The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #16 — Kelley Keehn: Breaking Free from Debt, the Psychology of Overspending and How to Avoid Financial Fraud

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Our guest this week is Kelley Keehn—best-selling author, personal finance expert and media personality who is on a mission to help Canadians build healthier relationships with money. In this episode, Dave sits down with Kelley to unpack some of the most pressing financial challenges people face today. From the emotional weight of debt to the psychological traps that make it so easy to overspend, Kelley brings both empathy and expertise to the table. They dive into why debt happens in the first place, practical strategies to get out of it and how to avoid the subtle (and not-so-subtle) pressures that push people to spend more than they should. Kelley also shares crucial tips on how to spot and prevent financial fraud in a world where scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Whether you’re struggling with debt, trying to get a better handle on your spending or simply want to protect yourself from financial fraud, this episode is full of valuable insights. Show Notes (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) Intro to Kelley Keehn (03:57) The Crushing Weight of Debt  (06:10) Strategies to Get Out of Debt (08:31) Snowball vs. Avalanche Method (10:41) Why Do People Get Into Debt? (12:01) It’s So Easy to Spend Today (14:23) Everybody Wants You to Spend (17:24) Spending Summaries (20:32) How Taking a Timeout Can Help You to Spend Purposely (21:59) Credit Scores (25:48) Pay Yourself First, But Revisit the Amount (27:39) Are FHSAs Always Best? (29:05) Don’t Chase Discounts on Things You Don’t Need (32:39) Buying Used Can Come With Opportunity Costs (34:17) How to Prevent Financial Fraud (43:45) What’s The Worst Investment Kelley Has Ever Made? (44:17) What’s The Smartest Investment Kelley Has Ever Made? (45:39) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber and former dragon on Dragon's Den. Welcome to the Wealthy Barber podcast, where we'll be hosting some of the top minds in the world of personal finance. Yes, that's to balance me out. The podcast is about making the subject not just easy to understand, but dare I say, even fun, honest. Whether you're trying to fund your retirement, figure out how to build a down payment, save for your kids' education, manage debts, whatever, we'll be here to help you do it.

Before we jump in, a quick but important note. Nothing we discuss here should be taken as investment advice. We don't know you and your personal financial situation, so we're not here to tell you. We're specifically to put your investment dollars. We're here to educate, get you thinking and we hope entertain. But please do your own research and or consult with your financial advisor before taking any action. Hi everybody, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber here with the wealthy barber podcast. We're thrilled you've joined us. Things are going very well and what a great guest we have today. Kelly Keene. Kelly and I have known each other forever. A lot of you know her. You've seen her on

TV where she's appeared for decades. She's also the author of I think what's 425 books now over the years. She's put a lot out, but fantastic material. Probably best known for Talk Money to Me, Rich Girl Broke. It's a Rich Girl Broke Girl? Yeah. Yeah. And you got a new one coming out. What's its title? No one is coming to save you. Oh, I like that title. That's very good. Very good. Excellent thinker in the space. But there's a big reason I got Kelly on. I mean, there really is. She was ahead of the curve twice in her career. 10, 15 years ago, she started talking about credit scores, better debt management, et cetera, before the financial field really

threw themselves into that and deserves a lot of credit, drew a lot of attention to it. We'll touch on that today. And then a few years later, she got more and more involved in fraud prevention, which of course has become one of the hottest topics in personal finance in Canada and the States because of all the fraud taking place in the digital era. So we'll also look at that. So she's very forward thinking, deserves a lot of credit on that front. She's been in the industry for 20-ish years, a

little bit more now. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the way you don't pin the number down. I don't know how much I want to elaborate on that, David. I have to tell, before I start popping questions at you, I have to tell the audience about our first meeting. You contacted me many years ago about helping you with a book and we were going to get together in Toronto and we did in the lobby of a hotel and you asked me questions about book marketing and asked them extremely loudly. I think you were nervous and you were loud talking to me. I thought, does this woman think I'm deaf? I know I'm old, but yeah, you're very loud. But we struck a great friendship and we stayed

in touch over the years. You helped my daughter out with one of her projects. You're a very kind person, very generous person, and again, deserve a lot of credit for drawing Canadians' minds to some of these hot subjects. So let's start out with some of the basics. Let's go to the debt situation. It's getting worse. You look at the overall debt figures in Canada.

They're alarming from every perspective. What are you seeing out there? What worries you? What do you think people can do better? Yeah. And before we get to that, I'd like to have my way in, in my say, David, you have been a champion of financial literacy before any of us. You really set the stage and I remember reaching out to you and God bless you during COVID

and giving your number out and letting people reach out to you because I remember reaching out to you and God bless you during COVID and giving your number out and letting people reach out to you because I remember reaching out to you with such trepidation and it was before I was yelling at you somewhere about the book and I remember seeing like your viewers and listeners may or may not remember when we would have screen display landlines and it said Dee Chilton and I was like oh oh my god, he's phoning and You have been such a mentor and you're in the acknowledgments of all of my books. So extreme gratitude to you my friends I appreciate all your mentorship over the years and what you do for people to your question about debt crushing I remember a

numerous book tours talking to radio hosts and TV hosts and saying, what is the problem putting money on the line of credit? Like why not, you know, you said the two most expensive words are while we're at it, or maybe that's three, whatever. And you know, I was like, because you got to pay it back. And at some point, interest rates are going to rise. And it was absolutely crushing for people, you know, getting over COVID and then seeing their line of credit double, triple,

and just this David, it's not just the numbers. My new book is all about the psychology and our money stories. I'm going back to the very first book I wrote over 20 years ago, The Psychology of Money. And debt brings so much shame. And we can talk about RSPs and TFSAs and tax time, but we don't talk about debt. So people just suffer in silence. And it concerns me because I did everything wrong. Unlike you, not all of us did everything right like you, David. That's probably why I had to write 482 books, because research is me search. And because I did so many things wrong in my 20s and 30s and racked up a bunch of debt and did the FOMO and all of that, I feel it this really. So yeah, it's really rough for people right now.

No, that's a great answer. And I think you've done a really good job of kind of being Canada's Dave Ramsey in a lot of ways, drawing a lot of attention to this. Dave's been better than I have been for sure at focusing more on debt, not just as you say, TFSAs, RSPs, investing. And I loved your line of credit thought because we really did have a lot of people

who had those line of credits at interest rates of two, two and a half percent at one point, maybe 3, and then all of a sudden they were paying 6 and a little bit higher. You're looking at 2, 2.5 times more on the monthly interest payments. Life changing. At the same time, a number of them had their mortgages come due for renewal and of course had to take them at a much higher rate and the squeeze was on. We didn't have that many lose their house.

We didn't have that many default on mortgages, but we had a lot that couldn't save anymore that all of their monthly income went to fix costs We're seeing that over and over again. What are some techniques you can use to get out of it? First of all not being afraid of the numbers that is the number one thing I hear from people is just easier to stay in apathy And I actually do lose sleep at night of how do we get people out of apathy? How do we get you to actually look? So for example, this isn't going to get you out of debt, but it certainly helps. If you're just paying your minimum payment on your credit card, for example, you're maxed out, you're just like, why would I even look at it? I don't have any more money to pay. Well, first of all, no one

gets their credit card statement in the mail anymore, very few of us do. If you did, you would see that, let's say if you missed a payment, for example, your 24% interest rate credit card has now gone to 28%, the fine print would say, until you've made at least six months of payments again on time. Now, no one is going to come and knock on your door and say, hey, you know what? Almost every major bank, well, every major bank has a credit card at just about half that rate. Yes, there's no bells and whistles.

Yes, you're not getting the points. That is not your concern if you're maxed out on your credit card. So if you did nothing more but call up your bank and say, get me out of the 24% went into the 12.99, you've now have pretty much your interest rate and you're going to be debt-free a lot sooner on that credit card. So David, getting people out of apathy and breaking free that shame and trying to normalize the conversations is my mission because then you can see, you can get curious, you can call up your bank, you don't have that shame.

But people are scared. They don't know like maybe they'll take my credit card away from me Well, right you do nothing and you keep missing payments. They may do that anyway because it's a demand loan It's a you know revolving credit is not yours. It's not like a mortgage So just being brave to look at your situation get help Before it's really bad And even if it is bad that it's not a reflection of you.

We used to whisper before I was born, people whispered the word cancer, right? Now we run for the cure. So can we get to the point where it's not a measure of how good or bad you are as a person, it's just what it is and that there are always solutions to get out of this. Yeah, no, that's all very well said and that example is bang on. They can look for a lower interest rate credit card and do some switching, etc. Do you believe in the snowball method that Dave teaches or the avalanche method, meaning do you think you should pay off your smallest first so you start feeling good about yourself

and then going to your highest interest rate debt next? I've always kind of combined the two. I've said to people, if you have one very small one, it really can be psychologically beneficial to get rid of it. But then you should always go for your high interest rate debt. I mean, it just makes too much mathematical sense. You're not going to leave a 22% interest rate debt on a credit card while you're paying down a mortgage. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Do you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely agreed. Now you want to look at all of your debt.

Maybe if you have a more expensive car loan as opposed to your line of credit, you might think, well, pay that off first, but now you don't have the liquidity in your budget if things are bad again and you have to bump it back up. So I think this is where getting a professional like a nonprofit credit counselor or if you can afford it, a fee only financial planner because of course a Traditional advisor is not going to take you on you don't have assets to invest You can find these folks for as little as a hundred and fifty dollars an hour That might be a real stretch for you, but they may have some alternatives, right?

Like hey, by the way, you have no money you're in debt, but you're a high-income earner Maybe the RSP makes sense, not saying it does. Maybe it makes sense to get the tax refund, to pay it down on the debt. They just help you open your aperture because you're not going to be able to come up with those solutions yourself. So I love it, Dave. Yes. Anything that's going to help you feel good. Maybe you're just behind on your cell phone payment, like for heaven's sakes. Make sure you don't get that cut off. Make sure you don't get your electricity cut off. Like, yes, a lot of people didn't foreclose on their mortgage, could still pay their rent, but where else did they suffer and sacrifice that they didn't have to if

they could have, you know, got those interest rates down or paid some of those things off. So it's just looking at what's most expensive. Yes, where you get some self-efficacy and agency, but also making sure that you're not paying something to one of your book's points, you can't eat the counter, right? So you want to make sure that you still have that liquidity on the side and you're not just chasing what is the highest interest rate, also what makes sense for your life and if you have a spouse as well.

What do you think gets people into the trouble most often? Obviously, it's a complicated question question and varies dramatically from person to person. Some people come out with huge student debt which can be a good investment depending on the impact on their long-term income etc. Others it's they spend too much when they're young. Others it's bad luck. You know they can lose a job at an inopportune time. Rents of course are high. Home ownership is very expensive. But patterns do you see among let's say people in their 20s and early 30s that's got them behind the eight ball in the first place?

Are these societal problems? Are they making bad decisions, a combination of all of the above? What are your thoughts? You know, when I talk to Doug Hoyes, I'm sure you know him well. Yes, great guy. Great guy, great insolvency trustee doing wonderful things. And he tells me that most of the people coming across his desk is not what we think. The finger wagging, you know, too much shopping,

too much Uber Eats, mind you, all of that does make a big difference. Yes, everything is extremely costly. But then when we talk to our friends that are a little bit older, in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, they remind us that times were not easy for them either. You know, yes, maybe homes

were cheaper, but the interest rates were insane. And it was equally difficult. Like there's often this nostalgic fantasy past where things were easier and, and, you know, people didn't get homes in their 30s. Sometimes it was 40s and 50s. Like it is a trying time. Yes, it's a very expensive time, but also I think we've never been more out of touch with our finances than ever. And I know when I remember having a drink with you years ago, you were paying with cash. And I was like, do you not have credit my friend? I'll pay for drinks. And you're like, okay, bug off. I just like paying with cash. Well, that is very difficult to do today.

More so in the US, very difficult in Canada to actually pay with cash. A number of budgeting reasons why you don't want to, but this really, the feeling and the connection to our money, at least we had that, now we don't. My books always talk about the 30-day anti-budget, tracking your finances for at least 30 days. That's kind of easy to do, David, if I'm getting my receipts and all of that. I just did Instacart

with Costco. Okay, my brain's not registering that. Oh, yeah, I see it in the morning when I reconcile my finances and such. But if you don't do that, if you're not a geek like us, you don't do that. You don't feel the loss of it. You don't. So I agree with these little decisions. It's the same with us just not having reverence for money, for finance, for spending time with it and making it part of our life and just ignoring it and having that narrative that is just too expensive, everything's overpriced and just put our hands up and not delve into other ways to cut responsibly and still enjoy and or bring in more.

It's amazing how easy it is to spend now. You're right. When you just tap, you do those types of things. It doesn't register any pain in that part of your brain. I still use cash a lot, by the way. And you're right, it's very tough to do in the US. When you go to sporting events you go to anything it's no cash at most of them but in Canada it's still quite doable and it does register the pain plus you see that it's a finite amount you have in your

wallet in your pocket whatever and all that registers as you go forward. A lot of times what I do too is I just get the other person to pay so now I just get you to pay and I find that as very, very clever. Very effective, very effective. Yeah, it's extremely effective. I've done that hundreds of times in a row now with certain friends. No, all of your points are well taken.

I mean, I think it's easy to say that it's very expensive. Now it is and use that as an excuse, but some of this calls falls back to personal responsibility and having to have the self-discipline. But that all being said, it's tricky. And again, everybody out there wants you to spend money. You're being bombarded by advertisements. If you have little kids, they want you to spend. Your spouse often wants you to spend. Businesses are all over you. The government to some extent wants you to spend. And during tough times, during a credit crisis,

lowered interest rates, you have to have a lot of self-discipline and that doesn't come naturally to most of us. No, and we're in a consumer-driven economy. Absolutely. Of course governments want us to spend. Of course they do. And it's all right if we have the ability to spend and in a way it behooves the economy for us to spend and keep money going, keep it flowing. However, it's also irresponsible if we're not really taking the time to again have that

relationship. Now when you talk about everybody pulling at us, I actually took a year off of Instagram. Instagram knows me. I had my social media people just put their posts on. I'm not big on social media anyway, but I looked at nothing on Instagram because the algorithms know me David so well. I mean, it is absurd. And the specificity of what type of suit I might want, work out outfit. I bought this remarkable tablet that I hardly ever use and it's a thousand dollars. I was like, how do you know me remarkable that I take notes and I love to write? It's just insane how we're being programmed by Google, by everything,

and it's feeding us more of what we want. So it's getting back to basics. It's getting back to what is it that you want? It's like the buffet of life. You go to the buffet, you have this plate. How many things are you going to put on it? And be steadfast in what it is that you want. Again, we don't have a lot of mindfulness.

We're just gobbling things up and then going, oh, well, I want what you have over here and I want what you have over here. Being like, okay, you know, do I want a vehicle? If I want a vehicle, there's opportunity costs. I can't have this and this and this. If I want a home, I'm not going to have this and this and this for a very long time. Are you going to be happy with that choice and be steadfast knowing you're not going to get to go to concerts and vacations. We can't have it all, but social media tells us that we can.

And it doesn't matter how much we know that it's fake. It just doesn't matter. There's some primitive part of our brain that wants to believe that we can have it. We know it's fake. We know that Instagram person standing next to a private jet. It's not their private jet. I even stopped posting personal stuff of my own when I was in St. Barts or whatever. Because I was like, what message does that send to someone? Right. That's true.

Well, I was in St. Barts several times, but I hadn't taken a vacation for like 12 or 15 years before that. But by me perpetuating that, oh, I'm in this fabulous island that's super expensive, that's not helpful to anyone. So I think just all of us trying to just pull back the smoke and mirrors and get mindful of what it is that you want and then being steadfast to that message. I agree. When you posted those same Barts photos, I blocked you like I was not comfortable with

that. I would have blocked me too. Forgive me, people. Forgive me. I've changed my ways. Now you hit on so many good points. I want to go back to one though. You talked about spending summaries and to your credit, you've always advocated for spending summaries. I was late to the party to be honest. I didn't do a good job in that. I often told people as long as you're saving first, paying yourself first, I don't care how you spend your money.

Over the years though, seeing people put spending summaries in play, not budgets, but where they actually look back at the last 30, 60, 90 days, write down everything they've spent. Few things have positively impacted people more because they actually go, wow, they learn a lot about their habits and what it does is it makes them think more going forward. In fact, even subconsciously it tends to alter their spending behavior going forward. I love them. Again, you were ahead of me on that one for sure. I advocate for everybody doing those and doing them regularly. I think it's a huge help. And if you can't do that, our dear friend Rob Carricut, the Globe and Mail, he's got a really great, very simple solution. Print your statements

and highlight all the things that you bought that you didn't enjoy, that you didn't even remember, that you didn't... and you're just like, do, do, do, wow. And it's just like counting your, dude, dude, wow. And it's just like counting your calories. You don't want to count your calories all the time, but like we're not mindless when we go and eat our food. We look at the labels, we kind of are trying to figure out are we getting enough protein, are we this and that, but then money just slips through.

David, as a small business owner, I have so many professional subscriptions. I have so many expenses I'm juggling with staff and this and that. It's overwhelming. But because I'm a business owner, I dig into it a lot more where the average person, again, I think just apathy, whatever, do it. And you're like, whoa, when you add that up. One of my readers, when he did the the 30 day anti-budget, he tracked his spending for 30 days. He was like, he said he was spending $3,600 a year on diet coke. Bad for his health, bad for his pocketbook, got a $200 soda stream and he's still using it.

So there's no finger wagging, there's no right or wrong. But when you're just like, oh oh wow where is the money going and then you see and then you're like now are you still going to choose for it to flow out of your life in the same way. I love that example because I have said for the last couple years and I know Preet Banerjee really agrees with me on this that the experts out there saying that the small things don't matter that much are wrong. The small things add up in a huge way and spending summaries prove it over and over. And I think a lot of times what we're trying to do here with anything we put into play is inject some time as Stephen Covey used to

say between the stimulus and the response. Back up a little bit, do I really need this? I loved your point about opportunity cost, that all of these spending decisions involve trade-offs. You have to constantly remind yourself if you go ahead and buy something, that's something else, therefore you can't buy or do. And we don't do that well. You talked about our primitive minds. So no easy answers here. Spending summers can play a good role. I use cash. A lot of people aren't going to do that. I think people work better in partnership on this. Some single people really get pulled towards careless saving. Any other tips you have on how to do this before we move on to topic number

two? Yeah. And I think it's like the timeouts. Now I, at full disclosure, I'm a spender by nature. I like spending money. And that comes from my money story because I grew up poor. Money was very tight and scarce. So for me, it's that pleasure. And it really was my husband pointing it out that, you know, that I apparently get squirrely eyes when I get very excited and want to, you know, in a Louis Vuitton store or something of that sort. So we have timeouts and I've learned over the years, I don't like it, but I have timeouts, especially with online shopping. You start clicking and clicking. Even like

an Instacart order with Costco just walk away just walk away for make a tea and just be like do I if I were in the store would I be buying all that do I have a meal plan do I even am I going to be able to utilize all of that food that I'm ordering like just some you know some like little stop losses like we would have when we invest in the stock market just walk away a little bit and think about it a little bit more. And why are you spending? Again, it doesn't have to be do you need it, but do you even really want it?

Sometimes that old fashioned window shopping is enough. Just go window shop, leave it in your cart, come back a day or two later and see if it's something you even want. Yeah, well said. I'm lucky. I hate stuff. So I'm not drawn to that the way most people are. That's why you're the wealthy barber. Yeah.

It's true. I don't have to fight off temptation. I really don't like stuff. I find it to be almost a burden. It weighs me down. I'd like to stay as light as I possibly can. Okay, before we leave debt, leave credit, again, you're one of the first Canadian experts to start drawing a lot of people's attention to credit scores.

How they're used, the mysteries behind them, why they're important, how to check them, all of those types of things. Just give us some thoughts on that matter. I mean, again, because I said that I really did a lot of things wrong in my 20s and 30s. I didn't go bankrupt. I didn't get to that point, but I ruined my credit. I overspent. And then to your point, I looked at all this stuff and I was like, was it worth it to be a slave to this stuff?

And so back then I had a few friends that were, God, this is over 20 years ago, people say, oh, you can repair your credit quickly. And it's like, but should you? I made them a skinny. I wanted to repair my credit in the way it should be repaired over time and do it the right way and not get back in trouble again.

So I learned a lot, like what? Got your score up. And now Julie Kuzmik from Equifax is a dear friend of mine and I would never purport to be the credit score expert, but I dug in very, very heavily. And this isn't just an issue with the average person, David. This is like even the high net worth people that I'll train or work with. Totally agree. Right? It's like they don't, or like just because you're high net worth people that I'll train or work with. Totally agree. Right? It's like they don't or like just because you're high net worth doesn't mean you can get

lending when you need to because your credit might be non-existent or be taped. So and there's so many dating apps that you lead with your credit score and so it's more important than it ever was more transparent than it ever was. But again, don't feel the shame and the embarrassment. It's a measure of your debt only, not of your net worth, but it's something to really, you know, be mindful of regardless if you're seeking credit or not. How do people check it? Well, right now, I believe it's still free on both Equifax and TransUnion after COVID. You used to have to pay for your score. You used to have to pay for your report if you just flip over your open your bank

app Most bank apps have it integrated. However, you're usually looking at TransUnion Most of them are TransUnion not Equifax so at least once or twice a year you want to go to both Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada and check both of your scores both both of your reports, make sure everything's accurate, not something misreported or what have you, and just realize there's no shortcuts. If something happened, you moved and you forgot to close out your utilities and it went into collections, it's going to pull your score down. There's no magic bullet to getting your score back up. But

again, as Rob Carrick says, it's very punitive when you miss payments when you're over limit things of that sort but once you start doing the positive things again it comes up really quickly how do you fix a mistake because you do hear that there are a fair number of mistakes is there a process in play that you think is fair and moves along in a relatively quick fashion I don't know if it's relatively quick but both of them will have disputes on their websites. And but remember, David, it has to be a mistake. Yes, like a misreporting. Here's a classic one. One of my readers reached out and had a problem with his vehicle. His lease was nearing an end.

He's like, you guys can fix it. He just literally brought the vehicle back to the dealership, said, it's your problem. I'm out. Stop paying his lease. Well, he was still on the hook for his lease. So if you have something like that where you have a dispute, maybe your laptop, you sent it back, I'm not paying the lease payment anymore. That mistake is your mistake. You want to keep paying your payments always. Maybe you're in a divorce situation and you've got some debt commingled with your spouse, you know they're not going to pay it, pay the debt if you can, talk to your creditor, have the dispute legally elsewhere, but that mistake you're not going to be able to correct on your credit score or on your credit report because that really was your mistake.

There's legitimate misreporting and then there's just when we all make mistakes, you missed a payment, something accidentally went into collections. Yeah. Okay. So next thing is saving. So let's say that we have managed our debts relatively well, we're on top of them, maybe don't even have any beyond a mortgage.

We need to start saving. It's the TFSA, it's the RSP, etc. Forget where to put the money. How do you get the money? Are you an advocate of the Dave Chilton pay yourself first approach? Do you tend to use a lot of budgeting software? What's your thinking? I love the pay yourself first. I mean, you really brought that to the Canadian market and made it part of our vernacular is to pay yourself first. And I think we forget how little how even the smallest actions, like even the roundup apps, and then all of a sudden you look,

you have that roundup app every time you make a purchase on debit, you know, now all of a sudden you've got $900 in this account that's hidden from you. And you're like, whoa, that was easy. Amazing. Can you now round that up yourself? Can you start doing your monthly contributions? So paying yourself first, but then David, we just want always to, we see health as a continuum and yet when it comes to our finances, it's like done that. Mortgage done in the drawer. Will done in the drawer. Paying myself first 5% in the drawer.

Please put it in your digital calendar to challenge yourself a little bit more. Okay, paying myself first 5%. Put it in your digital calendar for six months from now. As a reminder, can I up that to 1%? Then put it for six months again. Can I up that to another 1.5%? Like, it's just we want this one and done, and I'm all about automation and setting it and forgetting it,

but don't set it and forget it and not review it so you're not increasing especially if you're moving up in your career and that five percent you know it was maybe $500 a month but now it should be $900 a month because of your new situation or what happened. Now I agree with all of that what do you think of FHSAs the first home savings accounts I mean I think they're the best thing going for people who haven't purchased yet. You agree? Is that the first place you'd put your money if in fact you were thinking buying a home

down the road? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, why would you not take advantage of the tax shelters? So I think the most important thing is really understanding tax shelters. Again, maybe seeking the advice of a fee only financial planner, certainly a nonprofit credit counselor as we said before, if you've got a lot of debt, they may see something that you haven't considered. Maybe your employer matching program is so good at your place of employment that it trumps the way that you're saving.

Maybe, you know, so it's just like, gather all of the information first before you just like I think FHSA is the right way to go or do you have the emergency fund? Do you actually have cash on hand? Like sequentially, socratically go through your financial life and then that should help fill in some of the blanks of where to actually put your money. Yeah. The matching provisions that a lot of the group RSPs have and the fact that people don't

take advantage of them may be my biggest pet peeve in all of personal finance. I mean, I see this once or twice a week where people send it in and they'll be matched to the first five or six percent of their income and they're not doing it. They literally get a hundred percent return on that money when they put it into the RSP plus the tax deduction, plus the tax to show to shelter growth and they still don't do it. So it's very, very frustrating. Now, are you a good spender and what I mean by that is when you spend do you look to spend in the most efficient way?

So do you look at discounts? Do you look at coupons? Do you ever buy used you go to sites that offer better deals? Does that matter to you or do you kind of just go out and spend recklessly? That be honest. That is a great question. I'm very That is a great question. I'm very careful to get deals for stuff that I know is a great deal that I'm going to use. So any of my flights, I fly back to Edmonton to see my mom all the time. So I'm constantly, I've got all the flight sales. Right across the street from me is the Bay closing down.

So friends of mine were like, oh, you've got a new condo. You've got to go and finish it, go and check out the Bay. I get very worried about people that chase discounts. Because you think they overspend in the first place. Or not even overspend, buy stuff you don't need. Exactly. Well, that's a form of overspending. I completely agree.

It's a discount. So it's like, I would rather buy something full price that I love, that I'm going to keep for, like I have clothes I'm wearing from 20 years ago. I was going to mention that. I was going to keep for 10 like I have clothes I'm wearing from 20 years ago that I was gonna mention that I was going to mention that I knew I recognized that jacket lovely by the way I loved it in 83 and I love it now it's but if you then go chase stuff which I've done in the past and you've got a closet full of things you don't like or you've got furniture that's haphazard or do you just need to spend it's like eating because you're uncomfortable and you just

need to eat something. Why do you want to spend right now? Yes, of course, if it's a vacation or something, but also, David, I see so many people that like maybe they're going on vacation, they're putting it on a credit card or a line of credit, and then they're cheaping out on like some detail that would make all the difference in the world of them having a great vacation but then they're not negotiating down the interest rate on their credit card like penny wise pound foolish so you know we're all spending in different ways but you know like if you want the hogendoss get the hogendoss don't get the generic

one because it's half price but it it was only a $3 savings. But then when it's the big waste, we use like dollars versus percentage when it suits us. And then other times you're just like, oh, well, it's only a 1% difference and that 1% was $300. So be careful. Retailers are constantly playing with us. It's only three dollars a day But how much is that a year?

My father is going to listen to this entire podcast and all he is going to take from it is get the hog and us That's the only lesson that he's going to draw from this and he's going to do that many many times Making me pay each and every step. It happened to me David. My husband said can you get you? I don't do the grocery shop. He said can you get me some hog and every step. Well, it happened to me, David. My husband said, can you get, I don't do the grocery shopping. He said, can you get me some Haagen-Dazs? I don't eat ice cream. So he's very frugal. I go to the grocery store, literally there's like the Haagen-Dazs was maybe it was $8.99.

So tiny. And then there was this big tub of ice cream and it was $4.99. I just so proudly came in with the big tub of ice cream. Look at what I got you, Mr. Frugal. And he was like, are you freaking kidding me? You got a Louis Vuitton over there and you couldn't spend $3 more on ice cream. Now every bite I eat is this like awful generic version

of what I wanted. So people, if there's something you love and you want, give yourself permission to do it. Don't chase always a discount, but you know, don't buy stuff on discount. What's so good? Yes, dad, go get hog and dots. Tell me what flavor you want. I think your, your husband putting that ice cream in that Louis Vuitton bag was just too strong a payback. That was inappropriate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't. Do you ever

buy used? Do you ever say, you know what? I mean, I don't need new in this case. I like that jacket. I like those shoes. I'm willing to pick up used to save the money. I think there's times to buy used. Here's my money story. I told you my mom grew up poor and very poor and had very wealthy uncles. So that's a whole other story. But one thing my mom took pride about is that she didn't buy used things for us. I don't know why.

Interesting. It was very, very important to her that I got a bike that was brand new and it was something I wanted and it wasn't ever a cast-off which I find so interesting and my husband is in love with Facebook Marketplace. Right. He never buys anything new. Everything has to be also he's eco-friendly so I think there's a fine line. I think it's a beautiful trend we're seeing. And yeah, I bought lots of like, you know, maybe monitors or a lamp for my place or things of that sort.

But I'm also a huge advocate of understanding what your time is worth. So my brother's time is worth a lot and he will waste a lot of it getting cheap gas and he saved maybe $1.20 and he wasted $30 of whatever to go and do it. So balance, going after a deal, going after you, spending time on Facebook, if you love that and it floats your boat and it's a hobby, great. But if you're being a little overly frugal and not understanding, hey, if I leaned into my career a little bit more, if I leaned into my side hustle, if I did another pitch with

a client, if I actually spent that time on my career, I could exponentially get a lot more. I think people should be a bit balanced in that. No, I like that. It goes back to the trade-offs. We were talking earlier in opportunity cost, but now it's time instead of just money. All right, let's go to one of your areas of expertise, fraud prevention. I mean, it's crazy what's happening out there right now. My father's 92 and a half and he's been approached many times by fraudsters trying to get things from him. And you just see it nonstop with seniors.

Romance fraud has taken over to a degree that's almost impossible to believe. What are you seeing out there and what do we do to fight all this off in the digital era? It is intimidating. It's brutal and there's so many different types of fraud. So I worry about younger Canadians that they're so tech savvy, but they're also, they live on their phones and they're not as fraud savvy as they could be. Like how many, you know, a lot of people that I work with that I send e-transfers to, to pay them or things of that sort, and they don't have like, they still have a password.

It's like, why do you not have auto deposit? What? And they're like, what's auto deposit? Or they don't have alerts on their account. They haven't taken the time to go into their bank account to create alerts of, you know, credit card use. Yeah, exactly. And then the other side of the spectrum is my mom who's 87.

And thank God I talked to her about prevention a lot. She gets the grandparent scam. And they're so good, David. Like they even called her and knew my brother's name and said, it's Randy. And she's like, it doesn't sound like Randy. And he's like, yeah, because my nose got all busted up in this accident. And she of course did the right thing, hung up the phone, called my brother.

Yeah, it wasn't him. But so, you know, if you've got to walk through the scenarios over and over and over again with your parents and your kids, if this happens, when this happens, talking to my mom, hey, you and I are both public figures, David. So it's like, mom, someone could have a recording of me. Someone could have a video of me and send it to you. And you can't believe that anymore. So it's getting kind of me. Someone could have a video of me and send it to you. And you can't believe that anymore. So it's getting kind of terrifying and we all have to be a bit more vigilant. And I think we are.

And then you have to also forgive yourself and act swiftly. If you did click on the link, if you did give a password, if you did give the financial information and just slow down and spend a little time on it because it could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars. And as the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre would say, and these folks are working so hard, it's all about prevention because once that money's lost, 99 out of 100 times you're not getting it back. No, it's sad but true.

Do you see a lot of romance fraud out there? And that's another one that when it happens You can never get the money back In fact, even when they catch the person usually a man hate to say it against men But it usually is when they catch the person even then they can't get it back because it's tough to prove it was fraud as Opposed to he just convinced somebody to give him money etc. So what do you do about that type of thing? That's been a tough one for families. So tough and I I've had a number of, you know, like family members even mention, oh, Pauline met this guy online.

And I'm like, okay, and he's in Vermont. And it's like, is he really in Vermont? Is that really a picture of him? And then, you know, six months later, they're going to meet, but oh, he's got an accident and he just needs a little bit of money. And that's how it starts to unfold. And people, we can't believe that we're being targeted. We just can't believe it.

Like part of it, David, is like, I wake up with my phone. I go to bed with my phone. I check my phone a million times a day. It's a safe place. It's a safe entity. So that there's people, bronzers from all over the world trying to attack me, collecting bits of information

from my LinkedIn, from Facebook, someone else saying something from a family event on Facebook, using all those bits of information to now then target me. We're like, oh, who am I? Oh my God. Well, that's what the frosters are doing. And then all the data breaches that all of us have been part of, my cyber security experts tell me 100% of our social insurance numbers have been compromised. 100% of Canadians, like they've all been compromised, all of our stuff.

So it's tough. What's the answer here? Is it to trust no one basically and go into that kind of vigilance where you just basically don't provide the information at all unless you can truly verify that the receivers who they say they are I mean that gets to Be very difficult and very time-consuming as well I think we might be going back to we're heading back to branches with some of our bank business because You only trust that if it's face to face in a physical location you do I mean the technical editor for my book on fraud Jennifer Fiddy and green

She's like one of the lead forensic accountants for Grant Thornton, for example, and not to be fear-mongering, but she does not believe you should ever use your debit card. Ever. You should only use your credit card because if the credit card, now we do have measures in place and we have protection, but the credit card company has to fight to get that money back as opposed to if it's siphoned out of your debit card You have to write so much more So I like even how what's your limit on your debit card? And how much money do you have in an account that your debit card is linked to do you have? $20,000 $50,000 maybe that should be moved into a separate account and there's only access to 500 or a thousand

So it's just taking a little time to slow down. You know, if someone's reaching out to you, I did a couple of years ago sell a piano on, we tried to sell it on Kijiji. And people are- Like you sold it fraudulently or you sold it legitimately? I sold it legitimately. Okay, good, thank you.

But they couldn't believe the fraud, David. It was like, people were like, is it available for delivery today? And I'm like, it's a piano. Like they weren't even trying to dupe me. But it is great. We're doing more and more of this like, hey, it's cool and fashionable and makes sense to sell your stuff and just doing it in a very protective way. Going through again, setting up alerts on your banking system, using a credit card if you're paying for something you're

unsure about. You're maybe buying concert tickets. You don't know if it's card if you're if you're paying for something you're unsure about you're maybe buying concert tickets you don't know if it's legit if they're not taking a credit card probably for sure it's not legit so just backing up and knowing your protections yeah I think it's that simple I mean there's just no easy answer here every time we come up with some new technology to help protect this the bad people get ahead of the curve and they run wild again. And again, the romance fraud, I mean, you hear from some of the experts in the states that if we could actually put numbers on romance fraud right now, it will blow us away. I mean, you've got people, they go on cruise ships for a living, looking to link up with

older people and take advantage of them. It's very sad. And scour through obituaries to see who's vulnerable to them. And I mean the thing David is we don't know who we're talking to. Like it's so easy to get information. They can be in a totally different country and find out, you know, what Tim Hortons is in your neighborhood. And didn't I see you last week at that Tim Hortons?

And weren't you wearing that great red dress? Well, they know you were wearing a great red dress because you posted it up on Facebook when you're out with your sister that week or something. So we just can't believe that they would invest that. But think about it. If they've got 50 or a hundred people that they potentially could get 10 or 20 or $30,000 from, would it not behoove them to spend six months virtually whining and dining you to get that money?

It's very sad. It's very sad. It's very tragic. And these are smart people. These are not people that are duped easily. Everyone's like, I'm a smart person. I would never be duped. Hey, when your heart's on the line, you're lonely.

Maybe you just lost someone. Someone found that out. Now somebody's reaching out to you and filling a void and then you get scammed. Oh my God, you're not going to report that. That is just terrific. Now something about this subject really gets to me. Like I really want to help to catch those people and penalize them.

Like I hate the fact, as you say, they're so often exploiting the vulnerable right after they've lost a loved one. Or as they get older and in some cases start battling dementia, as we're seeing with some of my family members. It's truly tragic. Hopefully we can somehow get ahead of the curve, but it's tough.

You mentioned there's literally fraud farms where people sit there six, eight, 10 hours a day gathering all this information. Did you see that piece that came out maybe six months ago about the brilliant young kids who put the AI and the face recognition into kind of a form of Google glasses? While they were talking to people, they were recognizing who they were, scraping the internet, finding their social media, and then feeding through in ear pace, facts about them so they could have a dialogue with them like they knew them. Like, can you imagine running into somebody and they're reciting things about you because

they're getting it all fed to them? Like, this is where we're headed. And that's why I trust no one is probably going to end up becoming our mantra. We're going to have to be so careful at all times. And that is so poignant and sad and horrific, David, but also one of the frauds sadly that is very prevalent is friendly fraud, where it's power of attorney fraud. It's so we need to really be looking out for our seniors.

We need to be talking to them well in advance. There's so many people that swoop in at the very end, be it a caregiver that sells their place when they're in the hospital. So true. I mean, just horrific stories that fortunately I learned. So we just all have to break the silence, talk more, share the stories. Like you were just sharing that. There's so much coming at us.

So yeah, good on you for this podcast that we're there's so much coming at us so yeah good good on you for this podcast and helping interrupt people's lives so we can help protect them more like be careful is basically the message we're trying to deliver it's happening way more than people realize we're all vulnerable we're all exposed be on guard okay don't be overconfident don't yeah exactly don't be overconfident okay let, exactly. Don't be overconfident. Okay, let me wrap up with a couple quick ones. Worst investment you've ever made? Buying a condo when I was 18 that I couldn't afford. Ah, interesting.

So, did you end up losing it, having to resell it to get the money back? Yeah, and I rented it. It was just a bad situation. Don't get forced into home ownership until you can truly afford it. Yes, I just wrote about that. I'm rewriting the wealthy barber right now. And honestly, that's what I'm working on, that exact comment that because the market's so expensive,

we're getting people buying when they can't truly afford it. It's gonna restrict them from doing any savings, going out of their house, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, what's the smartest investment you've ever made? In myself, honestly, I know that sounds- That's true with you, it's true with you. It is, investing in yourself, investing in your self investing in yourself, development, investing in coaches, investing in networking. Like really,

I think and that's something I'll never stop investing in. I think it's all of our greatest investment. We have the ability to earn millions of dollars in our lifetime. What investment is going to return that? No, and you live it. I mean, you are one of the most high energy people that I've ever met. Like you're always like you are today. This is kind of how you're wired. You get up early, you're going full bore right away. What do you attribute that to?

I mean, do you are a really healthy eater? Do you go to bed early? Are you using those kinds of habits? Yeah, meditate. Again, one of my books was She Ink, Thinking of Yourself as a Corporation, and I really do. It's so funny, David. I think of myself like an athlete.

I eat like an athlete. I sleep late. I have coaches like an athlete. I have zero athletic ability, like none. I can't do anything. I love great athletes. And I think if we all treated ourselves like that, elevated ourselves to that CEO of our own corporation. Would you spend that on that?

Would you invest more on that? It helps remove some of maybe our judgment on how we spend because it's different. It would be different if you were the CEO of your own company. No, I like the way you're thinking. I want to wrap up by saying to our listeners, you're a very nice person. I've always said that about you since the day I met you. You treat people really well. You're very well liked and respected in the industry and I give you a lot of credit for

that. It's always a lot of fun seeing you. I'm sorry we don't see each other more. We don't tend to bump into each other like we used to, but congrats. I'm looking forward to the new book coming out. Thank you. Yours too. Oh, that's my last question.

I mean, what is the best financial book you've ever read? Yours, Wealthy Barter. I did not ask you for you to say that, but I am glad you did. It is. It is the book. It is the book. It's the book that everyone still talks about, loves, reads, refers to. You read that cue card incredibly well I mean nobody could even

tell you're reading that so thank you so much anyway I really want to have you back on at some point you've got so much to talk about love the energy and let's stay in good touch awesome thanks for all your work David you're doing amazing things and I love that you just don't stop either you just keep going and helping Canadians and you have the best heart of anyone that I know. Who puts out their phone number on social media? Nobody cares more than you do. Nobody, nobody cares more than you do in the most humble, beautiful way of people feeling good about their finances.

So I so appreciate being here and the work that you do. Thanks. Stay in touch. Thanks, David.