realize that asking people to make active decisions about the single most important financial asset in their lives, aside from their home, was nuts. And that's because we were learning a lot more about behavioral economics and what impulses govern our decision-making when it comes to risk and return, fear and greed. And we like to buy risky things when it all seems happy and fun, and we want to run screaming when it feels scary. Okay. You make money by buying low

and selling high. And when things are low is generally when it's scary, which is when you buy. And when things are going really great, that's when they're high. And that's when you need to sell, except that's when you want to buy more because, oh my God, it's going to the moon. So combating that is like the role of a professional investor, right? I used to be a professional money manager and we had models and processes and algorithms and all kinds of stuff, risk management committees, right, that would help us as professionals not get sucked into that cycle. But when we watch how individuals manage their money, when they're trying to do this picking for themselves, a lot of them run into a lot

of trouble because it's incredibly difficult not to fall into those traps. So another innovation has been what I used to do, the target date fund or the robo-advisor. There's a really old-fashioned thing that works pretty well called a balanced fund, right? 60, 40, 70, 30 stocks, bonds, right? You want to make sure it's diversified, that you have different kinds of stocks, large caps, small caps, domestic, international, but they'll do the rebalancing for you. I think one of the most dangerous things that can happen is you get addicted to checking how your accounts are doing all the time. And is it up? Is it down? And then you start spending a lot of mental energy on, I don't know if I should buy or sell. And then down you go.

So to me, a great advance that to me is hugely important to long-term success. Just like, let it go, leave it alone. Is this automatic rebalancing? Well, you need to make sure you're rebalancing. Yeah. Well, I guess, like you said, it depends on the type of investment, right? And so you mentioned balanced funds in Canada. We've got our balanced mutual fund, not to be confused. The terminology is what trumps people right but it's like there's a balanced fund which could mean it's a fund that has all the things that you want in it you're international you're canadian all that kind of stuff your equities your bonds and it rebalances itself there's also a balanced fund in which it's balanced 50 percent uh equities 50

percent fixed income sometimes those could be different so it's always important to you know find out what's under the hood what's going going on. You definitely need to do your homework. Right? It's the terms. It really trumps people up. And then we also have what's called asset allocation ETFs over here. So it's basically the same thing, but just in ETF form. And that rebalances for you. But like you said, if you're doing it on your own, then you have to rebalance. But same, you mentioned robo-advisors. They also take care of that with you, which is good. But yeah, it's having those structures in place where you don't have to make as many decisions can be good.

And then you don't have to check as much. I mean, that's been the biggest success I've found in investing is having a plan, sticking to it, not checking. I check it once a month and that's it. That's it. And I'm good. I say, honestly, maybe you need to look at your, what I'd call your cashflow, your budget a little more often, but your actual investments. If you're not going to need them for 20 or 30 years,

you shouldn't be looking at them more than once a year or so. Honestly, it's not. I mainly do. Yeah. I mainly do it just to see, do I need a rebound? You know, did I get some dividends paid out and reinvest those? So you can automate that as well. There's lots of tools there too, but I like doing it. But if you enjoy doing it and you've got a process, then that's great. Yeah. I think many people are intimidated by it and don't have a process. And you put those two things together and you're asking for trouble, which is, those are the people that, that would benefit from automation.

Yeah. And they're always looking at some outside source to be like, are they doing something better? Should I change everything I'm doing? And then, you know, that's never a good idea. You just, you just get it. You drive looking in the rear view mirror, which as we know is a really bad way to get somewhere, right? Like you cannot drive looking in the rear view mirror. That is asking for a lot of trouble. So I think those are fantastic ways to make sure that you're using time effectively. Because the other thing I think, and I would say this to people in their 20s and 30s, that is one of the hugest benefits that they have, and it's a benefit that we all had in our 20s and 30s, I do not have it anymore, is time. Because time is your friend when you're investing. And that gives you the luxury of saying,

I can just let this go. When the markets are going down, it only counts if you actually sell. Exactly. It only turns into a loss. But if you look at it too much, it does hurt. There's that visceral feeling of, oh gosh, what did I do? But speaking of time, over time, especially if you stay invested, you see these cycles. You mentioned the dot-com bubble bursting. And then, of course, the 2008 crash and now the COVID. They're cycles. And so the more I found now that I'm getting closer to 40, the more cycles you experience, and as you educate yourself and are more aware, it becomes less painful to be an investor. You have experience.

And you talked earlier about having a plan. To me, a plan is, they don't always work out. Yeah. But having a plan lets you approach a problem with, it takes some of the fear and stress and emotion out of it. And there's a lot of brain research that shows that when we are under high levels of stress, we literally become stupid. We lose our ability to make rational decisions because we're no longer governed by the rational part of our brain. And the more stress you're under, the less and less you can make long-term decisions, right? And you're just reacting in the moment. And that's a terrible place to make any decision from. It's a super terrible place to make financial decisions from. So having a plan, even if you're going from plan B to C to D, right? You're like, I know what I need to do next. It's why they make us do fire drills, right? It's like,

I know what I need to do. I know I'm supposed to get down and crawl to the door. Like I know what I'm supposed to do. To me, that's, it's just as true in our personal financial lives as it is anywhere else. And often I think people don't think about their finances until something happens that is like, you know, a market correction or crash or something in their personal life happens. And then you're in this emotional place. And that, like you said, is the worst place to be in mentally to make a good, smart, logical decision. So unless you have that plan that you can like, wait, we've got this plan, let's go through that. I like the fire drill explanation. That's a really great way. It's like if you have something for, yeah, the fire drills, the earthquakes in your home or what have you, you should have a plan for when something happens to your finances.

You lose your job. Okay, let's go to plan A for that or something like that. I think that's a great idea. Absolutely. Yeah. And I still think about what do I cut first? Like, what do I know? I can just like, not doing that, not doing that. And

how do I just jettison those things? Like, what's my strategy for cutting my expenses and boosting my income? Right? Those are two levers you can pull and they may not all work. You may not be able to do them all, but guess what? You just know what to start trying that gets you out of that stuck place and into productive problem solving. Yeah. And it just puts you, it reminds you quite honestly, how resilient that you really are. Because I think often we don't realize, especially when it comes to finance, where most people think that they're bad with money. It's like, no, it's a practice, you know, you just have to create that practice. But I mean, the reason that I think when, especially as interest rates went up and my mortgage went up instead of freaking out though

there was a moment where like oh i remembered wait you know we've gone through ups and downs before i've got a budget and like you said i'm like how do we earn more where should we cut back what's the plan of attack here and then you know then you it doesn't really bug you in a couple months because you've got this plan you're activating activating it. But you have to always get to a place of, okay, we need to calm down and then we need to move forward. And remind yourself that you are stronger than you think. You're smarter than you think. You've gone through hard things before. Why is this the thing that's going to break you? I don't think so. Yeah, I agree with you. Totally agree with you. Yeah. I'm curious to, especially with your wealth of knowledge and just seeing kind of some of maybe the mistakes that people

have made over the years, the kind of repeating mistakes. And you mentioned behavioral economics, and that's a topic I'm really fascinated by. What are some behaviors you see that people keep repeating because they're just not aware of them? And you mentioned kind of the probably the herd thing, but. Or behaviors that I've repeated over and over again. Yeah, because I'm fallible too. We're human. I talk about guardrails for a reason. I still remember taking one of my kids to a birthday bowling party once and thinking, I want these when I go bowling.

Like, these are great. Keep me out of the gutter. And our financial lives don't have bumper guards in them, right? We don't have something keeping us out of the gutter. But I do think that a big reason that people fall into trouble repeatedly is because it's so painful to change, just beginning number one, painful to change, but also painful to stop and reflect on the why. Like, why am I doing this? And I think for a lot of us, and I put myself in this camp, right? I felt for years that I was a bad person because I didn't know how to manage my monthly cash flow successfully.

I didn't. My parents were children of the silent generation, right? They were born in the great depression. They never grew up with money and they didn't have credit until they were in there. I mean, they had a mortgage, but credit cards didn't even exist when they were until they were in their forties and quite stable financially. And so I didn't really learn that you have a hundred every month and that hundred gets put in these jam jars. Like I just didn't get taught that at home. And intellectually, I kind of understood it, but like to me, if I needed it, I would ask my parents and they'd

either say yes or no. And as far as I could tell, they said yes, when they thought it was a good thing to buy. And they said no, when it was a good thing to buy. And they said no when it was a bad thing to buy. But the conversation about we can or can't afford this never came up. I didn't, you know, I was a lucky, lucky, lucky middle class kid that way. And I remember having this conversation with my mother a couple years ago. And she's like, well, what do you mean we didn't teach you how to budget? And I was like, well, you never taught me how to budget. Like you never said you can't spend money you don't have

and put it on a credit card. She's like, well, of course not. That's just stupid. Why would we tell you that? And I'm like, well, here we are, you know? Well, you know. So why do I feel bad that I'm too stupid to understand? Like, I mean, and you know, for them,

it was just like so basic. You didn't have to say anything about it. So I felt it was too painful for me to even, like the pain of not doing what I wanted to do was painful. The pain of not buying the cute shoes was painful. And oh, by the way, the pain of confronting the fact that I was a bad person. So for me, it was huge when I started doing the research that led to the development of the target date funds I used to manage, because it was like, oh, this is my brain. It's not my fault. It's my brain's fault. Like this is the way I'm wired. I have for some things,

nice shoes and chocolate chip cookies in particular, I have really poor impulse control. I have really great impulse control when it comes to managing other people's money because it's not mine. I have super good impulse control about going to the grocery store with a list and not buying a single thing on my grocery list that's not on there. But you put me in a clothing store and show me something cute and I'm like, that looks really cute. I think I'm going to try it on. And once I try it on, I'm done. So, so to me, a lot of this is giving yourself permission to acknowledge, right, that you're wired a certain way. And, and the trick to, to managing your own wiring is first to acknowledge it and to accept it and to say, yeah, that's just,

that's who I am. What do I do about it? Like, how do I take those steps? How do I figure out where my bumper guards need to go? So my ball doesn't keep going in the gutter over and over again. Did you ever find out why those were some of those, like those temptations, those particular ones were the things that always got you as opposed to, you know, other things? I don't know. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's, we're talking now it's January as we're talking, I'm doing dry January and like, yeah, I don't need a glass of wine at dinner. That's easy. I've also decided I don't want to eat any sugar. Guess what? I am not successfully not having any sugar. Like that one is so, am I addicted to sugar? I'm clearly not addicted to alcohol, right? Because I'm just like, yeah, done. Like not having it. My husband

has glass of wine. It's on the table. I'm like, yep, not having it. No big deal. Somebody puts a plate of cookies out. I eat one. So I don't know, but I've also, like for me, it's controlling, it's creating an environment that's going to increase my chances of success. Right. And then it's having a strategy. Okay. I did eat that cookie. What am I going to do next? I did buy that pair of shoes.

What am I going to do next? Well, I'm not going to go into a store. I'm not going to let myself go into a store that has cute things without a list. Or I'm not going to let myself try something on. Or not. I know when often we go into the mode of spending money on something and then thinking that we're a bad person for doing that, it almost gives us permission to just keep going. We're like, well, I broke the seal. I can't go back now. And that's

a hard thing to also kind of come back. You're like, no, no, no. Just because you bought one cookie doesn't mean you need to get a bunch more or you bought a pair of shoes now that you can go to the next store. You're like, oh, what's the difference? And you're like, there's a big difference. But that's where the plan comes in. I know I just ate a cookie. Well, okay, I'm going to take an extra long walk. Once you know it and you accept it and you stop labeling it as good or bad, because it just is. It just is behavior. And it doesn't mean i'm a good person it means i really like cookies right okay yeah fine let me let me make sure they're in a cupboard and not out let me make sure that actually i just threw all the cookies in the house away much to my husband's

dismay right like that's just what i do you can eat them out of the house if he wants a cookie well i guess that's you know kind of comes back to a point that we talked about as i've talked to many other people on the show about this. The best place to make any financial or investing decision is getting emotion out of the way and especially getting rid of some of these narratives that we have, such as if I do this, I'm a bad person, instead of doing, well, maybe that just wasn't helping you or it wasn't a great thing, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person. But that's money and those personal narratives about us vary. And I think that's a big barrier for why people

don't save earlier or don't start investing as they have these narratives. I'm too stupid. I'm, you know, I can't ask anyone. This is so embarrassing. I don't want anyone to know that I'm not on the same level, all these kinds of things. And you're experienced, like, what are some ways that you can make that disconnection? Obviously, we talked about having a plan, but, you know, what is it just like, over time, you know, and just practice and mindfulness? I think you said something just now, mindfulness, it's important. I don't think you can disassociate from some of those emotions. I think you have to accept them. The hardest thing about

making a mistake is sitting with the fact that you made a mistake, right? And forgiving yourself. I mean, that's just painful. And I think a lot of us naturally, because pain is painful, like don't like it. It's unpleasant, right? But also we load a lot of stuff into it. And it's, again, something I've learned over the years and it's easier. The more practice makes you perfect, right? So the more practice you get at dealing with painful stuff, the easier it is. But I don't know that you can successfully disassociate. I think you just have to say, yeah, that was painful.

And I'm still okay. Like, as you said earlier, like you've done some tough stuff already in your life. This is not going to be the thing that kills you. Like you are going to make it through this. It's okay. You made the best decision you could at the time, given all the circumstances you were in. What are you going to learn from that? And it's okay if you feel kind of bad about it. Like that's okay. Yeah. Just, I guess, showing ourselves more self-compassion because we are really hard on ourselves. We are really, really hard on ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. And what does that get you? Not much. No, it really doesn't get you far. No, it does not get you far. Well, gosh, there's so many other things I'd like to touch. Oh, yeah. One thing actually before, because we were talking about young people and one I'd say big shift. I know it's been a problem for lots of people, but talking specifically about debt and student debt, that has been a huge, you know, in the even for me, I'm 37. And I was able to pay my way through school, got a little student loan at the end, just

$5,000. But I was able to live at home and work my way and pay my tuition. I just, that's not possible, I don't think anymore. Just like how expensive, I spoke to, my mom works for a high school and I spoke to some of the students there in grade 10. And I was telling them, like, I don't think a lot of the things, the strategies that I used are applicable anymore, just because of how expensive things are now. And student debt used to be a shameful thing. I think it's still considered shameful. But back when I went to school, it was like,

oh, you need student loans. There's something wrong. But now it's just kind of, it's the only way to pay for that education to get that career. I'm curious what, in your mind, what are some things to just for students to be aware of? I mean, if you can't avoid it, what are some things to do to make sure that you don't take out too much or you don't let it ruin the next 10, 15 years? I think I'm a huge believer in higher education, right? College and possibly grad school. What I think can and should happen, perhaps more than it is, is a realistic assessment of what you're choosing to put into your education, what you're going to personally take from your education, and what society will pay you for that education. And one of the things I think is getting a lot of attention now in the States is, you know, two-year professional master's degrees in things like social work, which is phenomenal and so needed. Society is not valuing that with a hundred thousand plus ticket of student debt because

you're not going to earn the income in a career there, no matter how important it is. Right. So one of the big challenges that I see is, is asking people who are in their teens and early twenties with all of the things they've heard growing up about all, this is only upside, right? How do you start rationalizing that? And I remember being so impressed with someone I knew, this is years ago now, who was weighing up, coming out of an Ivy League school as an undergrad and weighing up medical school and had gotten into Harvard Medical School and was going to go to the University of Arizona in Phoenix and stay at home. And I thought, that's an unusual choice. If you get into Harvard, don't you go? And she said, I'm going to be a pediatrician. I don't need to go

to Harvard. And I don't want those loans. I'm going to go in state because she was from Arizona. I'm going to live at home and I'm going to have a very small, relatively speaking, small amount of medical debt that I can pay off as a pediatrician because I'm not going to go be a heart surgeon or name a high paid specialty that will help you pay off that Ivy League medical school degree. And I just thought, wow, that was a great way of looking at it. Like, darn, that was phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. I think, but it's, those kinds of trade-offs, right, are so hard to make in general. And specifically for a 17-year-old or a 21-year-old, that's super hard. So we need to do a better job

framing that for people. Like, that's one of the things that when I was coming out of high school and deciding where to go and what to study, it wasn't really the message I got, which was be careful what you decide to do. I was just told get a degree. It doesn't really matter what it'll be. You'll figure it out because you'll have a degree. You can do whatever you want. And in some circumstances, that's correct. For example, I'm working towards becoming a CFP. And now the rules have changed in Canada that you have to have a bachelor's degree.

It doesn't matter that it's in film. I have a useless film degree. But I've got a degree so that can, you know, open that door. Or if I want to do a master's in something, you know, it'll open that door too. But, you know, it was hard finding a job after graduation. And maybe would it have been different if I studied business or communications or thought more specifically about my career options, the salaries. I did not think about that. I'll figure that out later. And it's like, don't do that. Figure it out now. And now it's a lot easier to figure out those numbers, right? You can Google. There's data yeah my younger son majored in music and uh we strongly encouraged him to uh minor in something like you know computer programming

which he did right so okay great go for the music degree but you gotta be able to earn some money too yeah a little backup plan there yeah yeah it's it's it's uh it's definitely something that i think and even to not necessarily um you know along the same lines but there's a lot more talk about you don't necessarily need to agree not not to say that don't go back to or not not to go to school but there's a lot of great jobs that are more you know the technical jobs that i know a lot of people in my life have uh jobs as electricians and things like that, and they make really great money running their own businesses.

That was never talked about in school. It was always kind of considered something that was like, you know, last resort if you just have a high school diploma. But it's a viable option. You can be an entrepreneur. I don't understand why our society, and I'm just going to say sort of Western culture and maybe the whole world, values intellectual jobs more than hands-on jobs, right? I mean, you saw this during the pandemic with the first line folks, right? I don't understand. The monetary value we assign and the social prestige value we assign to certain jobs, whether it's social workers or teachers, is crazy to me. And that's

above both of our pay grades here, but it does seem peculiar to me. And I would also say that we have done a disservice to an awful lot of people by saying that you have to get a college degree to be successful because there's a lot of successful people who haven't had college degrees. And I think it's a really lazy thing for employers to say bachelor's degree required when that's not really true. Not necessary for the job. Or a master's degree in XYZ when that's not really true for the job or a master's degree in xyz when that's not really true like i just for certain things yes it is it is actually literally true that you need to you know to practice law you need to have gone to law school medical school i really want them to go to medical school but you know in the uk you can do a four-year combined

degree that's undergrad and grad and you're a medical doctor and then you go do your residency and i'm like i don't know maybe that'd that's, yeah, a better use of the time. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's just a nice reminder that kind of what we were talking about at the beginning of this episode, that things have changed a lot. A lot of things are still the same. I'd say a lot of the kind of advice you probably have about investing, have that diversified portfolio. That's been around for a while and it's good advice. But a lot of things have changed. So it's so important to keep up, right? And to question. I'd say that's probably the most important thing, right? Yep, absolutely. And you said something earlier about people feeling like they can't save or invest successfully because they feel ashamed or like

they're too stupid. And one of the things I talk about in my book is, you know, investing rule number one, there are no stupid questions if it's your money. And if you don't understand something, it's not because you're stupid. It's because they're doing a bad job explaining it. That's something that took me years to understand because when I was, especially in my 20s, it was hard asking those questions and I did feel like an idiot. And now that I know when I was, especially in my 20s, it was hard asking those questions. And I did feel like an idiot. And now that I know what I know, I'm like, they were actually, they didn't know the answer. That's why they were not making it clear. They can't explain it, then they don't know. You know, I don't want to get into specific

investments. But you know, we can talk about crypto and whether that's a good idea or a bad idea. I have very strong views on the subject. But one of the things I say is if you can't explain it to your grandmother, don't do it. Don't buy it. Stock, asset, whatever. If you can't explain it really simply why it should work, then you have no business investing in it. And if somebody can't do that for you, you have no business investing in it. Absolutely. Well, I know there's so many great things in your book, and I'm so glad that you wrote it. Again, it's nice having someone who's really seen a lot of the ups and downs over decades in the financial industry to really kind of give you a lay of the land and give you some advice, no matter what age, but especially for young people wanting to get started and meet a

good place to start from. So where can people grab a copy of the book and where they can find you online if you're online? Absolutely. They can find me on my website at ann, at annlester.com, Ann with an E. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, all kinds of places, SaveSmartWN, SaveSmart with N, except that was too many letters. So it, SaveSmartWN, SaveSmart Within, except that was too many letters. So it's SaveSmartWN. And you can find my book. It's going to be published on March 12, but you can find it at any place you buy your books. So all the online retailers and your local bookstore would love you to place an order. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Anne, for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you. Thank you so much for having me, Jessica. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported

by The Globe and Mail. Want to finally get a better handle on your debt and spending this year? Or maybe you want to stop feeling so intimidated by all the financial jargon and terminology that's thrown around all the time. I've said this on the podcast countless times, but I'll say it again. One of the best investments you can ever make in yourself is by expanding your financial knowledge. And one resource I've always turned to for staying up to date on financial trends and news and expanding my own knowledge is The Globe and Mail, Canada's leading source of business and investing news. Not only do they have a plethora of personal finance content by top financial journalists like Rob Carrick, Erica Alini, and Salman Faruqi,

but they also have helpful calculators, podcasts, and explainers on everything from how to invest when you're just starting out to how to pick the best robo-advisor. And for a limited time for more money listeners, The Globe is offering unrestricted access to globeandmail.com for just $1.99 per week for the first 52 weeks plus tax. For full details, visit tgam.ca slash Jessica. Once again, that's tgam.ca slash Jessica. And that was episode 391 with Anne Lester. You can grab a copy of her book, Your Best Financial Life, Save Smart Now for the Future You Want. Anywhere you can find books. I will link to a bunch of places in the show notes for this episode, jessicamorehouse.com slash 391. You can also

find her website, annelester.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter at Save Smart W Ann. At Save Smart W Ann. And I'll make it easy. Just go to the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 391. I'll also include, there's so many nuggets now that I can easily include thanks to AI. I thought it was like, I hate AI. And now I'm like, you know what? It's actually solving a lot of my problems and making my job a lot easier. You can find, you know, takeaways, you can find timestamps, you can find the full video of the episode in the show notes now for episodes moving forward. I'm not going back in time to all of my 300 plus episodes and doing that. There's no way. You can't pay me enough money to do that. But you can find all that

information, show notes. And for show notes of any episode in the past or the future, you can always find them at jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast or jessicamorehouse.com slash the number of that particular episode if you want to find a specific episode. Or if you don't know what episode it was, but you listen to something and can't remember and you just can't find it, you can DM me on Instagram or email me Jessica at JessicaMorehouse.com. I'll help you. I'll help you. I do it all the time. I don't mind. I don't mind. So to win a copy of her book, Your Best Financial Life, you can just go to JessicaMorehouse.com slash contest. Again, link is in the show notes to enter to win. And I'm also giving away copies of some other books from previous guests on the show,

including Career Forward by Christiana Smith Shee and Grace Puma, and The Pandemic Paradox by Scott Fulford. And I have a few other guests who have books coming on the show throughout this season, and I will be adding them to that. So make sure to check it out like once a week or every couple weeks, just so you can see what new books are up to enter to win. Now, just a reminder, because we did, you know, talk about her book and talking about retirement, and I get questions about this all the time. Hey, what are some good book recommendations? I mean, well, I have honestly interviewed hundreds and hundreds of personal finance authors on the show over the past eight years. So one place I do try to keep them nice

and organized is if you go to my website, JessicaMoorhouse.com, there is a main menu tab, favorite things, and you can find all of the books that I recommend. You can easily find them organized. They're connected to Amazon and they're even organized by Canadian authors and US authors and UK authors and stuff like that. That's where I'd probably direct you the most. And also too, if you want to learn more about investing, I do have an investing course that I've had for over three years now, 400 plus students are in it. It is, you can find it at jessicamorehouse.com slash course, Wealth Building Blueprint for Canadians. It is a course specifically built for Canadians and using the passive investing strategy that I talk about on the show a lot. So if you want more information about that, go to my website,

jessicamorehouse.com slash course. With that, I'm going to let you go and say a big thank you to my podcast team at Video Edit by Justice Carrar. And this episode was produced by mravcanada.com and uh i will love you and leave you and see you here next wednesday thanks for listening this podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.