Jessica is a sought-after money expert, TV personality and speaker. She is an Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada®, an award-winning financial content creator and the host of the chart-topping More Money Podcast (4+ million downloads). As a personal finance educator for over 13 years, she has given presentations throughout North America and is regularly featured by major Canadian and US media including CBC News, CTV News, BNN Bloomberg, the Toronto Star, Forbes and USA Today.
Her debut book Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom came out December 31, 2024 (HarperCollins Canada) and became an Indigo Staff Pick, Globe and Mail Bestseller, Toronto Star Bestseller, Quill & Quire Bestseller, and Amazon Bestseller.
What if the key to financial success isn’t just a better budget, but a better understanding of your relationship with money? In this episode of the Rational Reminder Podcast, Ben and Dan sit down with Jessica Moorhouse to delve into the ins and outs of personal finance. Jessica is a money expert, Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada®, speaker, and bestselling author of Everything but Money. She is also the host of the More Money Podcast, one of Canada’s leading personal finance shows. During today’s conversation, Jessica unpacks the difference between a financial planner and a counsellor and why empathy is the missing piece in personal finance. Find out how different emotions and early memories of money can influence our perspective on personal finance, hear why understanding your relationship with money is so important, and learn about common financial behaviours to avoid. Jessica also delves into the value of understanding past traumas, the power of intergenerational money experiences, and whether mental health or a financial foundation is more important. Tune in now!
Key Points From This Episode:
(0:02:50) Uncover the difference between a financial counsellor and a financial planner.
(0:05:55) Her approach to working with clients and meeting their non-financial needs.
(0:09:15) Find out what is missing in personal finance and why it is essential.
(0:11:39) How shame impacts financial decision-making and common sources of shame.
(0:14:50) Ways relative financial well-being and privilege shape our perspective of money.
(0:19:46) Hear how to overcome financial shame and how it differs from feelings of guilt.
(0:22:35) Rational versus irrational guilt and how fear affects financial decisions.
(0:25:46) Learn about jealousy and envy as well as their impact on personal finance.
(0:27:31) Early money memories and pragmatic money exercises to help frame your mindset.
(0:36:54) Explore the power of understanding your money story for better financial decisions.
(0:39:04) Unpack the common money habits to break and examples of toxic behaviours.
(0:43:34) The interconnection between trauma and money and why it is important.
(0:48:01) Jessica shares how learning about trauma informed her counselling approach.
(0:53:05) Navigating mental health challenges and intergenerational money experiences.
(0:58:11) Discover why spending money will not lead to long-term happiness.
(1:02:33) Tips to begin rewriting your money story and Jessica's definition of success.
Read The Transcript:
Ben Felix: This is the Rational Reminder Podcast, a weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision-making from two Canadians. We're hosted by me, Benjamin Felix and Dan Bortolotti, portfolio managers at PWL Capital.
Dan Bortolotti: All right. Got a good show for everyone today, a little bit different from the usual affair.
Ben Felix: Yeah, definitely. A bit of a change of pace from the fairly long run now that we've had of basically, finance professors, but I think a welcome change of pace. We used to do more episodes like this, and I'm glad that we have another one for the listeners today. We had Jessica Moorhouse on. Jessica is an Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada, which is a designation that's like the way she described it in the show, at least, is like a light CFP combined with a pretty heavy dose of counselling. It's quite focused on behaviour and uncovering the reasons for behaviours that people have and listening to people. It's quite an interesting perspective that she brings that's different from the more analytical financial planning approach.
Dan Bortolotti: Yeah, and I think in addition to being appealing for investors, it was very interesting to me as an advisor, because I think that all of us need to be just a little bit more sensitive, be better listeners to our clients and remember that, of course, they're coming to us for investment advice and financial planning, but sometimes we need to dig a little bit deeper and understand what makes people tick below the surface, and then we can give them more appropriate financial advice.
Ben Felix: You have a practice as a financial counsellor. She's also a fairly well-known personality in Canada. She's been on television. She's a well-known speaker. She's also got a podcast that's one of the top podcasts. It's often up there next to Rational Reminder when you look at the top podcasts in Canada on these topics. The More Money Podcast is her podcast. Dan, you and I have both been past guests on her show. I was on there many years ago. She's got a book out called Everything But Money that we've read to prepare for this interview. We talked about a lot of the topics that are in there.
The book's quite interesting. It talks a lot about how people's past experiences can really shape their relationship with money. It talks about a lot of the things that people assume to be true about money that probably aren't and how those can be really detrimental to financial decision-making. She talks about different ways to deal with emotions around money just to improve overall decision-making and feel better about financial decisions. It's quite an interesting book. Less analytical. I mean, true to what we talked about with financial counselling being different from financial planning. But I think a lot of useful information in there.
Dan Bortolotti: Yeah. I think she had a lot of insights on a lot of different topics that don't come up in the podcast very often. I think this one will be a nice pace.
Ben Felix: I agree. As Jessica talked about, if you can have empathy and keep an open mind, people will learn a lot of information listening to Jessica.
Dan Bortolotti: All right. Let's give it a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
Ben Felix: Jessica Moorhouse, welcome to the Rational Reminder Podcast.
Jessica Moorhouse: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Ben Felix: We're excited to be talking to you. All right, to kick this off, how do you describe the difference between a financial counsellor and a financial planner?
Jessica Moorhouse: I get this question a lot because I got my Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada certification back in 2018. I am still one of the few people who have that designation and is an independent practitioner. The reason I got that back then is I actually had a friend from the US, started in the US, she did financial coaching and she's like, “This is a program you should look into. It won't take you long, compared to going for the full CFP, which will take you a little while.” I'm like, “Okay, great.” I wanted to be a financial educator and get into coaching, working with individuals one-on-one, but I wanted some credential. I didn't just want to – there's a lot of coaches who didn't have any background or any credentials, so I wanted to set myself apart.
Did that program. Took about a year. It was such a great experience. Now I'm a big advocate, especially for other financial content creators and educators that want to do coaching, or offer services, I'm like, you should get your AFCC if you're in Canada because it really is like financial planning lite. It's really for people if you want to help people with their budgets, cash flow, debt repayment, things like that, nothing super intensive, or stuff that you would need a QAFP or CFP to get, which I'm actually hoping to get my QFP this fall. The book has really taken two years out of that, but I'm hopeful that I can actually finally take the exam.
It was a really great entry point into how do I learn some essential things to help other people in a shorter amount of time and also provide a service that is a little bit more cost-effective for certain people who would be like, “I just want help with my budget.” Or, “I just need someone to help me with a debt repayment plan.” I think the reason a lot of people don't know too much about the AFCC is because traditionally, you would just need to get that designation if you want to be a credit counsellor, work for an agency, or a non-profit. I never want to do that. So, when I got the designation, I was one of the few people who got it just to work independently.
It's a great program for anyone who wants to even just educate themselves. There's some really great textbooks and challenge yourself just to learn a little bit more about personal finance in Canada.
Ben Felix: Is it financial planning lite? Or is there more of a behavioural component to it?
Jessica Moorhouse: There is the counselling behaviour component. The program has obviously changed since I took it so many years ago. At the time, it was two halves. The first portion and there was an exam that went with that was more like, these are all the key things you need to know about financial planning. The second part was more the counselling behaviour, how to work with the client, how to listen, how to discern what they're saying when they're not maybe using their body language or their tone. Really, the counselling component, which I loved, because previous to that, I only really had experience working with professionals at the bank and advisor, and they were doing none of the things that I was learning. I’m like, “Oh, man. Everyone should take this program to learn how to actually talk to their clients properly, actually listen to what they're saying, pick up on cues.” Oh, they're uncomfortable, or they said they understand, I know they don't because of their body language. That was really insightful just to learn how to counsel because that obviously informed what I was able to do with clients 101 and then effectively write about my book.
Ben Felix: That is really interesting. That's what I picked up on when I looked at their website. The counselling component is the part that I think is really interesting. When you think about your practice, how much of it do you think is financial planning, or light financial planning, versus the financial counselling?
Jessica Moorhouse: I mean, maybe 50-50. Most people come to me because they have a financial problem. Then when we do little digging, ask some questions about their background and the relationship with money, it becomes really clear like, okay, we have some things to maybe figure out first before we make a budget, because you've made a million budgets and you've never been able to stick to one. There's got to be a reason behind that. It's not the system. It's not the budget. It's something else. You just keep on getting in your own way, or you keep self-sabotaging yourself. We need to address some of these things.
Obviously, there's a certain point where we're like, well, I am not a therapist. At a certain point, you're like, I can recommend some people. There are some other professionals to help you. I've done that with a number of people. Especially too, if you start noticing, oh, there actually may be an element of financial abuse with their partner, or they're in a very unhealthy relationship or situation that is having a huge impact on their finances, but they would have never even realized this.
I have this one memory of working with a woman, where her partner is the one who suggested that she work with me. As we work together, it was very clear that I'm like, there's something else going on. Unfortunately, sometimes they're open to hearing that maybe you want to go down this route. At that point, she wasn't really ready, so we only did one session and tried to provide some resources, but she really thought it was just a muddy problem. It's so not. There's so many other things going on. You can only do what you can do, but I'm hopeful that maybe something stuck in her mind and maybe down the road, she'll be open to it.
That's the exciting part because honestly, numbers don't excite me, because you're trying to crack the code, or trying to find the solution to the problem, but it's more exciting really getting your clients to have that aha moment. Like, “Oh, maybe that's why I'm doing that.” You're like, “Yeah.”
Dan Bortolotti: Now, Jessica, you're specifically trained in financial counselling. Most of us as advisors, planners are not. We shouldn't pretend to be counsellors. But what are some simple ways that the average advisor, without that specific training can just learn to become more sensitive to their client's non-financial needs?
Jessica Moorhouse: I recently did the QAFP professional education program. I feel like they are actually starting to integrate a little bit more of this education into the program because they clearly realize this is really important. That's great. All it really is, it's nothing crazy. It's really just about listening and taking notes. What I find most advisors and planners often do is they feel like, I have to provide the answers and the solutions, and so they take up the whole time talking, instead of actually say less. Say less, because that's how you really learn more about your client. Find out, oh, they said that they wanted a plan that looks like this. They actually need this, or they actually want this, but they just don't know how to ask for it.
Really, it just comes down to really listening with all the ways that you can listen. Again, it's looking at them, the visual component, really listening to the tone and the words that they're choosing. Also, too, just, especially if you're working with a couple, seeing if we work with them when they're both there. Is there a difference when I just have them on an individual basis? You can learn a lot sometimes when they don't feel comfortable talking about something with their partner in the room. Really just picking up on these things and then putting all that information together to make a more cohesive financial plan and strategy for how to reach their goals.
Ben Felix: All right, this question comes from me reading your book. What is the missing piece of the puzzle in the personal finance space?
Jessica Moorhouse: I think I wrote in the book, empathy.
Ben Felix: That is what you wrote. Yeah.
Jessica Moorhouse: That's the answer. Oh, my gosh, empathy. Now, I'm seeing a lot more of it now, which I'm so thankful for. A lot of people are picking up on that. We need to be more understanding and empathetic, but I will say, the reason I wrote that is because when I started my personal finance journey and reading Dan's blog and learning all this stuff, and I think the reason I like Dan so much is he did seem always very empathetic. A lot of the books and information out there were very judgmental and very shame-based, very much blamed. If you're in a situation that's not good financially, you got yourself there and you should feel bad about it, kind of that tough love. That worked for me for a while, until it really actually did a lot of damage. I had to do a lot of work to undo that damage.
Also, then you start becoming judgmental on people. You’re like, well, that person is in that situation because they did this and this and this. That may not be the case. You don't know the whole story, and everyone comes from a different environment, or starting place. For me, when I do talk with people, whether it's just through Instagram, DMs, or a client, they're being vulnerable with you, and you need to be really aware that you have a responsibility to be very caring and understanding. Meet them where they are, instead of blaming them for who you should be somewhere else.
For me, that's where I always want to be, because there's still a lot of judgment and shame and harshness in the financial sector. That really doesn't work for most people. They'll feel de-incentivized to start like, they'll think that, “I'm too stupid for this. I can't possibly learn this on my own. This is too complex. I'm just going to leave the table, instead of lean in and really learn the skills that I don't have and learn the information that I don't have, so I can improve my situation.” For me, I want to be in an inviting safe place for people, because I didn't always necessarily feel I had that. I really wish I would, because I bet I would have been a little bit more advanced in certain respects. I probably wouldn't have waited so long to learn about investing. Because honestly, I thought, I can't learn this stuff. This is too complex because everyone else is telling me it's too hard for me because I'm a woman, I'm young, I'm all of these things.
Then, when I pushed past that, I'm like, no, I'm going to learn anyway. I realized, oh, actually, anyone can learn this stuff. It's just a skill. It's like anything. Anyone can learn to cook. But I never felt welcomed, and so I want to start that change. Well, not starting to change, but be part of that change like so many other people in this space.
Dan Bortolotti: Can you talk a little bit about how shame affects people's financial decisions?
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, yeah. That's the number one feeling when I talked to people when I was doing research for this book and doing some surveys and asking people, how does money make you feel? Shame was number one. That was also my answer when I really did some introspection. Shame is such a powerful feeling because it can take you out of the equation. You're like, “I shouldn't even be here. I'm so sorry. I can't believe I thought I could build wealth, or I can improve my financial situation.” Shame, it's meant to isolate you and prevent you from any personal, or financial growth. Until you understand that and then try to do the work to rectify that to make sure that shame has its place, it's a natural feeling, it is helpful.
There's some things that we should feel shame about so we don't repeat it, because it's maybe not good behaviour, but we shouldn't just feel ashamed completely when it comes to our money, because that's when you stop looking at your bank accounts. That's when you're like, “I'm not even going to invest, or I don't know what to do, or I'm going to hand over everything to this financial advisor who was a suggestion from a friend of a friend. But I have no idea what they're doing.” You should absolutely know what they're doing, but you feel shame to ask the questions because you feel stupid. There's all these things that can do a lot of damage to you and we need to have a healthy relationship with money because money shouldn't be a big monster over that is really scary. It's not good or bad. It's just a tool, and you should feel that you're in control of it, not the reverse. That's really what I'm trying to get across in the book is that no, no, no, you were in control of money. Let's get that straight first.
Ben Felix: When you think about money-related shame, what are some of the common sources?
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, well, usually goes back to childhood. Part of it is, this is probably going to be a future question about the first money memory, but it's a good entry point. A lot of our big feelings about money start in childhood with our first memory of money, which is usually our first impactful experience that we've had with money. For me, my story had a connection to shame. I stole something I shouldn’t have. I was ashamed for doing that, and also felt like I put shame on my family. That feeling has took a hold on me and did not let go until I started doing some self-work and some therapy.
I think a lot of people I talk to when they have feelings of anxiety, or shame, or envy, or whatever the case connected to money, and that's the biggest feeling, it usually is because it started really young, because of a life experience. It also could have just been like, how was money talked about in your upbringing by your caregivers, by your parents? What was the tone? If shame, blame, anxiety, envy, those things were always around when money was around, that's your perspective on money. That's going to be really hard. Until you really understand, “Oh, that's where that came from,” you're going to carry that feeling with you for years.
I say that as someone who's, I call myself a money expert because I've been doing media and stuff for years. I thought I had it all together until I started really looking to my own relationship with money. I'm like, “Oh, my God. This is really toxic. I can't believe I didn't notice this. I've been giving people advice for years and I didn't even realize this is where I was at with money. This is not how I want to continue living either.”
Ben Felix: How important is people's relative financial standing, like relative to people around them to the relationship that they have with money?
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, yeah. I mean, that has a big impact. It's not even so much that if you're with people in a certain income bracket, that can have an impact. I'd say, even more so is how they view money. If you are surrounded by people that are very optimistic about opportunities and if you have a setback, that's okay. We can get back from that and get back on track. That's going to obviously influence you to be like, “Oh, yeah. Okay. There's a lot of opportunities. There's a lot of freedoms. There's a lot more hope here.” But if you're in an environment where there's a lot of negativity around money like, “Ugh, I wish I had better luck. I wish I was born into wealth. I wish, I wish, I wish, the government this, whatever, taxes, this, that, that,” then you're going to have a perspective of, “I'm in this situation. Can't change it. Because everyone else in my environment is in the same spot. This is just how it is.” Where's the motivation to do something about it?
For me, I like to surround myself, not even just in the financial space, but in every area of my life, I want to be around people who are motivated and want to continue learning and read a lot of books and are just excited about life and the possibility of what could happen. I have been in environments with groups of friends, where it's been the opposite. That's usually been the lowest points in my life because they just drag you down. I will say, there's obviously a component. If you were hanging out with people, I think in your own income bracket, I think there's some stats that say, you're going to be probably happier than if you are the lowest income bracket in your friend group and everyone earns more. I've been in those situations. Doesn't feel nice. You feel like the poor one, even if you're like, “Actually, I'm making a pretty median salary.”
Or even too, there's feelings you can have if you're the one who earns the most in your group, you may feel, again, ashamed, because you're like, “Well, I don't want to make them feel bad, because they earn less and I don't want them to know how much I earn and they judge me for it, or whatever. What if they keep asking me for money, or whatever?” In general, we have an easier time just being satisfied with our financial standing when we're around people in similar financial standings.
Dan Bortolotti: I really enjoyed the discussion that you had in the book about privilege and why those of us who've enjoyed privilege are so loathe to acknowledge it. What I really liked was one of the experts that you quoted made this really insightful comment by saying that, acknowledging that you have privilege doesn't erase what you've achieved. It contextualizes it. Which I think is a really great way of saying it. How is that related to our relationship with wealth? How is this idea of failing to recognize privilege related to the way you view your own relative financial position?
Jessica Moorhouse: I feel like, there's been a lot more discussions about privilege in the personal finance space. I'd say, from 2020, that was a really big moment. Those conversations and they've continued to which I think is great. Even for me, I would have never thought I was someone who had privilege. But I'm like, well, I'm white. I came from a middle-class family. Yeah, we didn't have that much money compared to others, but also, we were never in poverty. I had a lot of opportunities because of how I grew up and where I was born in Canada and all these kinds of things. I have a lot of inherent privileges that made it easier for me to accomplish a lot in my life.
For example, I had the privilege of having a mom who was a career counsellor in high school, so she helped me get into universities. She’s like, “These are the applications. These are some scholarships you should sign up.” That is a privilege. Whereas, if someone, their parents are always working and they don't have any knowledge of this, it's going to be harder for them likely to get accepted into university and get those scholarships, which can have a huge impact on the rest of their life.
There's so many different privileges that I just gave a shortlist in the book, but there's so many privileges that you may have that you did not earn that have helped you get to where you are today. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person for having privilege, but we do need to acknowledge it because it's never really been acknowledged historically. We need to acknowledge it, because that's the only way that we can start to then equalize things and really put a spotlight on what are some systems and things going on that are still keeping others down when they're working just as hard. They're doing all the things that we're doing, but they're still not getting to the same place I am. It could be because of so many different elements. They’re a person of colour, they have a disability, they have all of these different things that it's going to be a little bit harder.
It's crazy to think that a lot of the older traditional personal finance books do not mention it at all. They're just like, it's all about effort and motivation. You're like, this is one component, but it's not the full story. Again, I have been in work environments where I worked twice as hard and a man gets promoted. You're like, why? It's because he may have a special relationship with the other male boss that he was just, “Oh, yeah. We went to the same university. I want to promote that guy.” You're like, “Well, that's not fair.” It isn't fair. We need to acknowledge it, so we can change these systems. We can't change the systems unless we talk about the problems.
Ben Felix: When you're working with a client who you can see is having their decisions affected by financial shame, how do you approach coaching them through that?
Jessica Moorhouse: Really, it's about getting to the source of why do we feel like this? How long has this lasted and how is it manifested in other areas, especially your finances? Because it's not just like a feeling, it can prevent you from making certain transactions, or taking certain risks, or reading certain books, because you're like, “I don't think I can even understand it. It might be too over my head.” Really getting to the root of it and then seeing what events may be transpired, because shame was there to lock you from moving forward and breaking that down. Then, start to rebuild in what kind of life would you like? What kind of relationship with money would you prefer?
Obviously, one with less shame. Hopefully, no shame. Well, we all need a little shame just to keep ourselves grounded a little bit. Yeah, really figuring out, where did that all start? Where would we prefer to go? Then, what are some steps that we can start to write, so we can start taking those action steps so we can get to where we are? It's going to be a long process and it's a practice. Everything in the book that I talk about on, these are all the problems here, the solutions. It's never a cure. It's always a practice. It'll take you years.
I've been doing some podcasts of the past couple months. I'm like, I still bring up things that I do that I know I shouldn't be doing with my money, and it's because I'm human and I make mistakes and you need to forgive yourself, and no one's perfect, especially me who wrote a book about this topic. I still do these things. I still have these really weird money quirks and shame still rears its ugly head. The best that I can do is acknowledge, oh, I see what's going on. I don't want that to happen, because I know what would happen if I just let it have free reign. What can I do instead? And try to slowly move into that direction. The more you do it, the easier it gets.
Ben Felix: How is guilt different from shame?
Jessica Moorhouse: I think a lot of people use guilt and shame interchangeably, and also, jealousy and envy. They're different things. Again, they're all natural feelings, so they're not bad. However, they can be bad, or make you behave maybe not the best way. Shame is when you feel something is fundamentally flawed with you. Like, I'm a bad person. Guilt is really about an act or behaviour. It's a little bit easier to understand and change. I did a bad thing. That's why shame is so powerful and can be very damaging because when you think that I'm just a bad person, or I'm bad with money, you're making a statement that that is who I am, and a lot of people have this idea that people can't change.
Whereas, with guilt, you're like, “I did a bad thing. I don't want to do that again, because I felt really bad about it.” Guilt is really important, because it provides us from doing things that we shouldn't be doing. It's a lot easier to rectify and to ask for forgiveness, or just not do it again.
Ben Felix: What's the difference between rational and irrational money guilt?
Jessica Moorhouse: Rational guilt, it's like I mentioned, it's a good thing. It will prevent us from doing something that we really shouldn't be doing, such as it could be like, any money mistake, you're like, “Oh. Shouldn't have done that.” Such as buying a hot stock you saw from some TikToker and you buy it and then you lose money. You're like, “Oh, I feel guilty about that. I really shouldn't have gambled with some of that money. I'm not going to do that again.” That's a really good, important feeling to have. Remember that for the future.
Irrational guilt is when you start taking over responsibility for something that you did that may not actually be your fault, or you shouldn't feel that bad about it. It's not that big of a deal. I see that a lot of clients who, maybe they grew up in a household where they did have to take over responsibility for a lot of different things. And so, everyone's problem is their problem or their fault. That could be, I mean, anything. It could be like, so you bought a stock that you knew you probably shouldn't because you didn't do any research and you're just leaning into the excitement online. You bought it, you lost some money. You should feel bad about that. Don't do it again. If you're like, you can't let it go, it just spirals. It's really hard to get out of that dark place. That's not where we want to be, because that's not going to help you.
Ben Felix: How do you see fear affecting the way that people approach their money?
Jessica Moorhouse: A lot of people approach their money with fear. I feel like, especially right now. Uncertain times. Once again, we're always in uncertain times and fear is so present with people. They are terrified that the worst thing is going to happen when it usually doesn't. Something bad could happen, but usually not the worst, worst-case scenario. Fear, similar to shame can prevent you from doing anything different than you're currently doing, even if what you're doing right now is not working. That could be educating yourself, getting more information, taking risks that are calculated. You know what? There's a very small downside. For example, I see a lot of people afraid to adjust their asset allocation, their portfolios to something more risky when they're 25, and they're in a 60-40 portfolio. I’m like, what are you doing? You're not a retiree. What's going on here? They're just terrified of losing their money.
Likely, because they had either a life experience that really scared them, or they saw someone close to them have that experience. They're like, “Well, I don't want to be them. I'm going to play it safe.” Fear has a really big presence in people's lives, but it can be dangerous. Again, fear is an important feeling. It helps keep us alive, lots of different life experiences. But when it comes to our money, you need to have some fear, because the people who are super fearless are the ones that take such big risks.
Usually, there's always a downside to that. I see that with a lot of young investors, especially. They're fearless. It's because they've never experienced a repercussion, a negative outcome. Whereas, if you have experienced a negative outcome, you're like, “Oh, okay. Lesson learned.” We can take risk, but we need to understand how much can we actually put into this potential investment, or can we survive if it did lose all its money? We just need to be more rational and aware of what we're doing.
Dan Bortolotti: You mentioned a minute ago that there's a difference between jealousy and envy. You want to talk a little bit about the difference and then how these affect our relationship with money?
Jessica Moorhouse: Honestly, people just use the word jealousy. No one uses envy. Maybe because it sounds like an old word. I don't know. Jealousy is when there's three parties. There is you, then there's someone else, and there's someone else getting in the way, who’s maybe going to steal your boyfriend or something. There's a third party who's making you jealous in that situation. There's always three parties. Envy is just you envying, or coveting someone else's life, their possessions, whatever. It's just two parties. That's usually more common than the jealousy situation. Most of us are online, or just walking out in the street, or out and about at a restaurant, and we are looking at what other people have, and it's a very natural to feel envious.
Again, envy is a very important feeling, because it can be motivating to be like, “Hey, I want to actually upgrade my life. I want to do better because I see what this person has. How can I maybe integrate some of the things that they're doing so I can improve my life?” Where envy is dangerous is when you just feel bad, because you don't have what they have, and then you start blaming yourself for, “Oh, I should have done this. I should have done this.” Or you want to take that person down. We see that a lot in the comments online, where people are just super mean, anonymously, to people they don't know, because they're envious. Instead of rethinking, “What should I do to improve my life?” Instead, they’d be like, “No, that person did this and that. They don't deserve that. They're a con artist. Da, da, da.” You're like, we don't know any of these things.
Ben Felix: Yeah, Dan is very wise. He's mostly off of social media now.
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh. Wonder what that life is. I would love that life.
Dan Bortolotti: I don't even know what you guys are talking about. Yeah.
Jessica Moorhouse: I would love to be offline. Unfortunately, I'm only online because of my business, but I get to a point where I can retire. You'll never see me again.
Ben Felix: Why are early money memories important for people to connect with?
Jessica Moorhouse: Well, like I mentioned, usually it's where our origin story with money starts. That is where the relationship really starts. A lot of that experience, like the one I describe in the book, I was four years old, and I remembered it. I'm almost 40. I'm like, wow, that certainly had an impact on me that, of course, told my mom, she's like, “I don't remember any of that happening.” Like, well, I sure do. I think a lot of us during the book tour I've been on, I've been talking about the first money memories. A lot of people are coming up to me and sharing their first money memories, and it's incredible. They knew exactly what it was. Most people know exactly their first interaction with money. Sometimes it's a positive interaction, which, hey, that'll probably set you up on a really good relationship with money.
A lot of the people that come to me, or read my book is because they don't have a good relationship with money and they want to figure out how can I fix that. With that, I always like to ask my host if they remember what their first money memory is. Do either of you have an idea? If not, that's okay. We can move on.
Dan Bortolotti: I can't remember what I had for breakfast, to be honest with you.
Jessica Moorhouse: You can't remember what happened to you at four-years-old?
Ben Felix: I think I had my parents maybe make a chart for tasks that I had to complete, and I had to fill in these things on the chart to get a bike.
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, wow.
Ben Felix: That was definitely one of them. Then another one was building a Lego vehicle with a magnet on it in the hopes of picking up change on the ground outside. It didn't work.
Jessica Moorhouse: I love that. Well, those sound like pretty positive experiences with the money. Do you feel like you've had a pretty healthy relationship with money over your lifetime?
Ben Felix: Yeah. I would say, I have.
Jessica Moorhouse: Yeah.
Ben Felix: Yup.
Jessica Moorhouse: Same with you, Dan? Maybe this is why you're in the line of work you are. You're like, “No. Actually, it's all been pretty good. Now, I just want to continue helping other people have good relationships with money.”
Dan Bortolotti: Yeah. I think that's it. I mean, I was very fortunate to grow up in a situation where I didn't have my needs unmet. We weren't wealthy, but I don't ever remember it being associated with stress and anxiety. If my family experienced that, they did a pretty good job of shielding us from it. I do remember very early on, I think like a lot of kids of my generation got jobs when we were teenagers and just learned to equate work with money and money with buying things that you wanted, saving up for things that you wanted. I think I've been able to take that into this career as well. It's not something that stresses me out a lot. Hopefully, I can impart a little bit of that calm to my clients.
Jessica Moorhouse: Yeah, you've always had – that's been part of your brand, Dan, is this nice calm, like everything's going to be fine. Which is why I think a lot of people are attracted to you. Your advice is like, “Oh. Dan knows what's going on. Everything's going to be fine. He says so anyway.”
Dan Bortolotti: Well, thanks. Yeah. It wasn't conscious. I mean, it's just a reflection of how I think about these things.
Ben Felix: It's interesting to think about that. I haven't thought about my early money memory as much. My parents were both school teachers when I was growing up. We lived on the campus of a boarding school. My dad ran one of the boarding houses. I went to that school and my parents were school teachers. We weren't super wealthy by any means. But the tuition to attend that school was about $40,000 a year. I think it's more now. The people that I was surrounded by were quite wealthy. That made for a pretty interesting dynamic growing up around a lot of money.
Jessica Moorhouse: I wonder, did that influence you being like, I want to learn how to get money, because I'm surrounded by it? That definitely had an impact. I'm sure.
Ben Felix: I didn't come into this career for any particular reason. I just ended up here. I don't know.
Jessica Moorhouse: You just ended up here. Okay.
Ben Felix: A story for another day, maybe. I don't know.
Jessica Moorhouse: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I'm not your therapist. I'm going to have to go deep. We don't have to.
Ben Felix: Can you take us through the first money memories exercise or a brief version of it?
Jessica Moorhouse: Gosh. Yeah, I actually have my book here, because I'm like, You know what? What was that exercise I wrote two years ago? Let's see what's going on here. The first component of this exercise is really, and Dan, this would be helpful for you, to help you elicit a memory, just any memory, including what you had for dinner last night. There's a couple really like, get grounded, start just doing some breathing exercises, just so you can get back into the present moment, because our minds are always here, there, and everywhere. Really, just practicing with your breath to elicit a memory. Then once you've been able to do that and you're in that mindset, then you can start going a little bit further back, or way further back, depending on how old your first money memory is, and really thinking, okay, what is that memory? Honestly, usually there's something that pops up. Then, asking yourself for some more details about that memory.
Where were you? Who were you with? How old were you? How did you feel in that moment? Then, when you have some of those details, you can visualize it and see it, then ask yourself, what is your current interpretation of that memory? The tricky thing with memories is again, like I told my mom, she read, she's like, “What? I don't remember any of that happening.” It's my memory. It was my interpretation of it back then. It's my interpretation of it now. Doesn't mean it's necessarily completely accurate. Again, I was a child. But there's these feelings that are ingrained in me that are still there from that moment. Don't judge the memory, or be critical about it. It's really just about noting everything down, so we can be like, oh, maybe this has some information that will provide me further information about why I feel a certain way about money today. That's really all it is.
Ben Felix: That's really just anything about, can you also briefly talk about the feeling about money today exercise?
Jessica Moorhouse: This is now taking a view of that feeling from the first money memory, or just any feeling. Again, no judgment on what you're feeling. Your feelings or your feelings, about how they may come up when you are dealing with money in any capacity. It could be opening your wallet at the grocery store and getting your credit card out, or getting cash. How do you feel on payday? Excited, or like, “Oh, gosh. Another month. How am I going to make it stretch?” Feel when it's time to pay some of your bills and you actually have to do that action of paying your bill. Do you feel, “All right, I'm excited. We’re paying that bill.” Or do you feel like, “Oh, my gosh. It's going to drain my bank account.” How do you feel when you buy a lottery ticket? Are you buying a dream? Or is this just a fun activity? Or do you have a lot staked on that?
How do you feel when you're buying a gift for someone? Do you feel obligated, or do you feel happy to do it? How do you feel about any action to do with money? I think none of us have probably asked ourselves any of those questions. How do you feel when you're interacting with money in this way or that way? Are the feelings overall positive, or negative? It could be a mixture, especially if we've never really thought about this before, but it's just a good way to be like, where are we at with our money right now? That, if you go through the exercise and write these thoughts down, it will reveal a lot about some things that are subconscious that you've never actually thought about openly and clearly before.
Dan Bortolotti: It's so interesting to talk about this feeling about money today because I would say that one of the things I've learned working with clients over the years is people feel very differently about spending money. It's not that closely related to how much money they have. There are people who find the idea of spending money so stressful that even if they spend it on something that you would think they would genuinely enjoy, they resist it. There are other people who have no qualms, whatsoever, about spending money. Of course, as long as they have enough, that's not an issue. The problem is when you have the mismatch between people who love spending money so much that they don't have any left.
One of the things I know, I've always tried to talk to, especially retired clients when they start drawing down and spending their savings, it's like, you need to understand right now what spending makes you happy and what spending leaves you feeling regret after. Some people are very good at articulating that. Other people never even really thought about it. I said like, believe me, I'll give you a good example that comes up a lot. Working with a client who has plenty of money and they like to travel. I might say to them, the budget is there. Instead of flying a coach, you may want to upgrade to business class for your next trip.
Some people will just think of that, “There's no way I'm ever going to do that. It's a huge waste of money. I'm not the type of person who flies business class.” I don't know what makes them feel like that. I mean, you might just feel I want to take that money and spend it on something else, which is fine. It's more like, “No, I won't spend it at all. I'm not going to take it out of my portfolio in order to spend a little bit more on the trip.” That's a person who's at least self-aware enough to say, “I don't get any enjoyment out of that.”
Jessica Moorhouse: Yeah. I don't value a first class, or a business class seat. I value other things. I like that you mentioned, even the thought of, but I'm not the type of person. I completely get like, not only do I not value that kind of travel. I'd prefer to go, oh, but then, if I do coach instead of business class, I can go on two flights, instead of one. Also, I don't think I'd feel comfortable personally being with all these other people who spend money in a very different way, or maybe they're in a different income bracket. There's also that level of personal comfort where I’m like, I don't think I'd feel comfortable being with these types of people, because I don't think I'm part of them. What if they judge me, or whatever the case? So many feelings.
Dan Bortolotti: Yeah, it's very much tied up with your identity, right?
Jessica Moorhouse: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Ben Felix: Related to that, how does someone understanding their own money story help them make better financial decisions?
Jessica Moorhouse: I mean, the only thing that will help you make better financial decisions is understanding where you're coming from and what your relationship with money is. The narrative you've been telling yourself about you and money up until this point. Again, the reason I wrote this book is most of us have never thought about it in depth like that before. Until you really do, then you can start really connecting some dots between your feelings, your behaviours, your dreams that maybe you're not able to achieve and you don't know why. If you're able to understand, well, this is why, here's the full picture. Here's what happened A, B, C, D, then you can take a step back to see where things maybe went wrong, or what route you took to get to where you were, instead of, oh, there's such an obvious route I should have taken that I didn't, because I was very much in it.
If you take a step back and really take a look at everything that's happened and transpired over the past several years, or decades, it will make it a lot easier. Just like when I work with a client and they don't understand why there's never any money left over to save. Then we take a look at their spending and like, well, the data is there. It's showing us a very clear story of where you were emotionally, behaviourally, and you don't even remember some of the expenses, because likely, you maybe had a bad day at work. And so, you went to this door and got something and it's in your closet and you've never even worn it and you totally forgot you bought it.
It's like, the evidence is there. We need to do the same thing just for the big things and even some of the small things that have happened with us and our money to get us to where we are. Then we can, okay, well, we don't want to do that again, or we're going to keep that. That really work. We want to fit all the pieces. What do we need to add in, so we can move forward with some different action steps? I don't just tell people, do this. This is something I do every single day now to not repeat the past to add some new things and keep some of it. There's always going to be some stuff that is working for you. Remember and hold on to those as your anchor. These are working. They've served me well. Let's keep doing it. We just want to try a different recipe, because the old recipe is just not working anymore.
Dan Bortolotti: What are some of the common money lessons that people should probably unlearn?
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, gosh. I mean, there's a whole chapter on lessons we learned. Most of the lessons we learned about money are usually indirect. Most of us were never sat down. I certainly wasn't, to be like, “This is what you should do with your money from your parents growing up.” It's usually what we observed, or things we heard when our parents didn't know what we were listening, but they were talking about the finances. A lot of that stuff, those were our parents' issues with money, but we adopt them. Now, there are problems, but they're not our problems. We're just carrying someone else's problems. They may have already worked through it. It's not even they're like, “Oh, I don't even do that anymore.” I'm like, well, I still do.
There's a big chapter on generational trauma. Really, it was just to take a look at where are you at with your money? Your parents experienced that, your grandparents. For me, a big thing and really on my mom's side of the family, there's always been extreme frugality and a lot of fear and anxiety around money, not having enough. When I started looking at the family tree, and then I did an interview with my grandpa years ago for the podcast that I then was luckily able to use for the book, that really helped me do some research about my family history, long line of poverty. That really stays with you and gets transferred to the next generation, next generation, where even though I, in my generation and my family, we are the most well-off compared to anyone down my family line. But I still carry some of the lessons I learned from my grandpa and my mom about how to be smart with money.
A lot of it was be a really good saver. Live below your means. Those are really great things. They were also very resistant to investing in things that were unsafe and taking any risks. Real estate investing, absolutely not. Buy your home, pay it off as soon as possible. Work at a startup, take a chance on this potential opportunity that can accelerate your career. Absolutely not. Find a job and stay there for 40 years. Those are things that worked for them because they helped them survive. I've had to unlearn a lot of things that they were just trying to help me stay safe. They were actually the opposite. They didn't make me more safe.
If I stayed with the first job I got out in university, I'd be out of a job because it went bankrupt. There's a lot of things I had to unlearn that were not helpful, such as playing it too safe. That's actually sometimes the most dangerous thing that you can do. You need to be adaptable and try new things and take risks.
Ben Felix: Yeah, those are good lessons to unlearn. What are some of the most harmful, in the book you use the word toxic, money behaviours that you see?
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, gosh. I'd say, having a really poor view of wealth. This might be something that I want to explore further, maybe in a future book. I talked to so many people that had a very negative – they either thought that they could never achieve wealth, because it was never achieved in any environment in their family. No generation had ever had wealth, so how could I possibly get that? That's also something that I have been working through as well. Also, the envy we have for people who do have more. I get it. There's such a big divide right now, like never before where the rich have never been richer and there's so much poverty. There was a very small middle class.
A lot of people hate the idea of wealth and people who have riches. Sometimes in their mind, the only way that they'd ever be able to achieve that is to do something incredibly risky to get rich overnight. Such as like, pick that perfect stock, or the crypto thing or whatever, instead of the boring, slow path to wealth. That's a really toxic behaviour of basically, hating people who have money when you want it at the same time and your biggest dream is to have wealth. That's very conflicting. How are you going to be able to achieve that goal? If you do achieve that goal, what? The end result is you hating yourself because now you're in that class of people that you hate. That's not healthy.
Ben Felix: Yeah, the comment about the lottery-seeking behaviour is really interesting. I did a video a while ago on why index funds make sense. Nothing revolutionary, pretty –
Jessica Moorhouse: Which I love those videos, because I'm an index investor. I’m like, yes, Ben. Yes.
Ben Felix: A bunch of comments were people saying like, “Yeah, that's great. But I don't have enough money to invest in index funds. I need to go invest in –”
Jessica Moorhouse: Or, I don't have time to wait.
Ben Felix: Yeah, sure. That's another one. “So, I'm going to go invest in meme coins instead.”
Jessica Moorhouse: Oh, that just breaks your heart.
Ben Felix: It does. It does.
Jessica Moorhouse: You’re like, “Please, don't. No.” Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. It's scary out there.
Dan Bortolotti: Jessica, you talk a lot in the book about trauma and the role that that can play in our relationship to money. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Jessica Moorhouse: That was my favourite part of researching the book and writing the book, because I knew not too many books out there really talk about the interconnection between money and trauma. Most people were like, “I don't see a connection at all.” The thing is trauma, and it can have nothing to do with money, your trauma. It could be you survived a natural disaster and that has impacted you for the rest of your life. That will impact all areas of your life when it comes to your romantic relationships, your friendships, your career and your money, because whenever you feel triggered from that trauma, which can happen so easily based off of a word, a smell, seeing someone's face, whatever the case, it will impact how you feel and your autonomic nervous system and could potentially push you into fight, or flight, or freeze and fawn, which are the danger zones when it comes to our money. We never want to be in any of those spaces with our money, because we're going to do something that we're going to regret later, such as sell off all of our investments, because we think the world is ending, or buy a bunch of meme coins because we think this is the only way that we'll be able to build wealth and save for retirement. It's like, no, don't do that.
Until you really understand yourself, your trauma that could be experienced, or witnessed, or inherited through your ancestors, which is really interesting. A lot of us have inherited trauma that we're carrying and we didn't even know we had it. Until you really break that down and understand it, you may not understand some of your behaviours with money, your action. A lot of the people, very common when I work with, they have a shopping problem. They spend too much. They don't know why. It's not that they're spending, “Oh, I just spent so much money on groceries.” No, it's usually something that's material that's not an essential and it's something to get a dopamine hit. They want that dopamine hit, because something happened at work, or in their life that they felt bad and they were in that fight or flight, freeze, fawn, and they needed something to get out back into that place of safety and connection. Buying something was a really easy way to temporarily alleviate that pain. But then they have to keep doing it to get that dopamine and they're never really figuring out what is the root cause of this pain.
Unless, you understand the root cause, you're going to keep that behaviour and get into further debt, or drain your savings and never make any progress. It's really just better understanding, why are you doing the things you're doing? It's probably not just because you're bad with money. I don't believe anyone's bad with money. I don't like that saying at all. It's probably because something else is making you feel a certain way and you did a certain action to feel better.
Ben Felix: I don't want this question to come across as judgmental, but you do comment on it briefly in the book. What do you think about trauma just being an excuse for bad behaviour?
Jessica Moorhouse: I say, I understand where people can come from and label it as like, well, that's just an excuse. It's not an excuse. It's an explanation. An excuse means, “Well, that's just how I am and I'm not going to change. I've got trauma. I'm an overspender. It is what it is.” Yeah, that's not good. We don't want to be in that space. But we do want an explanation for, well, why am I doing this? Because then once you have that explanation and that added information, then it's very clear on, “Oh, this is what I need to do differently in order to get a different outcome.” Excuses is never what we want. We want an explanation. We need that extra information, so we can move forward.
Yeah. I feel like, that's always a cop-out. It would feel like, oh, that's an excuse. You're like, oh, you have to read my book. If anyone feels like, “Oh, no. I don't have trauma and that's an excuse,” I guarantee it's because you have not really delved into your own situation and really did some introspection. Honestly, probably shown yourself some empathy. Maybe you're just too closed up, because of things that have happened to you. You're like, “I can't even go there. So, my shield, my protective mode is to just blame other people.” We've all probably been in that situation once or twice. I definitely was at a certain point in my life. It's just not a healthy place to be in. We need to, again, go back to that point of we need to show people empathy.
We may not fully understand why people are the way they are. Why don't they just do this? Solution is so simple. Sometimes I feel like that with people. But you're not in their shoes. You don't feel how they feel. You don't have the same lived experience, so you'll never fully know. But you have to allow them the space to get to know their situation, so they can improve.
Ben Felix: You mentioned really enjoying the trauma research for the book. How did learning more about trauma change the way that you approach your counselling practice?
Jessica Moorhouse: I know, that sounds weird that I loved that part on trauma. But it was so fascinating because even though I'd personally been doing therapy for years, we never talked about trauma, or childhood, or anything like that. It wasn't until I started doing research for the book, did a bunch of sessions with a couple of different therapists who were trauma-trained in a couple of different areas of therapy that I started understanding more about myself that I never uncovered during some other therapy sessions.
What I realized is that most of us have some form of trauma. We've been touched by trauma in some way. Because of that, we will act in certain ways. For me, again, it was like, oh, that's why I feel like that when I see this or hear this, or I'm in this location, or something like that. For me, it really helped me better understand me and my relationship with money. Having this information now, when I approach working with a client, honestly, now I feel like I see trauma everywhere. From watching a reality show, or talking to someone like trauma. Because often, that's where things start, or why someone's doing a certain thing, they're like, that doesn't make sense. Oh, maybe it's a trauma response.
For me, now I'm more aware and I can pick up on some cues. When we're in that situation, then I'm in a better position to say, “Hey, have you thought about therapy? Because this might be the missing element.” Again, a lot of people seek out the help from a financial professional, because they think it's a money issue. That's their only issue. Likely, again, if you're a trauma-informed facilitator, then you can pick up on those cues and be like, you know what? There is a money issue, but I think there's some other issues that are impacting your money. It might be a great thing to also see a mental health professional to deal with some of those things. That'll free you up to be more receptive to some of this boring, traditional financial advice that does work. Like, know where your income is and your spending and have a plan and check your net worth and invest strategically. All this stuff, because at the end of the day, you guys know this, you've been in the field for so long. Money is pretty simple and straightforward. Why are people struggling with it? Why are so many Canadians having the hardest time in the world with money? Is because, the whole point of my book, there's other things going on in the way. It's not just money. It's everything but money.
Dan Bortolotti: It's everything and money.
Jessica Moorhouse: Ooh, everything and money. I like that, too. Yes.
Dan Bortolotti: It's interesting because I think any advisor pays attention and listens to their clients, knows that there is very often some personal background that is affecting the way they make decisions. At what point does it become inappropriate to ask personal questions when you're in an advisor-client relationship? I mean, somewhere there's a line between being sensitive and overstepping the bounds of the relationship. It's a line I've had to walk a number of times. I don't know how you feel about – where is that line?
Jessica Moorhouse: When you are practicing active listening and picking up on those cues, the physical, and also just the words they're using, and just their tone or, oh, they're short with that answer. Maybe they're uncomfortable at this point. Really being able to listen in those different ways to see where they're at. Usually, there's a natural point, like okay, I think we're at the limit. Also, just, yeah. “Sorry, if this is too much. Please, let me know.” Giving them that opening to be like, “Yeah, that's a little bit personal, so I don't want to go down there.” Also, recognizing what point have you exceeded your limit as that either financial counsellor, or that advisor, and you're like, okay, I'm not a therapist. I never try to be one. I always just try to gather information to find out more about what direction are we going into, or the problems that they presented at the beginning of our session. Actually, the problems, do they need someone beyond me to help them with some of their other issues?
Really, it's, yeah, again, it always goes back to listening. I don't even ask a lot of personal questions. I usually start with one question and just let them talk. Like a good interview. You just shut up and just listen. They just keep going and going. For all the interviews I did for my book, these are real people from my audience and I selected a bunch of them. I asked two, three questions and we talked for an hour. They just kept on talking. Or I'd be like, “Tell me more. Let's unpack that,” or something like that. Then they reveal how much they're comfortable in revealing.
Ben Felix: Yeah, I think in that high-trust setting where they're talking to you and they're from your audience, or if Dan or I are talking to a client in that type of high-trust setting, people will just talk. You don't have to ask many questions.
Jessica Moorhouse: Usually, they never had that opportunity to talk. Because again, a lot of financial professionals do a lot of talking and not enough listening. When you can build a relationship with a client where you have that trust and a lot of that is based off of you just listening, they're so thankful, because they're like, “Oh, finally. I have a space and someone's listening to me. This is great.”
Ben Felix: What do you coach people to focus on first? Mental health, or building a solid financial foundation?
Jessica Moorhouse: It depends on the client. If it's really clear at the forefront, oh, there are some mental health issues that are more important, that's where we want to start. On the other side, and I write about this in my book, I understand that seeing a therapist, or a counsellor, or what have you costs money. Most of us don't have insurance that covers that. Some do and I'm like, take full advantage, but a lot of us don't. We do unfortunately have to do the money components so we can find that cash flow to afford those therapy sessions. I've done that with a number of people as well because therapy sessions could be between 150, and 250 bucks a pop for an hour.
Some people have to make these decisions like, well, this is actually really important. We have to take a look at their spending and their income. I always like to say, hit pause on things, just cancel things, or cross things out, or cut things, because no one likes those terms and I get it. Just hit pause and we can resume it later once maybe we don't need to do as many therapy sessions anymore. Unfortunately, we do have to look at the numbers. But I think they're really motivated to maybe stick with that budget, because they know what they're getting by doing that. We're going to help you in so many big ways by freeing up this cash flow, so you can do these sessions. Then when you do those sessions, you're going to do a lot of work.
It's going to be a lot easier going back to the numbers because you're like, “Oh, okay. I don't have all these hang-ups. Or I better understand why I had these hang-ups and why I was acting in a certain way with money. Now, it's a lot more clear and I don't even want to do those things anymore.”
Dan Bortolotti: I guess, we're looking at intergenerational experiences, like if your family grew up either poor or wealthy, your experience is a little bit different. How does growing up in those two different environments affect your own relationship with money?
Jessica Moorhouse: The environment that you grew up in and how money was presented will have the biggest impact on you as an adult. I break it into two categories in the book, in that most people will either repeat or rebel against their upbringing. A lot of people repeat. That's the prominent behaviour I would see is they're just continuing, sometimes trying to finish what their parents started, and sometimes that really does not work, because maybe what their parents were doing. It didn't work, because it just wasn't a good strategy. It wasn't a good path anyway. That's why they were in their situation.
Then some people may have felt really restricted, or even if you came from wealth, maybe you really hated some of the things that encompassed it. And so, you want to rebel and give away all your possessions and just live on the road and be a nomad, because you want to reject it because you did not like it. When I was interviewing a bunch of people for the book, it was interesting to pick up on, oh, who's repeating and who's rebelling. There's one story share in the book about this woman, Anya, who had a very similar background to this other woman in the book. They came from immigrant families and a lot of poverty, a lot of restrictions. One of them continued what her parents did and lived extremely frugally to a fault. Anya rebelled against that. She's like, “I don't want to be restricted. I felt like I had no freedom. I want to spend freely.”
Then, unfortunately, because of that, she realized there's some repercussions. You're going to overspend. “Now, I'm in credit card debt.” Maybe it's not about going to an extreme, it's about finding that balance. What I talk about in the book is even though that's our natural inclination to either repeat or rebel, we never really want to go to an extreme, but we think that that's what we have to do. We have to do exactly what her parents did because I think they knew best. Or, I don't think they did know best and I want to do the exact opposite. But really, typically, the best course of action is to create your own path and find some balance. Again, keep the things that you think are good and useful. Reject the things that are not working, did not work for your parents that you can see clearly now and move forward, which is very difficult to do.
I was very much a repeater because my mom was the money manager in our family. She was very good at it. Also, there's other things that she didn't, because lack of information, or there was that fear around taking risks with her career or investing. I had to find a middle ground for myself in order to help me and my husband reach our goals, which was, even me just moving from growing up in Vancouver to Toronto, that was a really big dip. My parents were like, “Are you crazy? That's a big city. Oh, my gosh.” Even people at work, I used to work in a newspaper, all the sales reps are like, “Are you kidding me? Going to the big smoke, as they called it?” They're like, “You're going to be eaten alive.”
Dan Bortolotti: Because Vancouver is such a small city.
Jessica Moorhouse: I know, right? I was just being on the west coast. Toronto, Ontario just seems so crazy far away. It's so different. I'm like, I think this is the right course of action. I could already see what my life is going to be if I stay in my hometown and I can see the limitations in terms of my career and all these things. I think I have to do something and rebel and move to a different city and try it out here. We've been here 12 or 13 years. It's been very good for us. we've been done really well by making this move. But it was the hardest thing to do something different than my parents would not have done. So, so difficult.
Dan Bortolotti: What are some of the best ways to spend money in ways that increase happiness?
Jessica Moorhouse: Well, I'd say, actually, that was probably my favourite chapter to write after the trauma that I'm like, “Oh, let's go into something about happiness.” Really comes down to, and I refer to this chapter often, because sometimes, especially when the news is so dark, I'm like, what actually is happiness again? How do I get my happy back? In the book, there is an acronym called PERMA+. I'm not going to remember all of the acronyms at this moment because I always forget. But basically, it breaks down all of the things that give us long-term happiness. Most of them are free, or very low cost. We often, I think, don't put enough value on these things.
We always think that more money will make us happy, or the glitz and the glam. That's temporary. It'll make you happy for a minute, but not for a long time. Sometimes the happiest things that I've experienced are having tea with a friend, doing a puzzle, reading a good book that's free from the library, all these things that are so simple. Gardening. There's all these things that are so simple that we discount, but actually, they’re the things scientifically that make us the most happy. Then, also, on the other part of it, I think most of us know at this point, but I have a big section in that chapter about, guess what? The data shows experiences make us more happy than material goods. For whatever reason, I mean, I know there's the reasons, we still think that the material goods, once I get that thing, it will make me happy. It will for a minute. Then you're on to the next thing, got to buy something else, got to buy something else.
I try to encourage people to look inside themselves and say, what will actually make you happy? Also, too, I think we're very influenced, very influenced online about what makes other people potentially happy. We have no idea. There's so many people that I see online, I'm like, that is so fake, but they look so happy. Then the more you see, you're like, well, maybe they are happy. Maybe I'd be happy if I also had that thing. But they're selling something. Someone's always selling something, so you've got to be really aware of when you're being influenced and really shut out the noise and be like, wait, what actually makes me happy? I think, often, we haven't asked ourselves that really important question for a long time.
Ben Felix: PERMA is a positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment. The only plus I know is vitality, which is like, eating well and sleeping well.
Jessica Moorhouse: Yeah. I think the plus is fitness, health, some other things. I can't remember. I wrote this book, but it was a while ago. Again, those are very simple things. It's like, get enough sleep, move your body, be engaged in an activity where you lose yourself, again, like a good book, or gardening, or something like that. Having relationships. One thing that I started doing that I never put enough importance, or I always like, “No, I have too much work to do, or have this other thing that I think is more important to do,” is that social aspect that we're in such a disconnected world, even though we're so connected at the same time, we need to be around people.
Even if you're an introvert like me, you still get so much pleasure and energy and joy from being around people and just learning about other people's lives and just being in their company and think often, especially because COVID, oh, my gosh, we were so disconnected. We've forgotten how important just being around people is. It really is.
Ben Felix: Yeah, something that I've done the last, well, I've been doing it for a while now. I've got a friend that I meet up with every Thursday at the moment. It's been Wednesdays in the past, but we meet up, we go to the gym together and we have dinner, every week.
Jessica Moorhouse: That's nice.
Ben Felix: It's awesome.
Jessica Moorhouse: It's something you look forward to. You have a good time.
Ben Felix: Yeah.
Jessica Moorhouse: Yeah, my husband just started doing it actually with a friend, who doesn't live too far away and it seems like, every Thursday, they meet up halfway and go for a walk. I’m like, that's so nice.
Ben Felix: That is awesome.
Jessica Moorhouse: It brings them a lot of happiness. You can download and just talk about whatever. For me, I'm part of two book clubs now. I don't know how that happened. Honestly, I rarely read the book. I don't have time to read all these books. I started going to a gym that is really group workout classes, so we're all doing the same thing. It brings me so much joy. I've made a lot of friends going to this gym, as opposed to going to a regular gym where you're just doing your own isolated thing. I never liked doing that. I realized, oh, I'm really happy when I'm around people, especially since I work from home alone. I need to be around people.
Ben Felix: How can people approach rewriting their own money stories?
Jessica Moorhouse: That's a fun part is when you've done that deconstruction on your money story, the narrative you've been telling yourself up until now, the origin story where it all started, how trauma and all these other elements have affected you and the lessons you've learned that you know you need to unlearn, once you've unpacked all of that, then you've got the really exciting job of figuring out, where do I want to go from here? I'm not super happy where I'm at right now. A lot of things I want to change. Where would I like to go? Who do I want to be? Hopefully, too, you after you've done all of that unpacking, you'll realize the answer isn't, “Well, I want this amount of money and I want all of these things.” You'll realize, “Oh, actually, I was running towards those things, and they were just a band-aid for the things that I really needed to look into.”
You need to ask yourself, yes, some questions like, who am I again? What do I like? What actually makes me happy? What are some of my goals that I do know, again, will provide not only important things, like safety and connection and security and things like that, but also, that will bring me that long-term joy and happiness? Really, getting back to your roots of what do I want? Because I feel like, we did a lot of that introspection, in university, or in our 20s, who am I? Then, you just start working and you've got responsibilities and life is hard, throughout your late 20s and 30s and onwards and we don't really take a moment to think, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What am I doing?” We're just on autopilot. Taking that time to really discover, what do I want? What do I really want? Then you can start slowly connecting that to your actual financial situation.
You can see what's lining up, what's not? Do I need to earn more money? Do I need to hit pause on some things? Do I need to restructure some things? What are some blind spots that I didn't even see and now they're so clear? What are some behaviours that I always lean into at certain parts of the year, or certain times that I feel this? What are some systems I could put into place to prevent me from doing that again and again? Because I never feel good after doing it. Really restructuring everything. So, when you start your new journey, you're going to be on a better path and you have a much better guide.
Ben Felix: Last question for you, Jessica. How do you define success in your own life?
Jessica Moorhouse: It's changed a lot since I wrote the book, let me tell you. I've realized, I talk about this at the beginning of the book. Because of my own trauma, unhealed emotional wounds at the time, I did not realize that a lot of what I was pursuing, and that was money, accolades, attention. Those were just band-aids. I thought those would make me happy. If I get those, everything's going to be all right. Then you'd achieve a certain milestone and you're like, I don't really feel any much better. Okay, maybe that just wasn't big enough. Just keep moving the goalpost. You're just never satisfied.
Even for me, before we hit record, Dan said, “Oh, how's the book going?” I'm a Globe and Mail bestseller. That felt good for an hour. Then it was done. You're like, okay, now what? I can never put importance on things like that, because I know they dissipate so quickly. The things that make me really happy, again, are those simple things. I needed to restructure my goals and what I want to achieve and success and redefine success for myself based off of those other things. For me now, what makes me feel really happy and successful is doing work that I feel is meaningful and actually impactful and helping people. Sometimes that means saying no to money because I want to stay true to my values and my ethics.
I mean, sometimes taking the slow path, instead of the quick path. I feel like, my journey has been very slow in certain respects of my career where I see other people, oh, wow, they're so much further ahead. It doesn't matter. Tortoise and the hare. Also, it doesn't matter. This is my life. It might be slower than someone else's. That's the most important. I just got to focus on me. And making sure I make room for those things that make me happy. Honestly, in the past, yeah, I would cancel on friends, or say, “Oh, I can't go out. I have too much work to do.” Now I'm like, no, I will fit work around the engagements that are really meaningful to me, like going to the gym, going to book club, going to an event, or seeing a friend I haven't seen in a long time and doing something silly, going to a play or something like that.
Really, I had to restructure my whole money story, my whole path to financial fulfilment is what I call it. How can money help me feel more fulfilled, just me using it as a tool and stop viewing money as a thing that that is the goal. Because whenever I put it in that place, and I think money will make me happy, it never does. It never does for long anyway.
Ben Felix: That's a great answer. All right, thanks, Jessica. This has been a great conversation. We really appreciate you coming on the podcast.
Jessica Moorhouse: Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan of both of you, so this is a big treat to be on your show.
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Books From Today’s Episode:
Everything but Money — https://www.amazon.com/Everything-but-Money-Barriers-Financial/dp/1443472174
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More Money Podcast — https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/more-money-podcast/
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