The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #52 — Moira Rose Váně: RESPs & How to Save for Your Kids’ Education

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Our guest this episode is Moira Rose Váně — a full-time lawyer and Qualified Associate Financial Planner® who specializes in helping Canadian families save for their kids’ education through RESPs.  In this conversation, Dave and Moira take a deep dive into everything you need to know about RESPs — from how they work to how to invest inside them to the often-overlooked pitfalls like high fees and estate planning risks when grandparents are involved. They also break down strategies for maximizing government grants, optimizing withdrawals and why family RESPs can be such a powerful tool. Along the way, Moira shares her perspective on passive investing, her unique career path as both a lawyer and financial planner and the financial planning challenges that disproportionately impact women. Whether you’re a parent, grandparent or planning to have kids in the future, this episode is packed with clear, practical advice to help you make the most of RESPs and avoid costly mistakes.   Show Notes (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) Intro Moira Rose Váně (02:10) Being a Lawyer and a Financial Planner (04:28) Why Moira is Focusing on RESPs (07:27) RESP Basics: What Is It & How It Works (10:33) How to Invest Inside Your RESP (14:06) Index Funds & The Evidence for Passive Investing (15:38) The Problem With Group RESPs (16:43) Best Platforms for Self-Directed RESPs (19:37) Getting Grandparents Involved in RESPs (21:14) The Impact of Fees on RESPs (22:19) Estate Planning Risks When Grandparents Are Subscribers (24:19) How Taxes Work With RESPs (27:35) Why Dave and Moira Like Family RESPs (30:04) Withdrawing from Your RESP: Strategies & Common Mistakes (32:21) Financial Planning Challenges Unique to Women (38:26) Moira’s 12-Month Implementation Advice Model (43:29) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber and former Dragon on Dragon's Dent. 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, will be here to help you. 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. Hello, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber, with the wealthy barber podcast. By the way, the podcast has been going back and forth between number two, three, and four business podcasts in Canada, but important to note the number one Canadian business podcast in Canada. That darn dire CEO, that is a tough one to catch. They've got a lot of marketing. But happy to be back. We've got a great guest today, a little bit

different. We're going to focus on a specific area of financial planning more than we normally do. And I think you'll really enjoy it. It's an area that touches the vast majority of our lives. Moira Rose Vonier, one of the great names. One of the great names. I've ever heard. Welcome to the show number one. Number two, what did you think when Schitt's Creek came out and the lead female character's name was Moira Rose? It blew my mind. Growing up, I had never really heard that name with other kids on the playground and my best friend's name was Emily. So of course, there were lots of Emmleys. And yeah, I just went through most of my life, never hearing my name. And then all of a sudden,

it felt like it was everywhere. And, you know, you'd check into your flight. I'd check into my flight at the airport and they'd be looking at my documentation and then they'd be looking at back at me. And it was awesome. Yeah. No, it's been great. I'm sure it's helped the brand a little bit. Everybody can certainly remember your name. Now, you have a firm called Moira Rose Financial, and we'll talk more about it in a moment. But what is fascinating about you, things are actually, but is that you're also a prosecutor. You're a lawyer and a prosecutor, and you do the financial planning on the side. You've got a great work ethic, obviously. But what an interesting background. How did you get to this spot?

I always had a love for personal finance. And definitely your book was a fundamental part of that. And so when I was a teenager, my parents encouraged it. They were always, my mom especially, was always buying me finance books. And then when I got to law school, I enjoyed it, but I still really loved personal finance. But there didn't seem to be an avenue into the profession outside of going to the banks. And I didn't want to work at a bank. And I also really love criminal law.

And so I just stuck with that, became a prosecutor. But then I was always the person in the office that everybody came to with finance questions and pension questions and maternity leave questions. So I was able to just do it like as a passion project like with friends and coworkers and someone got divorced. That helped them with their numbers. And then a couple of years ago, I was out for a walk with a mutual friend that we have, Rija Casey. And she said to me, we were walking our dogs and she said, why don't you just do it for real? Like, why don't you just start a business and start doing it, you know, a little bit on the side to see if you actually like it. And maybe that's what you keep doing.

And so I thought about it. And then I looked into what, again, are the qualifications now? Like, do I have to go into a bank and work there? And FP Canada has the QAFP program. So I signed up for that, took it. And then exactly hung out my shingle and started doing it. Oh, good for you. Bridget is a great entrepreneur.

And she is a really good example of taking action. So she tends to think, okay, I've got an idea. I'm going to start and see what happens and learn as I go and then apply her intelligence to that. I'm not surprised she pushed you to do exactly that. So she's the right kind of friend to have on that front. But don't tell her. I said any of those nice things about her at all. Let's hope she doesn't listen.

Now, I first met you when you were prosecuting my assistant Mo for fraud. And it was a tough case for sure. She beat it again. She beat it again. 35 years of defrauding me here. and undefeated in the court system. She is, she is amazing. Now, when you went into the financial planning space, you did something a little bit unusual. You started at least on the public facing end of your life, focusing on RESPs. And your argument is that it's something that touches almost

all of our lives. There is grandparents, parents, whatever, and that people haven't mastered the nuances. They're making careless mistakes that are costing them thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, why not put out a course, put out information that can help people navigate these waters in an unbiased fashion. Did I get that about right? And how's it going? It's going really great. And yeah, it was also too, a little bit of, it felt like a little bit of social justice in it because it is a thing that everybody has, but a lot of folks are being taken advantage of in the RESP space. I think sort of by like some of the very worst and somewhere it's more just this is the business model and people don't ask too many questions and so we let it

flow. But that bothers me because I don't think it's truthful and honest. And my pursuit of justice is just a core part of who I am. And so, yeah, it just felt really unfair. And when I started doing planning in my business, it was always showing up as an afterthought. And when you think about this thing that is going to launch our kids, how can we be treating it like an afterthought? And so I really felt like it's a kind of product where unlike an RRSP or a TFSA, everybody's situation is different. there's actually a lot of universality to an RISP. It has a short runway, right? It doesn't get to be around for too long if your kids go to school, like on a normal trajectory.

If your kids are going to go to school, it's one year, two years, four years, and then you have to close it. And that's pretty universal. And in terms of how much risk to take and when to de-risk it, again, very universal. You want a lot of growth at the beginning. You want to get out of the market right before you need to pay tuition. So that's why I felt a course would be a great way to deliver this information that everybody can understand and then, you know, you can push pause, go back, relisten to things, and then apply it to your own life. And I really tried to break it down step by step by step so people could understand,

you know, oh, I didn't know I was in this kind of product. Oh, I didn't know that had these fees. And now I'm going to go look, oh my gosh, these are my fees. Now, how do I transfer it? Okay, here are the steps. One, two, three, four. Here's the questions to ask. And then here's what to buy when you get to the new place. And so, yeah, I thought it would just be extremely useful to just regular people who are trying to do their best to give their kids. a bit of a leg up. You know, it's interesting. You said RESPs are often viewed as an afterthought.

And I think that I find that the RESPs themselves, people make them a big part of their financial plan. What is the afterthought is the specifics of how best to take advantage of them. The details tend to get completely lost in the shuffle. In fact, interestingly, even among some of the better financial planners out there, where I see comprehensive financial plans, even then the RESP often not is addressed with very specific advice on how best to do it, et cetera. So I think what you're doing makes a lot of sense. And you're going to help a lot of people. There are a lot of careless mistakes out there.

No question. Start with the very basics. What is an RESP? How long have they been around? What was the government's intention in laying them out the way it did? So it is a government program. It is a tax shelter for parents or grandparents or potentially even people not related to your child to put money into an account because the government wants you to save for your children. children's or for the child's education. And so to get you to do that, they give you a bit of free money. So it's like a carrot on a stick. So it's incentivizing you to save for post-secondary. Why do they do it? This is, I guess, where my theory part is, is that it then becomes an individual responsibility instead of a collective one, which is the problem kids today are facing so much of society has turned

individualized. And so instead of realizing educated population is a good thing, we need, doctors and nurses and plumbers and electricians and philosophers, we've just allowed it to just be put onto individual families' shoulders. And so everybody knows they need an RESP, but that's exactly it, is that then they've got it and then what. So that's, I guess, my sort of unofficial theory about why we have it. So then you put that money in. The government gives you a little bit of free money, and then the idea is you invest it. And then you have of roughly 17 years for it to grow. And then when your child or the child goes to school, they're able to withdraw the money,

and there's two different pots of money when it comes to withdrawal. Part of it has no taxes, and part of it will be subject to taxes, but kids at school generally don't tend to have high incomes, so the tax rate's very low. And so that's sort of in a nutshell how the program works. Right, and it stands for registered educational savings plan, and you're registering it with the government,

because to your point, you get certain tax advances, the money grows tax sheltered while it's in the plan, and the part that's taxable comes out, taxable in the hands of the student. And again, to your point, they're paying a very low tax rate in the vast majority of instances. You mentioned the two pots that come out. The other, I assume, is the contribution money itself, which is not a taxable because unlike an RSP, you didn't get the tax deduction when you put it in. Exactly. Okay. And so walk us through, how does the grant work? How does the free money to use your expression work? So the government will match 20% of what you

put in up to a maximum of if you put in $2,500 in a year, the max they'll give you is $500 in a year. And then over the life of the RISP, the most free money you can get is $7,200 from the government. And for you get that, you have to contribute $36,000. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so let me ask you an interesting question. Let's say that you're lucky enough to have very well-to-do grandparents. And they look at all this and they say, we really want to fund this aggressively. do people ever put a lot of money in the RESP up front? So 20, 40, 50,000 right away. They don't get the full advantage of the grant necessarily if they do it that way, but they have the advantage of the compounding on a tax deferred basis over X number of years. Do you see that much at all?

I do see it, but it would be amongst high earning clients that I have. Right, for sure. Otherwise, very rare. Yeah, very rare. And so people put in their $2,500 a year. They get the $500 grant. Now they're working with $3,000. The best and most important question now is, what do they do with it? When they first start out, the child's obviously quite young. They have a good number of years. Do you tend to invest there for a little bit more aggressively at that point? Yeah. So I like to explain to folks in the course.

That's the general idea is that you want to be in the market to capture growth. So first, though, I think that's important is for people to understand how investing works. So I start with what's a fixed income product and what are equities and what are the pros and cons to each of those. And so that's where your individual question of risk, that to me would be the only part of the RISP that isn't universal, which is what is your own comfort feelings around risk. And so if you feel pretty comfortable with a bit of risk, then you want to have a lot more inequities at the beginning. And then you want to taper it down as they get older. And so I've provided in the course, for example, three different ways to do that, a short, medium, and long runway. And I use the analogy of landing a plane because you've got to get it up into the air, you've got to fly it as far and as high as it can go, and then you have to safely land.

And so for some folks, it's like landing a big plane. For some folks, it's like a float plane, and for some folks, it's like a helicopter. And that really comes down to how you feel about risk. Now, one of the things I've seen over the years that's worried me a little bit as people have gotten fairly aggressive with the monies inside the RISP and done quite well in many instances. The markets, for the most part, have been quite strong over the laxed X number of years. But as the child has gotten closer and closer university, they haven't lightened up on the equity portion at all. And so they're taking the risk the market stays fairly strong.

If on the other hand, it corrects 20, 30, 40%, which as you know happens, they're in a position where they need to access the money and therefore can't patiently wait for the markets to rebound. Do you tend to teach them to lessen the equity exposure as they get within three, four, five years of needing some of the money? Yes, that's exactly what I show, folks. So when we go back to that runway analogy, when you take the age of the child, you know,

there is the idea where you could, for example, every year shift things by 5%. There's the idea that you could divide kids ages into like zero to six, six to 12, 12 to 18, and you're in 100%, you're in an 80, 20, you're in a 60, 40 split. And then there's also the idea of, and I show people my own RESP inside it, which is I've decided to be 100% equities until the child is 14. And then between 14 and 18, a quarter of the money goes into fixed income and then eventually a quarter into cash as they start school. So that's the idea. And people can take a look at and apply it to themselves. And I think there's a lot of millennials out there that can talk about the experience of what

happened when their RES were too much invested in the market close to when they needed to go to school around 2008, 9, 10. Absolutely. And they suffered big losses. And of course, they say to me that they didn't understand that and their parents didn't understand that because they had just left it at the bank and they just thought somebody was looking after it. Okay.

Do you recommend self-administered plans and kind of DIYing this and making sure you stay on top of it? I do. Yeah. And so that's, again, part of like what I'm trying to explain to people is when it comes to somebody managing it versus robo advisor versus doing it yourself, I'm a person that works in analogies. And so the analogy I use is if you're using an advisor, it's like going to hold Renfrew with a personal shopper. If you're using a robo advisor, it's like doing click and collect at super store. And if you're doing DIY, it's you going to Dollerama and taking it off the shelf.

But at the end of the day, at all three stores, you're buying the same thing. We're all buying Google. We're all buying Apple. We're all buying RBC. It's one stock market. So how much do you want to pay for the exact same product in these three places? And when you say product, for the most part of you're using ETFs or index funds and keeping it low cost and why to diversified broad market averages? Absolutely. And I explain to folks how those work. I take a part, I dissect VEQT in the course.

So folks can understand how diversification works. And for me, again, I think it's my prosecutor brain where I come back to what does the evidence support. And we know that the evidence supports being in these broad-based funds is the most efficient way to invest in the least amount of risk. And I know that there is a huge part of the industry that likes to talk about these massive returns, to which I always say to people, that's right. And the lot of corp always publishes the weekly winners, not all the losers. And when we look at the evidence, we know that at the 10-year mark, less than 3% of active management can beat an index. So if you were sick and they offered you medication and they said one has a 97% chance of working and one has a 3% chance of working, which would you pick? No, I agree. The evidence strongly says that breeding the broad market averages for a variety of reasons is extremely difficult to do. To your point, the longer the time frame, the more challenging becomes.

And even if the data said it was 10% as opposed to 3%, it's tough. And it's not the same 10% over and over again. So you can do all the thorough research you want in terms of the past outperformers, the likelihood of the likelihood of, of that group being the same going forward. Being able to outperform again is very low indeed. So a lot of what you're saying just makes perfect sense to me, including the kind of time frames you're talking. What are the most common mistakes you see?

And let me start with this. The group are ESPs that at one point we're quite dominant in Canada now have faded in terms of popularity, but are still very much out there. What are your thoughts on them? I loathe them. I love the word loathe, by the way. I don't know why, but I've always, I've always liked that word. It's weird to love the word loathe because it really makes no sense, but I love the word loathe.

Yeah, I really despise them. Every client that I've ever encountered who's been in a group RASP has been devastated to learn what's really going on. How can they get their money out? How can they move it? What will they lose? And there's always been catastrophic. And so I wish they didn't exist. That's how I actually feel. I just think they serve to your social good. I'm a tad more diplomatic than you. You're a prosecutor trying to always hammer the guilty. but I do think that the rules are very rigid, often opaque. I would say that they're almost never properly explained to the people making the investment. That's one of the great frustrations I've had over the years. Again, the good news is you're seeing them used less and less often as time goes by.

At one point in the 80s and 90s, they were very much a part of the scene. Okay, so you advocate for DIYing. Do you have a suggested platform that people would open up the RESP on that has an interface that they can understand and easily navigate and go forward from there. Yeah. So I use three different sort of examples in the course. And so I was a big fan of the E-Series at TD. That was the in this space.

And so I think it's very simple to use. Lots of folks are already with the TD. So it's very simple for them to navigate. And even though there are now cheaper ETFs than the E-Series, if you are comfortable with the big bank and you want to stay with them, I still think it's a great product. And so that's certainly like within my basket of recommendation. I also think robo advisors can do a good job. Just wealth is the only one I'm aware of in the space

that has one that ratchets down the risk as the child gets older. And I think, again, for folks that want to be a bit more hands-off, a bit nervous, they also have something they can talk to. And then last year, Well Simple, finally brought in the self-directed RESP. And to me, the big advantage of that is that not only is it self-directed, but they finally brought in automatic purchasing of ETS. Because I'm all about automating. Parents are busy. Absolutely. You've got after school stuff happening.

You've got volunteer commitments. You're trying to be a good friend. Your parents are aging. The car broke down. The dog is sick. You're not going to be in your bank account every two weeks, logging in, what was my password, doing the password reset, and then going in to buy the product that you wanted to buy the security.

And so if you set it up, okay, $200 every month for this child, it just goes in, it buys the thing, done. It runs on its own. That to me is like that piece de resistance. And so I think well simple on that front has the best product at this time. I've yet to see anything that's comparable. But it comes down to what people are comfortable with. So that's why I let them know here's what I think are the three best options.

Now, Marlowe Rose has a bit of a French feel to it. And that French accent was very strong. Do you have ties to the language? So I grew up in Yellowknife, North Coast territories, and I started an immersion. And when I got to high school, there was no French high school at the time. And so I begged my parents to continue to go to school in French. And so my mom found a high school in Quebec City. And so I, at 15, moved to Quebec City all by myself to go to a French high school that was not a boarding school.

And I lived with nuns for two years right in the heart of Quebec City. So, yeah, so I speak fluent French. I cannot tell if you're making up three quarters of your background. Prosecutor, the Moira Rose name. I don't know what any of this, but it all sounds very interesting. It's drawing me in. It's working on me. And plus, your RESP advice has been bang on.

And so we have no issues there. And I agree with you. The new product that's come out at Well, Simple's very good. And again, you have no fee to open the account. You have no fee when you invest in the ETFs that you've chosen. It can be automated, which to your point is crucial. Now, you'll get a kick out of this. I don't know if you read the wealthy barber returns.

But I made a joke in that book. And it was a joke that ended up becoming used in real life by many people. I said, leave a brochure about RESPs on the table in your living room. And when your parents ask about, oh, what's that all about? You say, oh, I thought you asked for that. For the kids' education, it must have been the in-laws. Not only do you plant the seed, but you raise the competitiveness. And I've had many people tell me that they read the wealthy barber returns and actually

pulled that trick to how to get grandparents involved. Grandparent involvement here is crucial in these high-cost times. Do you not see a lot of them are really stepping up to the plate and helping out? I do. And in fact, I read that book, and that is actually in every financial plan that I create. I always tell parents, talk to grandparents. If they want to help their kids out, they want to give some money, you worry about their future. This is the best way. I do recommend that grandparents turn the money over to the parents because of the estate planning sort of issues around that, because everybody thinks beneficiary in this context means the person who inherits it. But of course it doesn't. The

beneficiary in an RESP context means the child for whom it's intended. who inherits the account is about who is the subscriber's heirs. And so it gets just a bit messy. And so I just think that's the simplest is give it to the parents and let the parents do the investing. And I do see that. I do see grandparents that want to help out and they love it. And so then I've actually, with some of my clients, because everyone is a financial planning client of mine get registered into the course for free, I've said, just give it to grandpa. And grandpa can take a look at the course. And so grandpa's taken the course. And now grandpa's really into it. And so it's been wonderful because I love that it's more people getting

educated about personal finance. And then there's been some light bulbs go off. Wait a minute. If this is the RESP, what's happening with my TFSA? And then they go back and take a look. And the thread starts to pull and soon they're very emboldened to maybe I will look into this DIY myself. And I just think that's wonderful because I really think most folks don't need to be paying these kinds of fees. Like we play the highest mutual fund prices on the planet. Yeah. So, you know, why not do it yourself? the people who are really benefiting are the banks and not the children. And, you know, there's nothing more that I want to see than young people going to school and having a good life. And I feel like I look back on my own time in university. I imagine your time. You had fun. It wasn't stressful. You weren't worried about,

will AI take my job? Will I ever be able to buy a house? Will everything always be out of reach? And the RISPs are really only the tool, the only tool that we really have to help kids go to school without a lot of stress. And that's what I want for them. Go to school. Have fun. Make friends. Go to a Friday afternoon beers. Like, that's a great experience. No, you're making a lot of good points. Now, can you go back to something? Aravind, your friend was on our show and talked a little bit about the estate planning approach you have to

take when grandparents get involved and why giving the money to the parents makes so much sense. Just walk people through that little more detail. To be honest with you, I've done a horrible job of that. So I've talked a lot about RESPs on stage, including some of the subtleties, but I've never brought that up. And I actually think it's

quite an important point. Yeah. I actually think, too, it also applies in a family law context, not just an estate planning one. Fundamentally, an RESP, there's three players that are involved. There is the promoter, which is like the institution. There's the subscriber who is the person that's putting the money in the account and the money belongs to the subscriber at all times. And then there is the beneficiary for whom the money is intended, but to whom it does not belong. So the money always belongs to the subscriber. So if the subscriber is grandpa and grandpa says, I want everything to go to my brother when I pass.

Then when Grandpa passes, that RASP goes to the brother because that's who is the now lawful owner of it. So, you know, it's not a problem that can't be solved, but certainly, you know, you then start involving estate lawyers and you're going to court and you're trying to straighten it out or you're relying on the executor's goodwill to kind of do the right thing, which they might be nervous as executives can be personally liable for these things. And so that's the context in when an estate planning, but then also comes. down to also in divorces because there are some people who have very unamicable situations. And if one person has been a subscriber, they can just take all that money out. The grant money gets returned, but then they can go spend it. And there's no recourse because the money always belongs to the subscriber. So if you are doing a separation or divorce agreement, you want to address it.

Yeah, no, that all makes perfect sense. And again, I don't think I've done a good job of shining a light on that because it comes up a lot. And of course, logically, the grandparents often will die before the, beneficiary has moved on to school. I mean, it's a perfect sense from an age perspective. So I'm glad that you're bringing that up. Other mistakes that we see, a lot of people don't really understand that when the money comes out, there are, as you said, two buckets, one that's not taxable, return to the contributions and one that is, and that's in essence the growth plus the grants themselves, etc. Do people have to plan around that carefully too? And is there any general guidelines you can share right now?

Absolutely. So when it comes to the money that you're going to withdraw, I did some research with the Ombudsperson on investment and banking, and there's a lot of mistakes that have happened there, even by the banks themselves. Your money at the beginning is three things. There's the money you put in. There's the matching grant money that the government gives you combined. They then make profit, which we call growth. So you've got three. So if you think of it like a caterpillar, it's then going to turn into a butterfly when it's time to take the money out. And the butterfly only has two halves. It's got the original contribution money, and then it takes the growth in the grant, and it puts them together. The growth in the grant has to have taxes applied to it. The money you originally put in, you already pay taxes on it, you didn't get a deduction when you contributed, so you get it back. It's also broader than just taxes, because there's also rules around what you're allowed to spend the money on.

The money, that is the growth in the grants, there are some thresholds. About $28,000 a year outside of the first semester. First semester, part-time you can only take out four, full-time you can only take out eight, and then afterwards you have this $28,000 threshold, you can potentially take out more than that from that bucket of money, but it's probably prudent to contact the Canada Education Savings Program

and tell them here's the situation, here's what I'd like to do, and they actually can give you a letter that you can take to your financial institution to say, we're going to withdraw the money for this purpose. But then on the other side, the contribution money is a free-for-all. So this is where you can use the money to buy real estate,

put it in your child's TFSA, potentially open a FHSA, if you think they might buy a buy in a house in the next 15 years, which is increasingly difficult, but potentially. And so that's the kind of thing that is a general starting point you want to be aware of is that there's these two pots. They're treated differently. At the end, if you haven't spent down the growth in the grants and you're going to close it, you have to give back the grant money. And there can be pretty punitive taxes on the growth part. Very punitive.

Yeah, the subscribers tax rate plus a 20% extra penalty. So the strategy is start with that taxable money and try to get as much of that out as you can and then use the contribution money with no taxes to sort of throttle things as the years go by. Agreed totally. What happens is first year or two kids are not making too much money. Maybe they have a summer job. The whole point of this RASPs that you really hope they don't have to have a part-time job in school. But then you have kids who do co-op programs and if they're in the trades,

they're going to then start apprenticing. They make great wages. Now they're moving into a higher tax bracket. even though you may have that EAP money that you want to take out that will be taxed, now you're in a much, you know, not much higher, but potentially one or two brackets higher, which wasn't the ideal. So again, if you have more siblings and you're in a family plan, the idea might be at that point, they switch to just the contribution money coming

out to pay for school and you redirect that EAP money to the other siblings, with one tiny exception, which is you can't double up on grant money. But you will have a lot of growth, so that's okay too. I agree with that strategy completely. And you talked about the family plans. I'm a big fan of the family plans and the flexibility they bring to the table. Just walk our listeners through that. Yeah.

So the two kinds of plans essentially are really it's non-family and family. And we call one individual, but that's what non-family is. And it's about the subscriber, who they can be. So anybody can open an RASP for any child. And that's what the non-family or individual one is. Then when it comes to the family one, you have to be related. And so with that family one, you can put all the kids in the same plan. And I love it because it's just you put it all in one place.

Don't worry about who gets what and how you're going to allocate it as it's growing. I think that folks carry a lot of money anxiety and money trauma and they get very stressed out about the kids not getting equal treatment. Don't worry about that. Just put all the money in, try to grow it as big as you can. And then when it comes time to withdraw it, you can move the money around between kids. And you'll know yourself what kids are going to take when they get. to school or what their interests are when they're that much older. I have a child who is obsessed

with gems and wants to be a gemologist, the best program in the country, according to Mr. Vandenberg, who runs the beautiful jewelry store in Emmington, told us it's the GIA in California, conveniently located across the street from Legoland. And it is $50,000 US for the one year program, it's 10 months. And so my child is now currently obsessed with the idea I'm going to the GIA. And so, you know, when I think of how I've been growing it, I was mostly operating under the idea they both go and do four-year university degrees. Well, that's now going to be the case. And so we'll do a little bit of strategizing. I've contacted the CESP program to tell them, I'm going to need to withdraw a lot of money to pay for the $50,000 U.S. tuition, to which they said, oh, yeah, it's on the approved

list of schools, not a problem at all. But that's the kind of thing that I think when you're thinking of putting together a family plan, don't overanalyze and worry and stress too much. while you are building it. When you get to the end, you know, you do your best. The fact that one kid maybe got a bit more money, is it really about the money or is it about the education? And that's where sort of family values play into it. Maybe it's everybody gets one degree. Maybe it's everybody gets $30,000. And sometimes maybe the $30,000 comes from the RISP and maybe you're just going to help divert some of your own cash flow while they're in school. You can figure it out, but you're doing your best and trying not to internalize that anxiety. Like you're a great parent. You're trying

so hard to help your kids get this education. Do you think people need some advice when they get down to the withdrawal stage to make sure that they're thinking this through and they've asked themselves the right questions and they're withdrawing the right amounts, et cetera? That seems like it would overwhelm a few people or they would let it slip between the cracks. 100%. I think it's actually the most overlooked part of the entire RESP. And I think people actually think, well, my kids are older so I don't need to really learn about the RESP when it's like, actually, this is the three alarm fire because if you do things

wrong or you make mistakes. Can you imagine if you had to turn over the whole $7,200 in grant money back? Like, that happens. There are cases I have read where that exact thing happened and it could have been avoided if they had known to start with EAP. And of course, the financial institutions has you signed paperwork that says you acknowledge what's happening. So from a liability perspective, of course, they can say they knew, they signed the paperwork. They knew it was all from this bucket that is the contributions. And the parents are there saying, I have to do. no idea that there was a difference. Nobody told me. I didn't know what I was signing. They just gave me the form and I signed it. And so this to me is really the part where everybody actually

should be really paying attention. And the math can be intimidating. I do show people. I show people in an Excel spreadsheet. Like I'm not great at math in the sense of if I, the joke in the legal communities, we're good at math, we'd be doctors. I get by and I do good enough. But if you are overwhelmed, I show you, here's how I do the math. Here's my Excel spreadsheet. But also, this is what accountants are for. Right. Or your financial advisor, I agree. Then say, hey, you know what, here's my child, here's their T4, how much money should we pull out this year and in what order? Well, like, what's your recommendation? And they will tell you. And it's really not that complicated, but I appreciate that it can be intimidating at the beginning. But once you've done it,

once or twice, which you have to do it every single time you're withdrawing money, so you'll get the chance to do it, potentially, eight, 10, 12 times. After the first one or two times, you'll have the hang of it and you'll know what to be looking for. No, I agree. I think. Turning to the account makes a lot of sense there or if you have a competent financial advisor. And of course, there's more and more and more software that can help you through this as well. Now, going back to your child, hey, AI can't take gems away from us. That's a good profession. That's your, their job should be safe when eventually he or she acquires it.

So that's good news. Okay, one more subject before we let you go. You've been great. We talked a little bit off air about the fact that doing some financial planning for females can often be a little different than it is for males, that they face some different challenges. Give me some examples there. Yeah. So my clients are overwhelmingly women and their experience is pretty universal, I would say, in that when they have previously been with an advisor or a financial institution, they have felt that they were spoken down to, that it was condescending, that they didn't

understand things. They were made to feel stupid if they asked. And they want to be in a safe place to talk about these things. And so that's why I love doing this work because they realize, like it's a conversation I have almost every single time where they say, I had no idea it was so simple because there's a lot of gatekeeping around terminology, jargon, ideas, because of course there's a vested interest. And that's where my prosecutor frame always goes is, who's telling you that and what's their motivation? What are they trying to sell you? What expensive product are they trying to sell you? Or why are they, for example, talking bad about RESPs? I see that a lot with the crowd that's trying to sell insurance and convince parents that they should be doing insurance

instead of an RISP saying that your child benefit money that you're putting in will become taxable, which of course it doesn't. It's contribution money. It doesn't become taxable. When it comes to women who want to talk about it in a safe place, I like to think that's what I've cultivated. You know, we have in my Instagram space, I guess you could call it, like lots of discussions about the issues that impact women. There's the obvious of like women live longer, but we're also seeing, of course, not just the living longer, but because partners are dying sooner than they are. Now they're inheriting a lot of wealth and it was often the husband that was going to the advisor and they were treated like tut tut tut what you have to say little lady doesn't really matter let me talk to the man

and now they're the ones leading on several million dollars and they have not liked how they have been treated for a very long time and they want to go somewhere else and so that's been pretty surprising to me in the sense that I didn't think it was as bad as it as what I have seen and then when women want to leave or even when they ask questions what am I paying in fees I don't understand. There's always this redirect of, listen, before we talk about fees, we have to talk about performance or even just straight out lies. Like I have seen the emails where I give my clients a script. Here's the script. This is how you ask, for example, are there any penalties if I'm going to exit these investments? Because there's a few things out there, maybe it was still DSCs. They're not until

2029. So just to be sure, because I didn't sell them this. And the answer will come back, whoa, why are you wanting to leave? Like, if you make 8%, and I can make you 8%, it's the same thing. like, don't you want me to have a job? Well, hold on. That's not, I made you 8% and you made 8%. What's really happening is I made 10%. I'm taking 2% for myself and now you have 8. So let's start truth. And that's not being delivered to people. And particularly, well, to women, has been my experience that I have seen. And I think it's a lot of that kind of wider misogyny that you see in society that's directed towards women exists in the financial planning space as well. This is also why FPAC has done a really great job of trying to have safe for spaces for women advisors and planners to talk amongst themselves.

And I've seen it myself when, before I was in the FPAC community, just being on Twitter to see how savagely the women were treated by the men in the financial space on Twitter. Or here's the top 10 best advisors in Canada and none of them are women. So then where do the women go? And women want to talk to other women because there's a lot of shorthands that we understand. I always come back to when it comes to money, there's always two components. there's math and there's feelings, they are equally valid. And so something, yeah, might be the most advantageous financially. For example, not being in TD-E series, but doing it to yourself at well-simple and an

ETF, but on the feeling side, you're at TD, you understand how it works, it's easy to set it up. You can do that. That's okay. It's okay. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to maximize everything. You don't have to grind for every penny. Your feelings are valid.

The amount of effort that mothers especially have to exert in running households, looking after kids, daycare pickups. mothers are the backbone of society. We're doing everything and it's uncompensated labor. And so this is why, on the feeling side, if it works for you, then let's do it. It doesn't have to be, again, math at all costs. Well, Maria Rose, I completely agree with you that mothers are the backbone of society. And I know there are exceptions, so don't hit me with critical comments, but in most cases, they still do way more than their fair share around the household and the raising

of the kids and not in all, but in most. And so that is tricky. There's no doubt about it. And plus, we take for grad and we often throw in there as financial experts, oh, well, they live longer. But think about what a big deal that is. When people are living longer, that requires more savings, different planning and all of those different types of things. On a positive note, and I think you'll agree with this, the upper echelon of the financial planning community in Canada. You mentioned FPAC. Oh my gosh, am I impressed with that male and female. There are so many good ones, passionate, caring people. And I think by example now, they're starting to influence all the other advisors.

And you'll see less of some of the things you brought up and more well-rounded approaches to both genders, et cetera. I think the trends are positive, even though the problems you brought up are very real right now. I love the folks at FPAC and, you know, all the guests that you've had on your show, that I've met many of them through that space and they're generous with their time. They're generous with their knowledge. they want nothing but the best for you, for your clients, for society writ large. And so it's wonderful. Like I do think that the tide is shifting and it is shifting for the better. And it benefits all of us.

Who would, why would anyone want to be spoken to like that? Nobody would want to be spoken to in condescending terms. And so to be able to have someone you trust that you can speak frankly with, you can divulge, you know, your anxieties and, you know, the traumas that you've had around money and then have a plan and feel good and confident. Like, that's wonderful for everybody. Yeah, because confidence is such a big part of sticking with things. And again, a lot of what we're trying to do here is de-stress people's lives through better money management. So you're right, the emotional part plays a huge role. So Morrose, you use the fee only, better knowing now as advice-only model that we're seeing become much more commonplace in Canada.

And let's be honest, a lot of the top people out there in terms of knowledge and communication skills have gone that route. Certainly not all of them. There's good in all models. But one of the challenges with that model on both sides of the border. Canada and the States has been that often there's no help on the implementation front. So this wonderful financial plan has developed, but the person leaves the room, doesn't know how to execute, forgets it, puts it in a drawer, etc. You were mentioning off-air that you're trying to do it a little differently and you're trying to stay a part of that process for 12 months after developing the plan.

Let's expand on that a bit. Yeah. So after I develop the plan and deliver it to them, we have a meeting always to go through the plan. Then I give them a homework list of here's the tasks that you need to implement to make the plan come to fruition. And then I start the clock and there's 12 months then to implement it. And whatever help they need along the way, I'm there to assist them with. So I do have people in my network that I'll refer people to, although I'm very happy to speak with whoever, if they have an insurance need. Here's an insurance broker that I think does very good work. And the three of us can talk together. Or I can just speak with you about what has come back in terms of the quotes. When it comes to wills and estates, I don't do that kind of work, but here's

some names of folks who do. Here are some considerations to have when you do that. plan. And so then as they're building it, I'm there to help them to answer any questions to just, I like to call myself sometimes the handholder in chief to help them with it. It will screen share. I will pull out my own phone and show, okay, here on both simple, you push this button or here on TD you push that button so that they can feel so confident and comfortable and good in both doing the thing and knowing that all along the way each part of the plan then is coming to life. And it's up to them to do the work, but they have 12 months to have me along the ride. to help them with whatever it is they need to actually put everything into place so that at the end of it,

they don't just have a plan on paper. They've got a plan that they're living. I was mentioning you're seeing that particular approach much more stateside now, and I think you'll see it more in Canada over the next few years. Often when they refer to a trusted partner to help with the implementation, they're not taking any kind of kickback. They're not sharing the commissions at all because then that introduces the bias that this model so wonderfully stays away from. Is that your philosophy as well? 100%. Yeah. I don't take any. You take 100% commission? Oh, my gosh, Moira Rose.

No, I don't even have an affiliate links. People will say, I'm opening a little symbol. Do you have a code? No, I'm not going to give a code because I don't want to anyone to ever think that there may be biased in any of the advice that I give. And yeah, no, it's, and people have to earn my trust. And so it's only the folks that I have worked with for a while. There are a lot of people that I just bring from my own life. I'm sure you won't imagine it's a coincidence that are all women that are in that network. And the other women, of course, clients that I have always come back and say, you just bring the best people to the table. I so enjoyed my experience dealing with this mortgage broker or this insurance broker or this wills and a state's lawyer. So it's been really

wonderful, too, to hear people say such wonderful things about other folks who are trying to do the same thing, help, you know, families live a good life, give their kids the best start and just enjoy our time on this ride that we have. No, that's good. And you're also seeing in the states. And again, I haven't seen it as much in Canada as some of the bigger. advice-only firms have developed educational modules about how to DIY so that people can watch seven and ten minutes for each of the different areas, at least get the start with how do you register at one of the online platforms and that type of thing. So I think we'll see more of that too. But again, that's not probably as good as the approach you're taking in others because there's

still that risk that people never turn that video on and watch that tutorial. They maybe need the hand holding to your point. They need to have the meetings set up with the trusted partners. are you looking at the partners and what they do after the fact to make sure it's consistent with the overall plan you develop to and that they're not straying too much? Yeah, always. We always talk about what it is that they ended up with in the end in terms of what they bought from the insurance broker or what kind of mortgage they got. And sometimes there are just realities, especially on the insurance front.

I know disability insurance is so expensive. It is. I try to buy it privately. And sometimes there's just not enough money to do all of the things. And so my recommendation may be, this is a high-risk situation for you to be out here with no disability insurance and there's just not money in the budget to buy it. And they got the quotes and we know what the quotes are and that's just the reality. And so I don't think of it as they're not following my advice. That is actually a great example because in real

life you see that one quite frequently where people say I know I should be doing it, but by the times I've done these other things, I'm going to take that risk on. Not ideal from Dave Chilton's perspective, but it is what it is, especially in these very high cost times where it's tough for everybody to thrive and survive. It's difficult out there. It is. It is. It's very hard. And so that's why I want to make sure that people come to the situation and leave the situation without feeling any shame about it. This is just reality. And you do the best you can.

And the fact that you're even here and present and trying to do it, just shows me how much initiative and care that you have for yourself and for your family to try to do right by all of you. Well said. Listen, I really enjoyed that. And I think your current situation is fascinating with the two different roles you're playing in society. And your background is crazy. I'm going to give a lot of thought to that moving to Quebec City at 15. But I did pick up how strong your accent was. When you said that French line, I went, okay, she's obviously a lot ahead of me.

My father, by the way, was a French teacher. Oh, really? Yeah, he won the gold medal in languages of the university. He's a brilliant guy. Never taught me to speak French. And I actually said to him years later, like, how can you not teach me to speak French or Spanish, all the languages? And he said, you were struggling with English and I didn't want to burden you. He said, really, let's just, you're not that sharp.

Let's leave you with just one language. You'd go from there. Anyway, enjoyed it. Because I had a lot of motivation. Dave, because I lived with the nuns, but I also lived right on Grand Allais in Quebec City, right across the street from Le de Gaubère, an infamous nightclub. And there was 99 other girls at that residence whose ID I needed to borrow. So I had to effectively carry off an accent from La C Saint-Jean or the Gaspezee

to be able to keep up with them. So the incentive was high to make sure my accent fit in. Well, it's very well done. And again, I enjoyed immensely having you on the show and wish you nothing but the best going forward. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It's been a thrill. And again, as everybody has said, your book was foundational to my own knowledge, my own understanding. You know, you've really left a legacy in this country with families. And I just want to say thank you for everything that you've done because I don't think a lot of people in this life get to say that they've had the impact that you have had. So thank you. No, it's nice to be to say. I got to tell you one funny story before we let you go. When I was researching you for the podcast, I went to chat GPT. And I said, tell me everything he can. about Mortar Rose. I'm not kidding. The first thing it said was she is the co-host of the wealthy Barber podcast and works closely with Dave Chilton. And I phoned Mo and I read that to her and I said, I don't remember her being involved in this, but maybe I'm missing it. So whatever you're doing is

influencing the LLMs extremely positively. Well, thank you. If you need a co-host, you know, I'm available even in the weekend. You seem a little busy. The two jobs may be enough. I don't know if we want to push it to three. Anyway. I think it's for you, Dave. Thanks again for coming on and say hi to Bridget for me. I will. Thank you so much.