The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #25 — Joyee Yang: Taking the Intimidation Out of Investing for Beginners

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Our guest this episode is Joyee Yang—a “finfluencer” with over 300,000 followers across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and more. Joyee has built an audience by taking the intimidation out of investing and teaching the basics in a clear, relatable way. In this episode, Dave and Joyee dive into her journey: from getting kicked out at 19, to working three jobs to pay off student debt and buy a condo, to becoming one of Canada’s most-followed finfluencers. They discuss the rise of all-in-one ETFs, the pros and cons of individual stocks vs broad-market index funds and how apps like Blossom are helping investors to learn and share their portfolios.  Whether you’re brand new to investing or curious about the finfluencer landscape in Canada, this episode is packed with stories and beginner-friendly advice.   Show Notes (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) Intro to Joyee Yang (03:17) How Joyee Became a Finfluencer (04:44) Working Three Jobs to Pay Off Student Debt and Buy a Condo (08:05) Individual Stocks Versus Broad-Market ETFs (11:45) Teaching the Basics and How to Open Accounts (16:21) Blossom Social Investing App (18:21) Cooperation Amongst Canadian Finfluencers (21:58) Joyee’s Desire to Help the Younger Generation (23:05) All-in-One ETFs (23:58) Learning About Volatility in the Stock Market (25:44) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, The Wealthy Barber, and former Dragon on Dragonstant. Welcome to the Wealthy Barber podcast. Well, 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 this 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. Hey, everybody, it's Dave Chiltern of the Wealthy Barber podcast here with episode 25. exciting, by the way. We're the number two business podcast in the country now behind I or every CEO, have to admit, it's pretty good. It'd be tough to catch it. But we're really

pleased with how many of you are enjoying the podcast. The word of mouth has been incredible. So thank you for that. And we're going to continue on today, a little different today. You know, when we first started this, we were going to go out and get the voices you've heard from before and focus on their areas of expertise. Most of them come from a very traditional background. There's CAs. There's CPAs. They're CFAs. They went to University for economics, et cetera. Today we're going to go a little different route. One I think catches up with the times a little bit more.

We've got Joey Yang coming on. Joey is a fin influencer on all the different social media platforms. She's big. She has a huge following in Canada, one of the biggest in the country. She does an excellent job of teaching the basics, taking it down to a level. Everybody can understand. She's fostered a strong community.

A lot of comments and a lot of answers to the comments underneath her different postings. It's interesting. A lot of people look at me. the good Dave, you're probably anti-Finfluencer. Not at all. It depends on the situation. Some of the influencers out there, I think, were horrible.

They're hawking, whatever. They're trying to sell crypto. There's almost scamminess involved, but some are very strong. Some have good communication skills. One of the things that Joey has done is basically said to her audience, I'm young. I think you started out as an investor when you were 19, you're in your mid-20s now. Come along with me on my journey. Learn with me.

Well, how would I be critical of that? That's the outlay of the whole wealthy barber. is the narrator is going on a journey learning from the barber and he's got friends and a sister coming with him to join him on that journey, Q&A, or taking the intimidation out, which is what Joey does and does very well. So with no further ado, welcome to the Wealthy Barber podcast. Hello, everyone. Dave, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I think that was one of the nicest intros I've ever gotten. But the only thing I heard is that you think I'm a stellar influencer.

So that's good to hear. You've done very well. I mean, I give you credit. There's a lot of competition out there and rising above all of that and capturing attention is tough. And I think one of the things that's helped you is your audience finds you authentic. You know, you're very much talk about your personal life here and there, et cetera. You've mixed all that together. And that's what a lot of the younger audience is looking for.

Tell us a little bit about your unusual background. What drew you into this? It certainly wasn't the normal path. Oh, yeah. Definitely not a regular traditional, like. influencer, I did not have any formal education in finance at all. I actually studied nursing and dropped out of that because of life circumstances, but yeah, very untraditional. The reason why I started content is because a very popular story nowadays is I got to get out of my parents' house

when I was 19 years old. And so I was like scrambling to like make for money or like make my money worked for me. At one time, I had three jobs. And so I was like, you know, this isn't the life I envisioned for myself. No surprise there. And so I was like Googling how to make money online. Right. And then, you know, like dividend stocks came up. And really that is how I started looking into the world of, you know, dividend investing, even the stock market, really. So obviously, I watched other influencers. Literally like, you know, you. You are my icons icon, Dave. So, like people like Fred and Brevis, Canadian T-shirt, they all love you.

Well, you've come together with a good group of people there. You know, they're all very nice. And, you know, in addition to being well informed, they're nice, genuine people. And I think they have a true desire to help, which is great. You know, a question I think a lot of people would love to ask you, or for that matter, any of the young influences out there is, how did you initially build the audience? I mean, it's easy now. I can see that you're quite good at this.

you've got a following, you benefit from word of mouth. But in the early days, when nobody knows how you are, how do you rise above all of the noise online and capture some people's imagination to trust? Yeah, that's a really good question because, you know, like I said before, no formal education and finance. Like, who in their right minds would just trust this young lady? But, well, I had some success with the stock market.

And that's why I feel like people can see that if I could do it, with no form of education, but anyone couldn't do it. So I, initially, I had to, I guess, tried to convince people that I was credible. I did. I was able to pay off my student loans, pay off my car, save up and invest for, thank you, for a condo. And that's the biggest thing of like my generation. It's like, how do you even afford a property nowadays? But I was like, again, working with three jobs.

I saved up like 90% of my income and I was, you know, fortunate enough to be hited out. So I discovered the stock market where my money was working for me as well. And so, yeah, I was able to achieve all of these things by 23 years old. And so a lot of my friends were just asking me, like, how did you do that? So I was having one-on-ones with my friends like, this is the stock market is. It's not a scam, I promise. And so that's kind of like. But before we get to the investing part, I mean, you hit on something I think doesn't get

enough attention. And that is that you had to save the money first. Yes, we can save monthly. And I mean, I'm the biggest advocate out there of putting aside 10 to 15% of your income. But you did a better job of building up beyond that, saving a lot more than that. And in these challenging times where everything is so expensive and FOMO rules and YOLO rules and all of those types of things are coming at you through social media, how did you have the discipline to save that much money.

Yeah, you know what, Dave? Like, I think everyone just, or everything in my life just came together at a perfect time. I mean, being kicked out, I was like, holy crap, I really need money to survive. So that really put me in a mindset where I really cannot lose this money and I need even more money. And also, working three jobs, I didn't have time to go out for dinner. Yeah, I didn't, I couldn't afford to go on a vacation or.

Like, you know, getting time off in three different jobs is very difficult. So, I mean, I would love, love to say that I was super disciplined and nothing could stop me from using my money. But really, it was just me working three jobs. Like, I didn't have a choice, but to just not spend and just save. You know, that's a great, great story. It's interesting. I asked a colleague the other day how he was so successful saving when he was young.

And he said, well, I used to walk a couple hours a day. I train myself always to walk because it's not expensive, keeps you out of trouble, clears your mind. He said, plus I did so much volunteer work. And he said, not only I benefit from giving back to the community, but you're not spending money. And those things filled up my non-working hours. So like you, he almost blocked himself from getting out there and doing a lot of the traditional spending. Now, you've mentioned stocks a lot. You've also invested a tremendous amount into ETFs. I'm curious, why bother with the individual stock selection? I mean, that takes a tremendous amount of knowledge and discipline.

You have to think you have an edge, that there's something you can do to figure out this stock price better than the marketplace is currently doing. And you've got a lot of sharp people out there doing this all day long every day. Why not just rely on the broad market averages and ETFs? What draws you to individual securities? I think that comes down to total of my mind, like human psychology. I mean, well, first of all, I started with dividend stocks. That's how I, you know, they have like a special.

place in my heart. Investing is boring. But with individual stocks in there, I feel like I kind of itch that, you know, like gambling side of me. Right. You scratch that itch a bit, yeah. Yeah. And like as long as I feel like if I'm investing in like boot chip companies or like companies

that have been around for so long or that have been paying dividends for so long, with dividend kings, the dividend aristocrats, I feel like as as long as I see, I guess the dividends coming in, it motivates me to put more money in. It motivates me to continue investing. The first dividend I got was 69 cents from Fortis, and that hooked me, right? So, I mean, yes, like 50 to 60 percent of my portfolio is in broad indexes, like, indexes, in the ETFs, but I feel like the dividends and like the individual stocks really just keep me in investing. Interested in investing.

Now, you're not playing the meme stocks and gambling with those types of things at all. As you said, you're buying more blue chip, more established companies that have a long-term track record of paying dividends. I've noticed that the names you've mentioned in videos have been almost exclusively Canadian. Are you venturing into the U.S. market much when you look for dividend stocks? Yes, that's a good question. So with the TFSA, I do invest in Canadian stocks just because the dividends is, I guess. No withholding.

Yeah, exactly. And so that's kind of like where my investing philosophy is for the TFSA. I just opened a RSP this year. Right. So I will be absolutely venturing into the U.S. side. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of our listeners don't know this, but there's a withholding task. on U.S. dividends when they're paid inside a TFSA that doesn't apply when they're paid inside

an RRSP. So you're going to hold those in the RSP if you have the choice on which place to put them. We'll talk more about that in an upcoming podcast and some subtleties around taxes, etc. But I think that's prudent. And you've opened your RSP up because your income has gone up now. The deduction is more valuable to you in a higher marginal bracket, etc. And that's a good thing to do. You were too late for the FHSA as you bought before they came along, I assume. yes that is honestly breaks my heart the FHSA I would say now as a 19 year old jury that would be like the most valuable registered account to have invested in no question I mean it's it's a dream come true I always say it's the love child of an RSP and a TFSA the perfect love child the tax deduction upfront the money comes out tax to free it grows tax deferred I mean it's just an unbelievable product straightforward they're being offered by a lot more institutions now 8,000 a year, max, $40,000 total. And again, you unfortunately bought before those came into play,

but at least others are benefiting from them. One of the things that you've done differently on your videos that I actually think has been a big positive for a lot of your viewers is you've gone right back to the basics in many instances, fully explaining what a dividend is, what stocks are for that matter. But also you've taken an extra step of showing a lot of them, okay, you want to start doing this on your own, let's say through your TFSA, here's how you open an account and you've taken some of that mystery out of the game and made

it more likely that they'll take their next step. I think that's one thing the TikTok generation, the Finfluensers have done better than my generation is they brought it down to base one and said, I'll walk you through, I'll hold your hand through that process. Are you getting a lot of positive feedback on that? Yes, yes, exactly. So with the TikTok and like the Gen Z generation, there is just like there's so much information out there now, especially with social media, that's, you know, there are like 15 brokerages

to choose from, and there are like five different accounts. And so if I really, really wanted to make a difference in, I guess my generation, I will have to go back to the basics and say, click this button. And then the second step is to click this button. And then the third step is to click that button. And so it really cuts out all the noise from different influencers and to really kind of just hold their hand and get them to do the thing that I want them to do. And so I'm going to give you some credit here. I can attest to the fact that that's had a positive impact personally because I know a couple of your followers, young followers, and the fact that you did walk them through very carefully how to actually open the account did push them over the

edge. So they were convinced that it made sense to save. It made sense to invest for the long term in the TFA or RSP. But getting them to take that next. step of how do I do it? Do I just walk into a bank or can I do it on my own? What are the better ways to go, et cetera? I think you walking them through that, again, on screen, showing them the buttons to press. It sounds very basic, but I think it's been very impactful. Yeah. And like 99% of Canadians are like on the same boat as the 19 year old joy. They are, and I was so scared to press any button that has to do with money, right? Like what if I press this button and it just goes into a cloud somewhere and like I can never get that money back?

And so when they say me do it, they're like, oh, let me just literally follow the, you know, what buttons to press that tree set. I'm surprised your age is afraid of that. I mean, my age, 88 or whatever I am now, I get why I'm afraid of it. I didn't grow up with it. But I'm surprised that the 19, the 25, the 28-year-olds are still as intimidated by going online and opening an account. It must be money that intimidates them.

Yeah, but I always encourage people just transfer in 10 bucks. Right. Start small. that. Yeah, do that. Like, you're not going to lose sleep over 10 bucks, hopefully. And once you see that money in the account, and the great thing with brokerages nowadays is that you can buy fractional shares, so just buy a little like $10 piece of company and then, you know, see how you feel from there. No, I think that's good advice. You know, one of the advantages that the video users have like you in the Finfluencer space takes me back to blogs. When blogs first came out,

I thought the bloggers had a big advantage over many of the traditional book writers in that they got to see all the comments under each and every blog and they could tell what was resonating, what wasn't resonating, what people were understanding, what they were still confused by, where to take the next step. That instant feedback from the front line made the bloggers get better and better at what they do. And we had some of the better finance bloggers right here in Canada. In fact, I would say in Canada we've been so lucky on the education front.

We've got some of the best communicators, the Ben Felix's of the world, world, the plain bagel, et cetera. But you go back to the bloggers. They learn from that. Well, you have a great front side seat because every time you post a video, you get all these people saying, yeah, but what about this? Or I'm a little worried about this. What a great learning experience for you.

Yeah. I mean, and it helps me curate my next video, right? Absolutely. Like, I make content based on what people want to know. And so, yeah, it's obviously a very great feedback when people ask me, well, what is a TF, I say. You're telling me an Oakland one, but what is that? Or like, you know, when they start investing and there's like so many choices out there, they can directly ask me, well, this ETF or this ETF, they're kind of the same. I get to, you know, kind of have like an infinite

loop of content ideas and which helps people. And I feel like it's, it's like the best job. Now, you've become involved with Blossom over the last few years. Tell our listeners what Blossom is. Yeah. Well, Blossom is a social platform, just like Instagram, where your profile is your portfolio. Right. And so what's really cool is that it's super transparent. So you can find me on Blossom. My Blossom portfolio is linked to my wealth simple portfolio. And so my followers can see in percentage allocation only, not dollar amount, exactly what stocks I own. And so it gives a lot of influencers the credibility. And it also has a really cool community side to it.

They just sold like a thousand tickets to the Rogers event. So it's really powerful to see like there are a thousand people who are in this blossom community who talk to each other every single day to come out and have fun with us. But they have this community feed where it's just like Twitter where the only thing they talk about is investing. right, which is like a dream come true for the 19 year old myself, right? You get to ask questions and people in the community get to answer. You get to share your portfolio. There are badges when you reach like a dividend milestone. There are badges when you reach like financial milestones.

I love the way you keep putting yourself back to 19. I'm going to start doing that. Like I'm going to, I love that. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I'm always going to refer to myself as 19. I wish. You were talking about the live event that Blossom put on recently. And I think that's actually interesting because as we go more and more high tech,

When you develop these communities, they still want high touch. They still want to meet people. They still want to see that they're real, that they're authentic, that they care. And so I think mixing the two together the way you have is probably clever. And I did a lot of the same, obviously. When the book came out, I hit the road and you're out there giving speeches, and it gives you a chance to learn a lot from people and them to see the real person behind the book and behind the teachings.

And I think that you guys have started to do that. You mentioned earlier that there's a number of other Finfluences out there. and I've never seen a space with more cooperation and good feelings, good relationships among competitors than in the Canadian Finn fluids or space, the last 10 to 15 years. It started when the bloggers all started getting together. And now it's extended into the people who are using primarily video as their communication. You all know each other.

You all support each other. You all try to learn from each other. Nobody's out there badmouthing or anything like that. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You've developed a wonderful community. What led to that and why do you think it's thriving to the extent it is. Yeah, I love how this is the next question because it really has to do with Blossom. When Blossom started, Brandon Beavis was the CMO of the company. And so he obviously had so much

poll with the finance community. And he emailed, I guess, like every single finance influencer he knew and got them together and kind of like met up with each other. And we were just bonding over the fact that, I mean, it's Brandon Beebe. It's like he's super iconic and it was just like super good vibes everywhere. And all of us believed in Blossom, right? Like we knew that Blossom was such a great platform. I can say that I think like all of us are personally invested into the company. And so we have like similar goals. We wish Blossom will succeed and and because of that we've but, like, create a great friendship circle. And we've done some pretty well things together as a group as well.

So team building. Yeah, this is a PG show. We don't want to know about it. When you look at it, do you worry it all that as people see others' portfolios, they may think, okay, that portfolio is also appropriate for me, but they may have different time frames, different risk tolerance levels, different outside assets. I mean, that concerns me a little bit.

How do you safeguard against that? I think all of, like, the Canadian influencers kind of echo the same sentiment and have the same narrative as to say, you know, you have to do your research and not every single portfolio can fit for you. And personal finance is so personal. And whenever we buy a stock or sell a stock on Blossom, there is like, you share your rationale on. on why you buy it to stock, why you sold the stock, et cetera. And we kind of always say, I'm buying this stuff because I'm planning to hold it for the next 30 years. Right. You know, or my financial goals are this and that's when my portfolio is set up this way.

But, yeah, like we kind of also want the audience to be skeptical. Like, why did you buy the stock? Or like, you know, it hasn't grown that much in the last five years. And it's like, well, I'm looking at the 10 year, you know, we're. turns. And so I think that whenever we go on tour, whenever we have a chance to say this, we always say, please, you know, copy my portfolio, always do your own research. And we, we as influencers try to provide like the best information out there for them, where we say, you know, if this is your goal, then do this. Or if that is your goal, then do that.

You mentioned Brandon. He did a piece on FHSAs a couple of years ago. And I thought it was one of the better ones to hit the market. And his dad also does some outstanding commentary on YouTube on various economic and investment areas. And I really enjoy those too. So continued good luck with all of that. What's next for you personally? I would love to my next initiative.

I would love to speak to as many high schools, high school kids as possible. Good. I have been going around talking to some high schools from my hometown. I did an initiative with the Blue Jays Care Foundation. the baseball team in Toronto. Well, I know I'm old, but you don't have to tell me what the Blue Jays are. Like, I mean, I'm not that old.

Take it easy. I know, but they're just like such a big corporation. So I was doing talks with the Blue Jays Care Foundation after my third year this year. Good for you. It's a summer camp with low-income families and they host a, I guess, like a big conference every year where they help kids with finances or investing or like if you want to speak. an entrepreneur or if you want to learn about, I don't know, careers in Ontario or something. And so I'm trying to do more and more of that. Just trying to get more financial literacy

to younger generation. That's a great objective. A couple of quick questions and I'll let you go. Are you seeing more of the all in one ETS where Canadians are saying, hey, I can get geographical diversification, all in one shot. They're doing the rebalancing. They know more about this than I do. or low, that's going to be a primary part of my portfolio. I'm certainly seeing more of that, are you? I definitely am. A lot of my friends who are finance influencers are pushing so much for that. I mean, there are so many influencers out there who are saying, you know, buy these

individual stocks. But I think all of us, the better influencers anyway, are telling people, you know, just don't think about it too much. Let investing be boring and just buy the all-in-one ETS. and a lot of people are, hopefully, listening to us. And I do see even at Blossom that there are a lot more people holding on the one ETS. That's interesting. I hope that that's the way that everyone is going.

Now, one place where you and I differ is I push hard for people to not look at their portfolio much. My experience and the formal research, I'll say it says that the closer you get to it, the more engaged you get with it, the more likely you are to do something foolish. and that the better investors focusing long-term stay unemotional, stay detached, literally detached, they're looking at their portfolio infrequently. What do you think of that? You know what? I try to not look at my portfolio at my portfolio too much either nowadays.

When I first started investing, I mean, it is so exhilarating, right? Like watching your money grow or go down. I mean, it is just so tempting to go on my brokerage app and say, oh, my God, like my money is up two dollars and that that makes you feel so good but i feel like the longer you start to invest you kind of have the confidence that your money is building in the background whereas again a lot of the early investors are just they're just excited yeah i love that you really you have a lot of energy when you describe it as exhilarating even when it goes down i find that not so exhilarating but i know what you mean and i mean that's one of the things that you and i

both have to do is we always have to prepare the younger generation for the volatility. And I'm constantly reminding them that when you take on the potential returns of equities, one of the reasons those potential returns exist is because you have to put up with the ups and downs, the prolonged down turns and so on and so forth. They are inevitable. In fact, you're going to have a tremendous variance in performance. We've been on a great run for a long period of time right now. But in general, stocks can struggle for years. They can go down dramatically in a very short period. And mentally, we're always having to prepare people for that. They have to look past that short-term pain and recognizing that they're placing a bet on

capitalism, a bet on human ingenuity. That's really what owning an ETF for stocks is all about. Okay, well, look, we really appreciate you coming on the podcast. It was nice having you continued success with you career, but also with Blossom and all the things that that team is up to. And hopefully you and I will have a chance to meet in person at some point. Yes, I would love to do that, Dave. Thank you so much for hiring. You'd be a better hurry, though, Joy. I don't have a lot of years left. Okay, so come out and see me speak soon, because who knows when it's going to end? 100%.

Okay. Thanks a lot.