Episode four seventy three, Become a better financial decision maker with Jessica Morehouse.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and Happy New Year to all of our faithful listeners. If you are joining us for the first time, welcome, We are so excited to have you with us.
This is an exciting time twenty twenty five, so much hope for the future, and we're kicking it off by helping you identify how you make financial decisions, ways that you can make better financial decisions. And really mostly some of the reasons is why we can find ourselves in situations where we're not making the best decisions with our money. And Jessica Morehouse is the kindest, most knowledgeable person to
be talking with us about this. I had so many takeaways from it, so I'm excited to share it with you all.
That was so fun.
But first, this episode is brought to you by Your Last Chance. I know it's only January third, but hear me when I say this is your last chance to pre order our new book, Buy what you Love without Going Broke, and get access to our last live class on January twenty ninth, which is a guided walkthrough to create your twenty twenty five spending plan. This workshop is free to all pre orderers, but you have you only have until January seventh to get access to it. So
head to buy what youlovebook dot com. Order from your favorite bookseller we love bookshop dot org, submit a screenshot of your receipt on that same page by what you loovebook dot com and you will get access to the work shop on January twenty ninth, and in the meantime you'll get access to the live workshop we just did on how to make a one year meal plan.
We're going into the list.
You only have back few more days to get access to those workshops. So by what you Love book.
Dot com and it's considered pre order, but you will get it to your house this week if you do preorder it now, so I believe so, I mean.
Depends on where you buy it from.
But if you're interested in your financial decision making or your decision making in general, we have a lot of archive episodes for you. We have episode four sixty two, Willpower and self Control in Spending, Episode four thirty seven how to kick burnout to the curb with es Massey, and then episode four oh four, which I really like, Asking questions that lead to better spending decisions with Jeff Wetsler.
He wrote a fantastic book on how to ask better questions, and that is the root of a lot of our decisions. We ask ourselves unhealthy questions that lead to untrue thoughts, and those thoughts lead to poor financial decisions or really any decisions in general. And that's really what Jessica is
helping us with right now. She is a sought She is a sought after money expert and accredited financial counselor in Canada, so I know this is all going to be relevant to any country, but especially if you're in Canada. She hosts the More Money podcast and it is fantastic resource for anybody based in Canada. And her debut book is titled Everything But Money, The Hidden Barriers between You and Financial Freedom. And let's don't waste any time, Let's get into it.
Let's do it.
Jessica, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast.
We are stoked to have you. Thanks for having me.
This is a really exciting conversation. I think whenever we can kind of get into more of the nuances and some of the ways that we think and behave around money, I think, well, we love it, our audience loves us.
Well.
With that, Jessica, I wonder if you can kind of kick us off and talking about some of these smaller financial decisions, Like, we know that we make these big decisions about money occasionally, but what would you say are some of the smaller financial decisions that we make every day that we may or may not think about or realize is even tied to money.
I'd say one thing is how we speak to ourselves about money. So we have we all have an intern dialogue, and we have one specifically when it comes to money. So whenever you're you know, you get your paycheck, or you're talking to friends or family about money, you're at
the cash register, you've got an internal monologue. And most of the time is probably unless you're in an amazing financial space and you come from a place of security and everything nice, you're going to have a very negative relationship with money, and that will, you know, impact probably all of those day to day decisions like should I buy you know, organic or not? Oh, I can't afford organic, it's so expensive. And so I think a lot of those little things come down to how are we talking
to ourselves about money? And I say this not as a judgment, because this is literally something that we all have, myself included. My internal dialogue when it comes to money is very negative. Even though I wrote a book on how to heal. It's a practice, so you have to practice at it to get better at it and be
kinder to yourself. And it's easier said than done. But I'd say that's probably a place that most people would not really think to start, because you know, when you mentioned you know, what are little things we can do, you know, my mind goes, well, you know, just to buying that latte, da da da da da. Now it has nothing to do with like what you're purchasing or what you're actually doing with your money. I think a lot of it has to do with how do you feel?
How does money make you feel? And then how is that driving any of your financial decisions, whether that's what am I going to get for lunch today? Or should I put money into my investments, or should I put it towards debt, or should I go for that, you know, promotion or a new job to make a little bit more money, or should I maybe I should just stay where I'm at because it's safe and secure and I don't want to rock the boat and things like that.
Those are the things that have a you know, their little things have a huge impact on your financial future.
The money story piece is so interesting to me, and even how you kind of highlighted the way that we might look at different financial decisions differently. It makes me you think about I've noticed more recently how I will place certain value on some things but not on others. Like I'll easily drop fifty five dollars on a dinner out and not really think about it. But if you were to tell me I've got to pay fifty five dollars for a single article of clothing.
I'm like, yeah, that's so much money.
Even the clothing should last way longer.
That's to be easier, Like if you're just looking at numbers, yeah, which is why, like we talk so much about neutrality and looking at your spending because I mean, yes, that is something Jesse that speaks to me. Like I my whole life, and this is I think something just like really currently I'm I'm struggling with in this like current season is in my mind, I always say I don't make enough money. It doesn't matter how much money I make, or even more importantly, like how much my expenses are
compared to what I'm earning in the current season. I always have the narrative I don't make enough money. And that mindset just naturally has nothing to do with spending, but it naturally permeates every spending decision I make because I don't make enough money for organic milk.
I didn't realize it was the lightning round already.
I know.
I'm just like vulnerable.
What I'm like hearing is not just I don't make enough, is that I don't deserve that.
Oh, I know, right, that's what I heard. I don't deserve, what.
I think, and I think what I do deserve is very little, small treats. I deserve the latte. I deserve something small because of its smallness. And the big things. I wouldn't say I don't deserve them, but I would say I, quote unquote don't need them, which translates to the same same idea like it just need just sounds like better, more justifiable, but it really means like I think I don't deserve it, and.
I think that's probably you know, there's based on probably so many things how you grew up, but also you know, like me, you entered the personal fiance world, there was a lot of big voices that said, hey, this is what you're supposed to do ABC if you want to be good with money, and a lot of it was the language like do you need it or do you want it? If it's a want, that's the connotation is that's bad need. Oh, well, that's important. This to necessity,
that's okay to spend your money in that way. And so there's like this automatic if you want something, there's something wrong with that.
Yeah, And that results in all of it, like making these finance like these spending decisions and justifying it as a need even though it really is a want. And then we have these wants and we don't fulfill them because they seem superfluous and we feel guilt.
Tea's well, there's also the issue of defining a need because yeah, we need food, clothing, shelter, but can the clothing be nice in quality and kind to the labor force, and can the food be tasty? And then you start to get into well that's going to cost for and then now is it considered a luxury? So it's really hard to even draw a clear line on those things. So it's clearly not even the best metric.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's funny one thing, you know, for example, there's always a way to be like yeah, but there's a way to do it cheaper for free. And I feel like that's also very ingrained in me that I have to be like, it's okay if I spend one more money on this thing that I want or need and can afford comfortably. For example, you know, for years when I was in my twenties, I was pretty you know, lower income, didn't make too much money, and so I made a lot of choices from that place of scarcery.
I only have this amount of.
Money, and you know, to work out, I do everything for free. Get like you know, tapes or you know, CDs, DVDs from the library or from a friend, and I'd burn them and I'd do them at home, or i'd go running outside anything that was like free or very cheap. And now cut to me my late thirties. I spend a couple hundred dollars a month on this group fitness program that is, you know, five minutes from my house.
It's very community based. It makes me feel so happy and I actually go and actually work out and have a great time. It brings a lot of value and happiness into my life. But it took me a while to be like, it's okay that you spend this money on this thing, because the internal dialogue was but there's a way you can go to the gym and get a fifty dollars a month, you know, membership. Why are you spending this kind of money? Like who do you think you you know? And all those who do you
think you are? And you're like that needs to go. That voice is not serving me. It is just making me feel bad and likely if I if I wasn't part of this fitness thing. This is the only thing I've stuck to you for almost two years and have actually seen, you know, physical results, me getting more muscle and again just like my mood is better compared to me trying to do it at home, and I just don't have the self motivation and stuff like that. So
it's like, I don't know why we have these things. Well, I do know why we have these things, but why we continue to let these voices, these ideas of ourselves, these money stories we've built over these years, continue to drive us in a certain path where we think we're, oh, no, if I'm cheaper and just spend less, da da da, and I'm super frugal, then you know I'll be better. But it's like, you know, frugal isn't the same as cheapness, Like frugal is really I define it as spending within
your means, but also specifically within your values. And so I think frugal is a positive thing because it's being intentional with your money. But I think sometimes we get caught in the trap of just like no, I shouldn't spend, should spendi shoind spend? And that's that comes from I mean, for me, that comes from my family, it comes from my ancestors.
Historically we've been poor for hundreds of years.
It comes from, you know, the money story that I internalized from things growing up, and then voices that I was drawn to as an adult learning about personal finance, probably because they were confirming the things that I already thought about myself. So I was drawn to some of those really kind of nasty voices that were shame based, and then I had to unlearn some of those really unhealthy habits and thoughts about myself in my thirties because I'm like, oh, that's actually I would never talk to
someone like that. So why am I talking to myself like that or letting that person talk to me like that?
Yeah?
So you talk about these like voices that are teaching us personal finance. And one thing that I've always thought about when I hear people, specifically really people of affluence talking about it is there's good financial decisions and bad financial decisions. And in reality we always talk about, especially with spending decisions, but really any financial decision, whether it be debt or whatever, that the decisions themselves are neutral.
There's no good or bad, but there.
Are ones that are good to move you forward in that season and ones that may limit you in the season or in further seasons. So I like how you talk about financial decisions as being good, not good or bad, but like good versus poor. Can you like give us a little bit about how you define the markers of good versus poor financial decisions?
Yeah, there's yeah, I totally agree.
There's ones that are like, this is a good one, like if you do this, you're going to see the benefits sometimes typically not for a while. And then there's ones that they're less good basically, but sometimes you need to make those decisions to either learn a lesson or you're just not in a headspace where you can do
that really the best financial decision. Like you know, for example, people say, oh, you've got to start investing right away at eighteen, and I knew that when I was in my early when He's learning about this, I just couldn't do it. And I think part of that was because I didn't really have the investing knowledge I needed. But also under that, I did not think that I had the intelligence, or the confidence or just the skill set to actually do it. So really it was a confidence issue.
Was it was something more internal, and so I just did not have the capacity to make a better dec If I could go back in time with the knowledge and confidence I have now, oh sure I would have started investing in index funds at eighteen, but I just didn't have the tools and the capacity at that point. So I don't think that's a bad financial decision. I still did pretty well. I lived within my means, I was a good saver. I did all these really good things.
But could I have made a better decision? Sure? But I did the best I can. And that's one thing I always I learned this. It's something that stuck with me for years when I became a financial counselor was when you're working with someone, you've got to remember when they come to you where they're at. They're doing the best they actually can. Most people are doing the best
they can. But maybe they could be doing better if they had all these other things skills, knowledge, you know, motivation, a support system, all these kind of elements, but you know, typically we don't have those yet. And so, yeah, could we be doing better, yes, But I think most of us are doing the best we can.
Yeah.
I think that that's such a good like way to think about coming into this new year in January. We are trying to almost like we're trying to better ourselves, right, And so often we think that to make big changes, to see big results, we need to make big, sweeping lifestyle changes, and so often, I mean that sets us up for failure every time, because not all of those lifestyle changes are available to you, and exactly they have
to be built up. There's skills that have to be built up, there's curation of your environment that has to be built up, and we so take for granted these like smaller changes, like right up front and how important they are.
Yeah, So I'm curious to hear from you, Jessica on some of the things that you think can prevent us from making good financial decisions. You've mentioned a couple of them, but I'm kind of curious, like, how might we know whether or not we're even making good financial I mean, you mentioned when you were younger, you kind of had the knowledge, but there were these other things holding you back. What might be some of those markers? What might prevent us from kind of moving forward here?
Mm hmm.
I mean that's, you know, ultimately the big chunk of my book, which is really helping you explore the hidden barriers in your own life to reaching whatever version of financial freedom means to you. And they come in many different forms. Some people have all of them, some people don't.
But where we start is, of course your upbringing and the stories you told yourself or your parents told you, or that you witnessed and most of the time, especially if you come from a family where there was an extreme extreme poverty, extreme wealth, or just extreme views when it comes to money, you would either adopt those same habits, patterns, views, or you would go the opposite direction and rebel. And
I see that all the time. Someone comes from poverty, they become a big spender because they were never allowed to spend. There was no snow money, and maybe their family was very restrictive and frugal, or the other side where they came from wealth and they had some negative feelings about what that meant, and so they lived, you know,
became a minimalist, and so they rebelled against that. One of the biggest barriers is really figuring out where am I coming from and what story do I want to tell instead, because likely the story you're telling yourself right now is not serving you. So that's always where I like to start, is do that in kind of internal investigation with you, your childhood and kind of your upbringing. That will, you know, reveal a lot. And I did
the exact same thing for it for myself. The other one that doesn't get discussed enough, but it's becoming a little bit more talked about is the idea of internal trauma, whether that is a lived trauma that you know came from childhood or you know, early development that has nothing to do with money but is impacting your finances, or it could be something specific to finance, such as you saw your dad go bankrupt and it really, you know, had a huge negative impact on the family that is
going to have an effect on you when you're an adult, such as being a afraid of debt or I'm never you know, I'm never going to be in that situation, and so I'm going to live my life in this way. And so that's a big part of the book that I was really interested in exploring because I hadn't really read too much about that, and it was interesting also exploring my own traumatic experiences to see I did not realize that had this big impact on me, and that was that's been driving me for decades.
Who knew?
And so until you find out what's going on kind of under the hood, so to speak, you're going to continue a cycle you don't know how to get out of. And and speaking more about the trauma portion, how that can manifest is if you you know, had a life experience that was traumatic, and then there is certain triggers that exist in the real world, which could be as simple as you know, a face, a voice, a smell, sound,
what have you. That trigger will then disregulate you emotionally, which means that you will then be in a situation of fight or flight or fawn or freeze. Basically, you're going to be in a state where you really shouldn't be making financial decisions, but sometimes you will. And when you come from a place of this emotional dysregulation where you're just you're acting on emotions instead of logic, You're going to be making some mistakes. You're going to be
buying things that you shouldn't be buying. You're going to be giving away money you shouldn't be giving away. You're going to be making these choices that when you're back into a state of peace and calm and regulation, you're gonna be like, shoot, why did I do that? That is not helping me? And now now I'm in a
worse space. And so one thing we talk about the book is recognizing those and of course I always suggest working with a professional therapist to kind of dig deep, but there's tools that you can do right away to when you recognize I feel, you know, in my body, I'm not my peaceful, calm self. I'm dysregulated. How do we get back, How do we get grounded again? How do we get back to that space where we could step back and be like, you know what, I'm not
going to make that decision right now. I'm going to wait and then be in a better headspace to make that decision. Because when I look back at most of my you know, quote unquote not so great you know, or bad financial decisions is always coming from a place of emotion that had nothing to do with money. But I was triggered in some way, and then I did something with my money, and then I'm like, why did I do that?
You know? Once I was in a better headspace.
So that's I think a part that we need to really investigate, because what I've learned is most people don't think they have any trauma because trauma sounds very intense. It's like something really catastrophic happened to you. It can be as simple as were you bullied in school? A lot of people were. If you're carrying that with you and you haven't healed from that, I haven't worked through that, it is going to have an impact on you and you're fine chances going up growing up.
It absolutely is.
Yeah, it impacts how you spend money because it's a lack of self esteem self confidence from that. And we see a lot of people spending on fitness, beauty, skincare, all of these things as a result of small traumas like that that are not directly connected to finances, and.
You may not make that connection initially until you start doing that kind of introspection. I mean that was what I did while writing the book. Obviously I had and when I initially like pitched this book idea, I didn't think that I had as big of a personal connection to some of these topics as I'm like, oh, I'm going to write, you know, from a perspective of I'm doing the research and I'm going to you know, then
I'm like, no, I have to go to therapy. I have to like, you know, do some digging for myself. And the things that I uncovered it literally changed my life. I know that sounds like, oh wow, it really really did, because I discovered about myself. There was why am I so obsessed with my like it's my career now?
I love it.
I love talking about it, but sometimes it's not healthy.
Why is that?
And I discovered from myself, based off of, you know, some childhood experiences that I was using money as kind of a surrogate and what money, what came with money, such as you know, attention and some acknowledgment and things
like that and career advancement. I was using that as a way to get love and attention that in certain circumstances growing up, I felt like I was lacking and I'm like, I'm almost forty and I'm still making choices based off of something from my childhood, Like, that's wild. I can't go into the next decade with that headspace. I need to do something about it. And I think
a lot of people can relate to that. When they really think about They're like, oh right, it was this and this and this, and I've been holding onto those and I have not really gone, you know, done the work to figure out what's going on and how can I heal. So I'm going to keep on doing these patterns until you know, forever, until I figure out how to get out of him.
Yeah. Same.
I found while I was writing the book that I tied my financial success to growing up. I had a lot of booksmarts, but I wasn't super popular. I was nerdy, Like I wasn't super attractive in that crowd. So the only thing valuable about me was the success I had like academically, and I just transferred it to financial success in adulthood and I that was writing a book.
Man, it'll yeah, you learn a lot about yourself.
Yeah, yeah, okay, So let's talk about steps people can take in twenty twenty five to start making better financial decisions.
So the good thing about my book is that it does have a bunch of exercises, so after the chapter, you can go through the exercise and start doing the work piece by piece, because sometimes, you know, when I get asked that question, so how do we fix this, it's like that is a big you know, I don't have one solution, and that's it can feel like a
big life change or a big thing. So we kind of chunkify things into identifying your current money story, figuring out, you know, what kind of life experiences you've had that have maybe impacted you. Later on, there was also a really great chapter about generational trauma and how we've actually probably inherited if you haven't personally experienced something traumatic, but someone in your family has it may have been transferred over to you epigenetically, which is really crazy that I've
also discovered about myself. There's certain things that we have and like I can't place it, and then you find out, like I had talked to my grandpa years ago. I had him on my podcast Thank Goodness and recorded it. It was such an important thing that ended up being in the book where he told me that he came from poverty goodness and his brother was an alcoholic and also a gambler and lost the family home in a
bet gone wrong. And because of that, you know, my grandpa was very resistant, resistant to alcohol, but also so afraid of taking any financial risk. That was transferred to my mom and then to me. And that's been something I couldn't really place, like why am I so afraid to like take risks? Or why am I also specifically, I've always had this fear since I was a child of losing the family home. I don't know where that
came from. And then when I heard that story, I'm like, ooh, that may have something to do with something, you know, why do I have this sphear of losing my house when my parents have always been financially responsible, my grandparents have, there is someone in the family who lost the family home.
Yeah, and it's not even something that's like overtly talked about, but it's made in off handed comments.
Well, it's not even it can be that.
It can be sometimes you hear things and then they're going to just stick with you. But sometimes it actually is. Like the epigenetic portion to science portion is genetically it can be inherited. You can inherit fear, you can inherit certain feelings that get transferred to you and you won't know until you do some investigation in your family tree. And there's there's there's a great study that was done
with rats. I know we're not rats, but they were able to make these rats fear a certain smell and then they had rat babies and those babies had the same fear of the smell without being conditioned to They just inherited that and it went down generations and generations, and so that's kind of the sciences and there's there's studies with humans as well that it will go into. But there's some just interesting data that shows that these things that are inside you may not have come from you,
but they still exist. So doing that internal work to be like where where's you know, where's this coming from? And now the other elements of course of you know, what are these kind of barriers? What's you know, preventing you from maybe making some better financial decisions? Uh, could just be you being a human human behave if there's a big component. We have a bunch of biases that run rampant and most of us are really bad at
identifying them and not letting them run the show. But the other element that again also doesn't get talked enough about in you know lots of personal finance literature out there, is you know, things like privilege and societal injustice. If you are a person of color, a woman, or someone of the disabilities or anything that you know, makes it more difficult to hit certain financial milestones compared to honestly, like a sis white man, it's it is going to
be harder for you. And what's difficult is all of the messaging out there is well, you just have to work harder. It's like, well, we're already. The data shows we're also we're already working twice as hard. We're tired, We're really tired, and so we need to also recognize that it's not always you. You're probably doing as best as you can and working super hard, but guess what, there's discrimination in the world that is preventing you from
getting that better job. And then so and so got it, and you're like, he has less work experience than me, he's not as good as the job. Why do you get the promotion? Oh, it's because these related to some money in that comp But you know, there's all these
different things that we need to recognize. Because the one thing that when I was learning about you know, financial you know management and just how to be better with money, a lot of it was just like on me, it's like, well you need to do this, well, you need to do this. There's a lot of things that are working against you that have nothing to do with what your
your actions. You know, a lot of it is just there's a lot of things in the way, and once you find out what those things are, then there is a path to work through them. And part of that is, you know, figuring out your financial foundation, what do you want to happen, what story do you want to tell yourself moving forward, and then doing that internal work, working
with the therapist. Again, I saw like three or four during the course of writing my book to help you discover what's going on so we can move through them, leave them where they are. We don't need to bring those traumas or those experiences or even those There is a way to undo that epigenetic inheritance. You don't have to bring it forward into your life or to your children. There's a way to kind of work through that as well.
So there are.
Solutions, but you it won't be as obvious whether solutions are until you know what the real problem is.
It's such a helpful reminder that our financial decisions are rarely about math now, it's much more about who.
It was that easy, we'd all be better exactly.
Yeah, But again, we still just want to run to the budget and tell me how much to spend and what are the numbers on paper? And it doesn't feel great to say, you've got to explore your past and about.
Your childhood, right exact.
Yeah, there's also so much benefit in it too, because what you're describing and the encouragement that you're giving to all of us isn't just for the sake of benefiting our finances. It's going to help all aspects of who we are, which is incredible.
That the goal should be to not just you know, be in a better financial situation, build wealth, have more money in the bank, have more a better sense of security.
That's that's great.
But you will hit a point, and there's a chapter that talks about money and happiness and wealth where your finances are fine, you have more than enough, you have, you know, a good situation going on, so you still don't feel good though you're still not happy. You still have a lot of shame. So it's not just about the numbers and how much money you can accumulate and how great you are at investing or earning things like that.
What you've got to pay attention to that internal point because that was something I wrote but I wrote about was you know, I had a goal of you know, I want to be you know, me and my husband together a net worth to be a million dollars by the time I turned thirty five. That was just a goal. I'm like, once we hit that, I think I'll be happy. I think i'll you know, can relax little bit. And we hit that and nothing changed, nothing changed. I was
still unhappy, and so then I moved the goalpost. I'm like, hey, two million by forty and we're approaching that. We'll probably hit it now because I've done this internal work, I know if we hit it, and we may not, and that's okay. I won't be much happier, I think, because what brings me happiness is not a dollar amount, even though I used to think it was for most of
my life. What now brings me joy and happiness is the work that I do outside of money, like the actual work that I do, hanging out with friends and family and having those social connections, which is huge, Doing activities that make me happy that aren't about productivity, like so many people are like, oh, I started this hobby and people like, you know, you can monetize that. Just puzzle or knit or have a good time. Like, just do your hobbies and enjoy them. And that's what I've realized.
I've restructured my life over these past two years to focus on what is actually going to give me long term happiness and stop focusing on these numbers that you know time and time again, it's not gonna It's gonna give you happiness for a split second, and then you're gonna be like next, what's next?
Now?
What?
Yeah? So true, Yeah so beautiful.
I have one last question about the social Injustices portion, because I know you talk about this in your book, and I know that we have a lot of people listening to this show. Eighty five percent are women, A lot are in those disadvantage groups. Like do you have an action step or a quick like a mindset shift or something. What do you say to someone who's like, well, I'm definitely not you know, trying to become a millionaire by thirty five, Like I know that that's not like
my thing, Like I'm just trying to make it. I'm just trying to make it do something. I'm just starting just today.
That was Yeah, that was one of the hardest parts because the whole book was like, Okay, let's identify the problem and let me offer you solutions, Like how do I offer sorry, how do I offer solutions to like racism?
Like, well, I don't have the solution for that. That's kind of a big task.
But no matter what kind of discrimination you may face, and the unfortunate thing is the discrimination. Sometimes it is a one on one someone personally is discriminating, but sometimes it's the institution. It is your entire company you work for, It is you know, whatever institution that you're dealing with that is way bigger than you that use an individual can't really do anything to change it, but we can
may change in groups. We can you know, use our voice and advocate for ourselves and other people, be allies for people who you know, I know as women, we talk often about, you know, the wage gap, and it's like, well, we women have been talking about this for a while. We need our allies. We need our men out there who understand this to also vocalize and make change because
sometimes we're still not heard despite the data. And so that's kind of what I want to kind of make sure people understood is this is really a group effort that we need to continue and have those discussions too with younger generations, our children, grandchildren, so we can be making decisions. That's the one exciting thing I see with gen Z is like they are making moves, and sometimes it's too fast for even me. I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa.
But I'm excited that they're making the change, and they're being kind of unapologetic about some of the things that they will not stand for, which is really exciting. And then the other component is kind of at the end of the chapter, I kind of give this idea of you have to remember that you, especially if you are
experiencing discrimination, you can't let them win. You cannot give up, because what's the alternative If you do, definitely nothing will happen and things may get worse, and so you need to always I interviewed this professor. Was funny how I connected with him. He was a special guest lecturer in this course my husband was taking. He my husband at the time was taking a course in social work, and it was just like all of these elements are like,
it's he's not doing it anymore. He's not taking courses anymore. But he thought he'd give it a try. And then he attended one of the lessons and this professor was talking and just when I think about him, like it's kind of crazy, how is connected to this professors Like, my husband shouldn't have even been in that course. But this guy, he told his story of you know, being originally from Africa and you know, migrating to or immigrating to Canada and having a really difficult time in terms
of being accepted in the community. But Also, he was applying to get a master's at one of the universities, and he'dn't already had he already had like four degrees, or he already had several degrees. He was a very smart man, but he wanted to get his master's in social work and he was rejected not because of his education or his experience.
He was absolutely qualified.
It's because the person who was at the admissions was a racist and he, you know, just immediately didn't even look at the application but saw his name. It was not English, and he rejected him. And at first he was like, should I just give up? And luckily that admissions person moved on left that school, and then someone else was put in that place, and actually, and he fought for himself. He's like, please look at my application again. I don't think it was given a fair shot. And
he was accepted. And then he kept on doing school and that he was a professor, and it was just such an amazing story of resilience of he could have walked away and just thrown his hands up and like, well, it's just not meant to be. How can I fight the system that is working against me? But he fought and now he is making sure that a lot more people can get into school, not based off of their name or their background, but based off of their experience
and education and qualifications, which is exciting. So that's just one thing I always remind myself as no matter how hard or hopeless, it feels like we need to fight for ourselves but also fight for others. And that's what always like, why keep on talking about you know.
Privilege and discrimination?
Is like, yeah, we're not done talking about Its still not fixed, might be even getting worse. We don't know what's ahead, so we need to keep on fighting.
It can be discouraging to make changes that may or may not benefit you, but knowing that there will be some kind of benefit in the long run does make it worth it.
It's such a sad, disheartening story that you're sharing here
and also one of resilience. But I think the reminder throughout is that there can be elements that are working against us, and it's not that we're not doing enough, which speaking of our money, stories can become embedded, and I think recognizing where we end and others in society begin and how that is impacting us can can help us to know where we sit in the grand scheme of things and help us to know then how to behave and respond as a result, and not internalize all
of these things as if they were our fault. So I appreciate that reminder.
One way I respond, and it may or may not be appropriate, but we do it every single week, the villa of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Maybe you've paid off your.
Mortgage, maybe your cards, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Tough bills, but flow bills. Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week, Jessica.
Every week we invite our listeners and or our guests to share with us their bill for the week, and we are interested in hearing yours.
So this is something that I have a bill that I'm happy about or not happy about, or because.
I've got whatever I've got, whatever you want pops into your mind and the thing is the right.
Thing, I'd say, one thing I'm proud of.
So it was recently Black Friday, and I do this every Black Friday. I get, you know, disregulated emotionally because everyone's talking about all the deals. I put a bunch of stuff in online cards and then I literally get too anxious and I won't buy anything.
I'm like, I can't make a decision. I don't know, this is too.
Big of a decision, So I don't buy anything. But one thing that me and my husband do like clockwork every year is renegotiate our phone bill. So we have two cell phones, and we were able to talk to I don't know if it was our current provider, no, maybe it was our current provider, but sometimes we shop around to other providers, and we were able to basically for like ten dollars more than we're currently paying, both get the new iPhone and I'm like, this is awesome, this is a great deal.
I love a good deal, so.
I'm happy to pay that phone bill now because now I have a new iPhone.
Yes, good for you. We love renegotiation.
It can take time.
It's one of those Oh was on the phone for like six hours, but I'm yeah, that's it.
That's the investment that it takes one hundred percent.
Don't love it, but it can help exactly. If you all listening have a bill that you want to share, if it's about renegotiating. If it's about lowering your bill, it's about getting free stuff like an iPhone. If it's about a good deal, or your name is Bill, Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill. We can't wait for it. And now it's time for.
Hiding, all right.
So for today, what's a recent big financial decision you've had to make?
Oh my gosh, what's another what's a big difference? Yeah, I should have been more prepared. You send me the questions in advance.
I actually did change this at the last minute. It's so unfair, Like, what is a big financial decision that we've made?
I mean, we made one kind of also, Black Friday decided, you know what, we need a vacation. So we did drop some thousands of dollars on a vacation in the spring. So that was like a big decision we had, like are we going to do this or we can do this? And I'm like, should I press the bun? Should I press the button? So that was like probably the most recent big financial decisions.
But it sounds like you're paying in advance for this vacation.
I got six months of just reminding myself. Remember though, we're going on vacation.
Yeah, it's the of the vacation that is just as good, if not better than the actual vacation.
Well, I write about this in the book.
There's data that shows that it is the before and after a vacation or the best parts.
I don't know.
I just went on vacation, and the and the the during was okay, good, good panicle.
Oh but she's a weird traveler. Though.
For most of us, it's the anticipation, the.
Anticipation, where are you going?
We're going to Dominican Republic never been nice, So doing a resort kind of thing easy. I just need something where I'm like, I can share and not think absolutely fantastic.
For me, it hasn't been great over here in Saint Petersburg.
Post bar answers are similar.
They are cool.
Yeah, a lot of damage happened to the house, and so for us, no figuring out how we want to allocate not only the money that we have set aside kind of for emergencies and house projects, but I mean, really, initially do we even want to file acclaim with insurance discovered?
Absolutely?
What what we need done is way far and beyond our deductible but yeah, then how do we want to then allocate the money that the insurance gives us, because it's not going to actually cover everything that we need to have done. So these have been some big, weighty decisions, but I think to like pacing myself has been helpful.
And that's one of those things that I've learned over time is nothing will happen all at once, and even when things do feel complete, come tomorrow, they won't be complete anymore.
Something else will need to be done again.
So yeah, just really pacing myself with all of the kind of new projects that were dropped on us literally by the wind.
Yeah.
Similarly, we have to get hurricane proof windows. Yeah, hurricane can you.
Guys live again? We're seeing Florida.
Yeah yeah, there's a lot of hurricanes I.
Hear, Yeah, yeah, especially this year, and so we have gotten a grant from the state in order to get some hurricane proof when amazing, but it's not going to cover We essentially have to spend ten thousand in order to get ten thousand, and that is the This is a house that we've been renovating in order to eventually sell, and with the hurricanes. Having these windows, it feels like essential now even though it will not increase the price, we are able to sell it for with the grant
will essentially just recoup the cost. But it is a large it that's a lot of money.
Yeah, so on that.
Thank you so much Jessica for coming on and talking about financial decision making. Where can people get your new book and get.
More from you?
Yes, so it's called everything but money, the hidden barriers between you and financial freedom is available everywhere in Canada the US. I am Canadian, but everything I talk about I just made sure for all my like us like fans and readers. Every example I give is in Canada and also the US, so it is applicable to you because again it's not really about money, it's about all
the inside stuff. So you can find it you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target wherever you want, or I almost you know bookshop dot org, support in your local bookstore and stuff like that. But you could also just find more information about the book at Jessica Morehouse dot com slash book and make sure to also follow me aunt Jessica I'morehouse on Instagram.
Lovely.
Thanks so much Jessica for having this conversation with us thanks for having me.
I'm so glad that we're starting the year off with financial decisions, and especially establishing that our decisions are not good or bad, but truly are just pivots in the direction of life. And it's not like you make a bad decision and it leads a bad way. You make
the good dec leads the good way. Every decision is just a pivot slightly in one direction, and sometimes that direction can go a little bit more towards the positive side, and sometimes that decision goes a little bit more to what maybe we consider a negative side, but it's never something that's going to ruin you.
I also love the foundation that she laid here of the internal work that is going to help us here and the background understanding of ourselves that can support long term solid financial decision making. I think, you know, we do love to talk about understanding ourselves, but it's so helpful to have another perspective and a fresh reminder of how important this really is. We can't just skip steps and jump to we're really good at this. There does have to be some of that introspection that happens.
And just want to reiterate that again, we're at the beginning of January. But it is truly these small incremental changes that will lead to big financial results and big change results. So there may be a lot of tenacity and motivation right now to make big sweeping changes to get big sweeping results. And truly that's not where it starts. It starts with a lot of this inner work, and we go we continue to do the inner work, and we're making these small incremental changes along with that work.
That's what's going to get you to a really different place than you are right now this time in twenty twenty six.
And some of that incremental decisions that you made could be buying her book, buying our book, buy what you love without going broke by what you love.
This book could be if you wanted it to be, that that could be would be changes.
Thank you all so much for being here, for listening to us, for even leaving us reviews like this one from Sewing Buttons. Listening to the backlog brings learning and laughs. They say, I have been catching up on other episodes of the show, and I'm learning a lot. I always listen all the way through to the end of the show chat because I am here as much for entertainment as I am for frugal mindset.
Shifts, sewing buttons. We don't talk about that.
Yeah, the post show What Today? I was on The Romance Scams episode three eighty and while the episode content was kind of scary and sad, the end of the show chat about the Super Bowl and listening to Jen and Chill make really vague guesses about Taylor and Travis with hilarious I feel like I've never not known most of the details of their relationship. Even though I'm not really a Swifty or a Chiefs fan, hearing two people who were so under informed about them was super refreshing.
Thanks for being willing to just make guesses about random hop culture and for your lovely friendly interactions. You two are a pleasure to listen to. But I will admit the first episode, when I heard Jill's scary Lightning Round voice, I was genuinely startled.
And that's it.
Thank you me too, Thank you for listening, and I've never fully recovered. If you enjoyed the show, if you enjoy The Underinformed Anything, or if you enjoy the Lightning Round Noises, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or a comment on Spotify and a rating on Spotify. We love reading them and they help people figure out if this show is the right move for them, because it's not right for everyone in every season, and we want people to know that and not waste their time.
Yeah, thanks everyone, See you next time.
Google Friends is produced by Eric Siriani. Okay, I still don't know a lot about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.
But they are still together? Are they? Did you just look it up?
Are you making that up? No?
I'm not making it up.
I just know that.
Wow. Yeah, And I'm I'm actually I'm truly not sure because it was so where ago at this point and now I'm just like, I don't know where are they?
So they are together? Travis Kelcey and his brother hosts a podcast, and his brother has retired. His name is Jason. And they seem so nice, like just nice people and very secure in their masculinity. And Taylor Swift just seems like a nice person.
I think, yeah.
So, And on Black Friday, she released a book from the Eras tour that a lot of people stood in line. Yet I don't think anybody stood in line at a store for anything except at Target to get that book.
Oh, because that was the only place they were selling it, wasn't it. I would assume, so creating scarcity. She's not dummy, she isn't. Wow, that's wild.
Want people. I hope people wait in line for our book. Maybe I don't. I don't know.
You don't need to.
They don't need to. They can.
And get it.
And are we talking about this? We are making up our own book tour.
Talk about that. Let's talk about Florida. We will Yeah, yeah, I got to go pick up my kid. Get it.
Get it in your mind though, if you live in Florida or eastern Pennsylvania
We will be well there order bring your book and we'll sign it.