September 22, 2025 • 38 mins
Today your host, psychotherapist Christina Crowe is talking to Certified Financial Planner Jeff Chapman, from G.E. Chapman Financial Services Inc. in Burlington, Ontario.
In this episode, we explore the complex connection between mental health, money mindsets, and everyday life skills. From how ADHD and time-blindness impact financial habits, to the invisible and visible money lessons kids absorb, we uncover why so many adults struggle to talk about money openly. We also discuss the role of certified financial professionals (CFPs), how to spot misleading “fin-fluencers,” and where to turn for help—even if you don’t have “wealth” yet. Tune in for real-life tips, mindset shifts, and strategies to build a healthier relationship with money and your mental health.
Resources for After the Show:
CFPs recommended by our Guest:
- Aravind Sithamparapillai
- Sam Rook’s Blog
- Jason Pereira (Financial Planning For Canadian Business Owners)
- Aaron Hector
- Julia Chung, Board Chair for the Financial Planning Association of Canada
Our own resources:
- Financial Support for ADHD parents and families on the Canadian Disability tax credit, as well as grants and bursaries for college or university for students with ADHD.
- Low-cost, quality counselling services (in-person and across Ontario virtually).
About our Guest: Jeff Chapman, CFP is the President + Head Financial Planner for G.E. Chapman Financial Services Inc. Jeff has been providing his clients with trusted and sound advice for their insurance and wealth management goals for over 15 years. He earned his Certified Financial Planner designation in 2010. As a former high school teacher, he takes great pride in sharing his knowledge and helping people understand financial planning-related topics.
Find Jeff: Website | Twitter |LinkedIn
Find Christina (CRPO #3908): Website | Find a Therapist | Get Assessed by an NP in Ontario | Instagram | Podcast page.
A gentle reminder that this is not therapy, and Christina is not your therapist. If you need more one on one support or treatment, please check out the links posted above or our Resources page on our website.
LISTEN OR SUBSCRIBE for free in your favourite podcast app:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | AmazonMusic | Castbox | RSS
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to season 5.
We are introducing a couple of new things and one of them will
be a series on money and the waymoney intersects with mental
health. Welcome to the Christina Crow
podcast where we connect the dots in search for more balanced
mental health. Today, your host,
psychotherapist Christina Crowe,that's me, is talking to Jeff
(00:33):
Chapman, certified financial planner, about simple ways to
manage your finances and maybe start to think about changing
your relationship with money. Jeff is the president and head
financial planner for GE ChapmanFinancial Services.
Jeff has been providing his clients with trusted and sound
advice for their insurance and wealth management goals for over
15 years. As a former high school teacher,
(00:54):
he takes great pride in sharing his knowledge and helping people
understand financial planning related topics.
Away from the office, Jeff enjoys spending time with his
wife Jamie and two kids, Henry and Jane.
He's an amid sports fan who had his best selling book, Ultimate
Hockey, published in 1999. He is a proud supporter of
(01:15):
Liverpool FC, the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Blue
Jays. Welcome, Jeff.
And good to be back. Yeah, Full disclosure, Jeff is
also a good friend of mine and Iwas in his wedding party, so
disclosing all conflicting relationships.
But I trust him and his financial advice.
He seems to know what he's doing.
He has never led me astray, so I'm happy to bring him in.
(01:38):
And he was. I think it was season 1 or
Season 2. We had that overall financial
discussion very, very well. Yeah, the economy was better
back then and people, it's not that.
There was times when maybe if you're always stressed about
money or you don't like thinkingabout it, it was easier to not
think about it in those days than it is today in 2025.
(01:58):
Yeah, a little bit's changed in the last couple.
We've got the fellow who's in charge South of the border, and
that's given some people's pause.
We've seen interest rates up anddown and then inflation.
At any time anyone goes to the grocery store, especially if
you've got kids, you know that prices have been going one way
and it's not been down. I haven't bought an avocado in a
year. I refuse to buy an avocado that
(02:20):
cost me $3.50. Is avocado toast still a thing
with the millennials? I would rather buy the mushed up
guac in a container and spread that on my toes if I'm really
getting desperate. Even that though, that's almost
8 or 9 bucks for a container these.
Days my strategy is no brand loyalty, so I buy what's on
sale. I have brand loyalty for like
(02:43):
ketchup. There's very few things I don't
know about you guys. No, it is a lot of times going
to be dictated by as you said, the the price of whatever is on
sale. So I think that's a good way to
look at it and a good way to lean into our topic today.
Yeah, money really stresses people out.
Not a lot of us get an educationand money.
(03:04):
I know our government of Ontariois trying to change that, and I
suppose the effects of that changing curriculum probably
won't show up for a while. What do you hear in your neck?
Of the woods, well, it's kind ofthe age-old issue, right,
Financial stress and money stress is always kind of weighed
on a lot of people. And I think when we talk about
(03:25):
that, I think we have to prefaceit by saying that what financial
stress you might be facing, it Imight be facing are not always
going to be the same. So financial stress for some
people is, am I going to have enough to money just to have in
retirement? Am I going to be able to live OK
or am I eating cat food? Some people are saying, you know
(03:45):
what? I'm not sure I'm ever going to
be able to put enough money together to put a down payment
on a house. Don't know how I'm going to pay
rent this month and put food on it.
So I think the financial stress is going to be different for
everybody and I think it's important to kind of acknowledge
that right from the top. There's an organization in
Canada, FP Canada, and they run surveys every year.
(04:07):
And this year they came out and their findings were that 42% of
Canadians had indicated that money or financial issues are
their biggest stressor in life. That's a big thing.
Most 1/2 of them are saying money or finances are the
biggest stressor. That's an issue.
Yeah, I I think it's really huge.
And I also think when I think about our young people as a Gen.
(04:31):
Xer observing younger generations distressor they have
that I didn't have growing up, was seeing varying degrees of
wealth or access to totally different lifestyle every day on
my phone, right? As far as I knew.
Like most people are limited to the view of the folks around you
(04:52):
in your classroom, in your neighborhood, within your
immediate family. And that's just normal.
I can't imagine what it would belike growing up, turning on
whatever device you have and seeing like there's kids and the
vacations and the jetting here and there.
I feel for a single people dating in the city competing
(05:12):
with this idea that it's normal to have someone fly you to
Florida for a weekend or fly youaway.
That's how people are dating Quam doing air quotes that is so
naughty that there's conversations that that's what
folks should be looking for in apartner.
Someone who's got the capacity to do that blows my mind.
(05:34):
Yeah, I think you nailed it there.
I mean, we're in the age of era of social comparison, right?
It's it's everywhere. It doesn't matter where you
look, people will be wanting to show off.
This is not always 100% factual or truthful, right?
As somebody who's taking a picture and you see the final
product that you don't see the 48 takes it took to get there,
(05:56):
that's going on behind the scenes.
The same with finances. I think when somebody posts
something to Instagram or Facebook, you see these amazing
vacations, Europe, Hawaii, wherever, new cars, houses, and
what you don't see is what the price tag is.
Full price tag. What did you would have to do to
(06:17):
refinance your mortgage, or whatlevel of credit card debt did
you have to go into? So it's all easy to see what
people show from a material perspective, but you don't ever
get the inside scoop of what theactual financial cost is for
these things. Yeah.
I think I talked about this the first time we talked.
(06:39):
I said I feel like the most important concept I learned and
I didn't learn it until I ridiculously took first year
economics in university. I did learn the really important
concept of opportunity cost, which is exactly what you just
said. If I buy this, what am I not
using those resources for? I think you were talking about
the total cost being the cost plus the interest on whatever
(07:00):
credit product you're using to purchase the thing, right?
And there's that cost, there's psychological cost.
There's so many things that go into things that are invisible
and we don't really think about it.
Back in my early 20s and late teens, trying to learn about
money, 'cause I don't feel I learned anything about it
growing up, really. It was a very mysterious.
The resource was books, like youwent to chapters and if you
(07:23):
couldn't buy the book, you just sat there 'cause they had
couches back then and read the book.
But today it's like the resources.
While the books are still there.That doesn't seem to be where
people go to get information. They go to social media, they go
to websites, they watch YouTube clinics, I suppose.
And if they're provided by credible people such as yourself
that are regulated and certifiedand have rules about what you
(07:45):
can and can't convey to the public, then that's OK 'cause I
think it's OK to learn in lots of different ways.
But unfortunately, those environments are inundated by
bad actors. And the thing that people don't
necessarily fully understand is you'll see these, and I don't
love the term, but you call theminfluencers, right?
(08:07):
What's? The financial influencer, right?
And in a lot of cases, you don'twant to think the entire group
of people with a brush, but you kind of see some of these
individuals and what their goal is.
And I think the issue is that they're not regulated, so they
can go and say stuff and there'sno regulatory board who's going
(08:27):
to come and say you can't do that.
Like you can't promote individual securities.
Let's say you can't, like I couldn't go on to YouTube or
TikTok and say, hey, everybody, let's buy Apple today.
It's a great thing to do. I, I think some of these
influencers will kind of go towards that.
And maybe it's because they're being compensated by these
(08:48):
companies to. They're supposed to disclose,
but right, you're supposed. To.
I think that's kind of where you're looking at or what are
they trying to sell courses, right?
It looks all good, but now you're buying my course.
So it's. Which is just an ad, right?
Right. You're, you're using it to drive
people to whatever the income producing vehicle is from their
(09:10):
perspective. Just got to keep an eye out for
that. I would say that the intent of
that regulation in your industryis the same as the intent of the
regulation in my industry is a group of self regulating
professionals. We have a set of rules and
guidelines we have to follow andit's up to us to follow them.
So the government's not necessarily policing us unless
someone turns us in, right? We have to police each other.
(09:31):
We have to be adherent to our ethical code of conduct and the
way that we do things. And the reason we can't ask for
Google reviews, make guarantees,say this treatment for sure is
going to work, is because you don't know whether well, every
person has a different circumstance they come from.
You have to be careful when giving up broad spectrum advice.
(09:53):
Take it for a grain of salt whenever it's generally provided
as advice, but we have to get really specific when we're
making recommendations to a one-on-one client.
Yeah. And it's the same in this
industry, at least it's supposedto be the same in this industry,
right? They've introduced the financial
services Regulatory Board, all that.
They've introduced a lot of client focused initiatives in
(10:16):
the last number of years. I still don't think it's
necessarily enough, but it it's stuff like we'll use insurance
as an example. You come to me and you say, you
know what, I need life insuranceand I think typically, but life
insurance ought to go too far off topic, but people will say,
you know, I pick a rush around the 500,000.
A million sounds like a lot of money and it is.
If you find you're still earningan income 1,000,000 bucks is it
(10:39):
would be a lot of money. However, if you lose a spouse
and you still got a mortgage andyou have to try and replace the
income with young kids, suddenly$1,000,000 doesn't seem like as
much money so. They're learning a lifetime like
is much younger than further away from retirement than you
would have thought. Absolutely.
It's incumbent upon the advisor or the planner to find out what
(11:01):
the situation is, develop recommendations based on that
situation and then present that to the client.
So for insurance, if I propose something you decide to go ahead
with it, what I have to give youwhat is known as a reason why
letter and it'll outline all of these steps that I took as the
advisor to get you to that particular point and say you
(11:25):
know what I suggested based on income replacement, based on
debt, mortgage education for thekids, this amount.
That was what it was decided. I went to these different
companies source those presentedthese quotes.
This was the decision that was made and then you have a copy of
it that is signed by me. Good advice and planners were
(11:45):
doing that sort of stuff anyway.You can't make suggestions or
give therapeutic advice until you know the situation eventual
and it's same in our industry. I can't give you a
recommendation of what you need from saving to retirement or
whatever until I go through and have done a full fact Finder and
(12:07):
figured out your goals and objectives and really kind of
deep into your situation, then Ican make those recommendations
for. You.
Yeah. And I wonder, as I'm listening
to you, lay that out. I mean, of course it's similar
in therapy. We take in all the factors.
We do a full, some initial assessment.
We say, here's how I think it can help.
Here's what I propose we do. Here's how long I think it will
take. And folks, if you're not getting
(12:28):
that from a therapist, ask for it because you, you have every
right to be in on that treatmentplan and collaborate with them.
I wonder how many people are really surprised to hear that.
I would say there's probably a few, especially if you haven't
had a lot of experience working with a good advisor and a good
planner. And that kind of goes back to
(12:50):
how people traditionally get helped in the financial planning
industry. And I think for a lot of people,
what their first step is, is to go to the big 5 banks.
They've got their savings account at TD or RBC or
whichever one it is and they'll say, you know what, I need some
help with saving for a mortgage,with figuring out my finances.
(13:10):
I don't know what's up, what's down, somebody's going to help
me. So they go into the and the
issue with the bank is it's beena not so secret even for the
last number of years that peoplekind of get it that the people
who work at the bank are really under pressure to sell.
They're working for the bank. You go into the bank trying to
(13:32):
get. Selling the bank's products.
Right. The teller will look at the
computer and say, oh, you don't have an RSPRTFSA with us.
And I said, because I'm a financial advisor, so I don't
necessarily need that. But that's really the 1st Ave.
right? They'll say, oh, you need this
or you need that, or if you do this and this and you'll get a
discount, right? So that's usually people's first
(13:53):
course of action. The problem is, especially if
you don't have a whole lot of money saved up right, just
started getting through clearingout your student debt or or
whatever the situation is, you, you don't have $400,000 of
investable asset. So when you go into the bank,
you're probably not getting top advisor or planner there.
(14:16):
You're probably going to get shuffled off to a junior advisor
and you know, again, you don't want to pay them all with the
same brush, but these advisors are under pressure to sell.
So I'll especially if you're in your first couple of years
trying to move up the corporate ladder and how do you do it is
really kind of emblematic of theway that the industry used to
(14:39):
be. It's not about helping the
clients and delivering the advice that they need.
It's about sales and production and trying to get as many assets
as you care. So what ends up happening is
you're going in looking for somehelp on this.
You end up getting something that you may not need or is not
(15:00):
necessarily in your best interest.
And I think that kind of scenario, we've heard it from a
number of people that turns people off of going and actually
getting the proper help because their first experience didn't
go. I know we'll have lots to say
about people that are in their mid to late 30s and onward.
Where should Gen. Z go?
(15:21):
Like, where should people in their 20s and maybe just
creeping into early 30s go for financial advice?
We talked. About social media before and if
you can parse out the those influencers and go to people who
have got actual designations behind their names.
(15:41):
And I'm going to speak from people in the Canadian market.
If you go on whether they're active on Twitter or X or Elon's
distraction machine or whatever you want to call it these days
and also on Instagram and, and that sort of thing.
There's a lot of really good Canadian planners and a lot of
them are younger, so in their late 20s, early 30s, who've kind
(16:03):
of embraced providing good educational content or I learned
stuff from these guys. I've been in the industry for
almost 20 years, so I know a fewthings and I'm reading some of
their stuff and I'm like, I didn't know that.
There's always something new, whether it's a legislation or a
unique tip that you can use for your clients that I'm picking up
(16:27):
on. I'll give you a couple of names.
I mean, maybe we put them in theshow notes and we can put their
Twitter handles like Sam Rook. Jason Pereira is great.
Aaron Hector I think is out of Alberta.
He's fantastic. I hope I got that right.
He's fantastic. He actually did the CFP this
year and was #1 in Canada and hedoes a lot of short form videos.
Cool. He's a great resource.
(16:47):
And then Julia Chung as well. Julia is great because she's
also, I think her title is the board chair for an association
called the Financial Planning Association of Canada.
Relatively new and I'm going to be I'm not even a member of this
organization yet. ADHD is and yet fantastic
(17:08):
resource. And one of the things that is
fantastic if you go on their website, God kind of a find an
advisor tool. Not only who these folks are in
what region they are, but what their specialties are.
And I think importantly for the younger generation, it will what
their method of compensation is going to be.
(17:32):
Because for the longest time, the industry was assets under
management, a percentage of whatever your assets, which kind
of goes back to before. If you didn't have 400,000 when
you walk into a firm, most senior experienced advisors,
that's not worth my time, right.That puts the people who are
just starting out a little bit behind the 8 ball, but there's a
(17:54):
fee based or advice only whetherit's hourly retainer project
that may be a great resource forsomebody who is just starting
out. So the FPAC website and I think
all those people I mentioned areall members of that organization
that I really should we'll make sure we.
Link those handles in the show notes for sure.
(18:15):
I appreciate all of that becauseI think until you get to the
place where you can actually afford to hire somebody that's
got a lot of experience in a professional, like that's a
normal part of the trajectory ofyoung adulthood into middle
adulthood and onward. There's there's other things to
do. And so getting quality free
education available in abundance.
(18:36):
It sounds like online is the 1stplace to start.
There's this cohort of the Gen. Z generation that is very much
into this anti capitalist. Not so we were like down with
the man. Like in our day, it's less down
with the man For them, it's morelike anti capitalism.
We're not going to play your game.
Instead of them having to watch lifestyle creep, they don't buy
(18:58):
anything new. They thrift everything they have
so cool to never actually buy anything new.
And then there's another cohort in that lifestyle creep, keeping
up with the Joneses kind of thing, the MO money, MO
problems. I like that as you start to gain
a little bit of career and wealth, you get yourself into a
situation where it's nice to have a little bit of extra
(19:21):
money. It's nice to have that cash flow
right. And if you haven't set up a lot
of automations to save for the future, especially if you're a
steer like we are, something that's 25 years from now is hard
to think about today. Like 2 weeks from now is hard to
think about, never mind that farin advance, whether it's your
treatment and going to therapy or your financial decisions and
(19:45):
the impact that's going to have later and what you're going to
wish 25 year old you did when you're 45 or 55, Right.
So automating as much as you canis probably one of my biggest
pieces of advice. What do you think about that?
Yeah. I I try and do it as much as I
can because it's basically set it and forget it.
And if you're going to put this amount into my tax free savings
(20:09):
account every month or my RRSP every month, I think the old
school method was 1520 years agowhen they really didn't have
those monthly pre authorized deposits.
So what people would do is they would get to the end of February
when had to get your RRSP contribution for the year so
that you could use it to reduce your taxable income for the
(20:31):
previous year. And they try and put together
$5000 or $10,000 or whatever. And that's a big ask for a lot
of people. So you look at it and say, OK,
if I look at my overall financial situation, I can
afford 200 bucks a month to put in just starting out.
I want to put that into whatevertax reset is.
(20:53):
Are you more likely to be able to stick to $200 every month for
12 months or are you going to beable to rustle up 20, four, 2500
bucks at one point in the year to put a contribution in?
So I think for the vast majorityof people, it's going to be the
former. You can just put it in.
(21:16):
And I'm not, I always, I'm goingto be careful with this because
I, I never want to suggest that people should just leave, live a
Spartan lifestyle and, and don'tspend on anything.
You know, you've got to enjoy your life to to a point, but I
think you look at your finances holistically and say I, I need
to start saving money for and I can, based on my income and
(21:37):
expenses, realistically afford to put 200 bucks a month into
that. I can't, yeah, just set it up on
the 1st of the month or the 15thof the month and it goes and
it's amazing. If you think, OK, I'm not gonna
be able to afford that. And what's gonna happen is it's
you're going to see that you'll you'll cut out your daily
(21:57):
coffee. Maybe you go three times a week
as opposed to five. Yeah.
Or maybe you don't order a private taxi for your burrito
once a week. Maybe you do that twice a month
as opposed. I mean, you're not supposed to.
Uber in bubble tea. Whatever you'd like, as long as
you have one, it means for it. But that's one of those things
that it's so convenient and you don't feel the pain of those
(22:19):
purchases because it's automatically tied to the credit
cards. If you have to hand somebody $15
in cash, I guarantee you that the number of times that you
would Uber Eats or Skip the Dishes, a bubble tea would go
down significantly. It's.
Unbelievable. And all of those spends you do
in all these different apps. So it doesn't connect like the
(22:41):
total number doesn't connect unless you make a habit of
staring at your bank balance at the end of the week, I think.
That's for us as adults, but I think it's at this stage that
this is where the tricky part isfor teaching kids about money.
Because you mentioned from the top that the Ontario curriculum
(23:01):
has changed and they're startingto put these financial education
pieces into play. So the kids are going to learn
about this, which is great. It's very much long overdue.
It doesn't do a lot for us because we have to learn that
ourselves. I think there's still going to
be an element of this. It's incumbent upon the parents
to teach the kids about it. Digital spending versus physical
(23:26):
spending is very difficult personally on finding to kind of
get the kids to learn about because they want to spend their
money on digital gift cards likewhatever game they're playing.
It's not. Real, right?
Whatever the latest soccer or basketball game is, yeah, that's
what they want to spend it on. Press a button, have mom and dad
(23:48):
come over and put their thumb down or enter a passcode and the
money's magically gone. But they don't steal.
It's not like we did. Like if I'm glad the Roblox.
Wasn't around when our kids werethat age.
No, I. Mean I got to date myself here,
but if I wanted to play a video game in the these, I would have
to save up my money and go down to Toys-R-Us.
(24:10):
And the Nintendo section had a wall of all the cover.
You could see the cover of Donkey Kong or Baseball Stars or
Super Mario 2. And you go and you pick what
game you want give you the card for.
Did you go home and play it? And then you are kind of stuck
with that decision and you have to.
My kids are like, I spent 15 bucks on this game.
(24:33):
I don't like it. I want another now.
Trying to get the kids to understand the value of money is
really difficult these days whenthe majority of their purchases
are going to be done digitally. I don't know if we.
Talked about this last time. The one thing that really worked
for us was when our kids are allunder the age of 10, every
(24:54):
family goes through this. There's that age where no matter
where you go, they're like, mommy, I want this, daddy, I
want that. Everything in the grocery store
is strategically placed at theirheight, like chocolates,
candies, whatever. It was driving us kind of crazy
because times 3 it's a lot. So we drove to the bank, opened
them all up individual bank accounts, gave them each a debit
card, paid them rewards chart wise for chores and things they
(25:18):
did. If they didn't do them, they
just didn't get paid that week. If they did them, they got their
allowance like a dollar a week per age or some equivalent.
It hit a cap at some point. It allowed us as parents to see
their spending. Any time we went out, they'd be
like, I want that. I'd be like, cool, buy it.
Did you bring your debit card? Oh, I forgot.
So then they'd remember to bringtheir debit card.
So then that got them starting to plan in advance and to think
(25:40):
about things like, OK, so we're going to go to the grocery
store. If you think you're going to
want to buy something, you best bring your debit card, 'cause I,
my, mine is for our food, right?And that it'd bring their debit
card. It was interesting to see which
kid would just spend it all every week, Which kid would
never spend anything. I swear probably still has money
in that account at 20. Then the other kid that would
(26:01):
spend in bits and starts and really think carefully about
what they wanted to do with thatmoney because it gave them power
and freedom, but it gave them choice and responsibility and
had them think ahead, right? So I feel like that's probably
one of the best things we did for them.
I think buying things online wasn't as much of a thing.
They were getting there, but it wasn't quite as pervasive as it
(26:23):
is today. Yeah, I think that's.
The biggest thing we've found, both my kids have been bugging
to buy certain things and they want to save for certain things.
So we have interest. Much like you did the allowance
and you got, you got to constantly remind them they want
the latest digital code. You went to Walmart and you
wanted that bigger Lego set and that's going to cost you like 4
(26:44):
weeks of allowance to get there.So you have to kind of hold off
on were they buying it? On credit, the credit in
advance. Jeff, come on.
They are not. There there are no loans in this
thing. One of the things we did and I'm
sure, just sure a very quick story is it very recent daughter
Jane had bugged us for a while to set up a lemonade stand.
So we did that this past weekendand I love ones.
(27:06):
When I see them in the overhead.This could be a great way.
My wife said. I had to teach the kids about
the value of money. Yeah.
So we went and bought stuff. We looked at comparing prices of
bigger jug of lemonade versus the smaller frozen ones that you
had to make. Put up the initial money for the
lemonade, the freezies, the cups, and they went and they
(27:29):
wolfed their butt off and they were out on Sunday in the heat
for three hours. They did really well.
Neighbors came by, but also we got a bunch of kids, teenagers,
but one was all done. I sat them down.
I said let's look at what we have here.
And they tallied up whatever, 40bucks, 50 bucks, whatever they
ended up with at the end of the day, they both said we want to
(27:50):
try and do this again. I said that's great.
I funded the first one. I put up the seed capitals.
But from here, you're going to utilize this money to either buy
yourself something cool or if you want to do this again,
you're going to be on the hook to buy the materials needed for
it. And so they've been really good
(28:10):
this week, but I picked them up from camp yesterday and we're
driving home. We passed Tim horton's and they
said, you know what, let's stop in for a donut.
That would be a good idea. And I said, it's not really a
donut day today. And I said, you know what we
could do, though, is we could come back tomorrow, make sure
that you pack enough money to buy not only the two of you a
(28:34):
donut, but also mom and Dad, a donut willing to do that out of
your physical money that you've earned from the lemonade stand.
Then we can go and do that. And they both kind of talked
about it and said, I think we wanna do that, so that's fine.
Yeah, you could do it. But when I said no, you can use
your own money. Well, that's no error like that.
(28:54):
How does that work? I'm like, watch, who else is
gonna pick for it? Uncle St.
Well, yeah. He's a little far away at that
point. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there are ways that you can find it.
You hesitate to turn every single thing into kind of a
learning opportunity. You don't want to be that
parent. But especially when it comes to
money, you can teach them about the value of that and the
(29:17):
decisions that are made. Yeah, It's this.
You can't do this. It's not a lecture.
It's an ongoing conversation, just like you talk about the
Blue Jays and the weather and what you're going to wear today.
It's so weird how money is such a taboo topic and families don't
talk about it, but if kids see you talking about it and they
just have to see you figure it out as well.
(29:38):
It's just when they don't see anything and it's confusing and
they feel the stress and the tension and nobody knows what's
happening and then people start snapping about what they can or
can't afford. We don't.
As a society we share a lot of stuff.
We don't talk about money. There is an emotional aspect.
It's associated with it. It's a show not so again when
(30:03):
you're showing all people see are the nice thing.
They don't see the negative aspect, the credit card debt or
the mounting mortgage and that sort of thing.
You can hide that sort of stuff.You can show the material
possessions, but you know you'reright.
This. Outward symbol to the world that
I'm OK we're OK we're doing OK right no one needs to worry
(30:25):
about us I don't want anything like pity either shame don't
look too close all that kind of stuff right you go back to.
Psychology one O 1, intrinsic versus intrinsic, right?
Like that's what this you're showing externally, that's what
you think it is, but you're not going to worry about what's
going on internally. And I think you're absolutely
right in terms of communication with your spouse, your partner,
(30:48):
but also involving the kids in that.
I think because of the value of money, because of everything
being so easy and all digital these days, it's more difficult
to communicate that to it. If you're fortunate enough to
get the roof over your head, thehouse that you're paying for,
you're able to put food on the table.
I think a lot of kids are going to say, well, we're doing OK
(31:09):
here. And actually, I had a
conversation a couple of months ago at the dinner table from our
generation. If we had asked this question, I
don't think we would have got quite the the.
E-mail. And said how much money do you
make? I am.
Happy to share what I made last year, but there are there are
two rules. One, this information does not
(31:32):
leave this table. You don't need to tell anyone
else what I made or what your mother made last year.
And there's that's a number. But then we should go through
all of the things that we have to pay right in the year.
So if you're we'll use a hypothetical $100,000, the
government's going to take 4045%of that right off the top in
(31:56):
terms of tax. So now that 100,000 becomes
55,000, and then you have to pay$1200 every two weeks for
mortgage pay. Boom.
And if you want to maybe go on avacation, even if there's just a
week at a cottage, that cost money, gas cost money.
And you see pretty quickly how that kind of dwindles down,
(32:19):
right? So I think it's not taboo.
I'm happy to share that. But I think it's just one piece
of the puzzle. That's a lovely, clear way to
explain it to the kids. I'm laughing because what's
coming to mind for me is when the kids were little and we
would get a doughnut from the Tim Horton's drive through, my
husband would always take a biteof everyone's doughnut first and
say that's the tax man, and the kids would always be like dad.
(32:42):
And then they just got used to it.
We use a lot of metaphor, I suppose, but clarity's probably
more important. We do that on Halloween.
Daddy comes in and and tackles afew things right off the top.
That's right. All right, we're feeling.
Somewhere somebody's going to betaken from you.
So if I. Could sum up some of the stuff
that we've covered. It's that there's different,
(33:04):
different things to think about for different generations.
There's different things to think about for different walks
of life and situations that you're in financially.
The bottom line in all cases though is that there's more
clear regulation, There's more clear information.
There's free educators that are out there that you've
recommended that we can all go check out to get great
(33:25):
information. And then when people are ready
to, if anyone wants to find you,I'll put your contact
information in the show notes aswell.
You guys are from Burlington now, Ontario, Yeah.
Is there any kind of advice to wrap up in terms of what you
think is the most important thing for people to know in the
(33:47):
context of the economy right nowand what's going on for people
in terms of the financial stress?
We're all That's a difficult question.
To answer and the only reason for that is no one really knows
what's going on. And I think if we've got the
biggest thing is the wild card of Mr. Trump in the states
because he can do something crazy and then it all bets are
all. The biggest thing I would say to
people is the biggest barrier isfiguring out where your money is
(34:12):
going. If you're on a decent income and
you're like, I don't have enoughmoney to put aside.
My biggest thing is first step is do a spending on it.
Look at what you're spending money on because there's so many
things that these tech companiesmake it really easy for you to
spend money. So Amazon, Uber Eats, bubble tea
delivery, whatever. But also like all these
(34:34):
subscripts. Subscriptions.
Yeah, streaming subscriptions spend.
A couple hours on a weekend and just do that.
I always recommend to people whether you do it using an app,
whether you do it digitally, whether you just do old school
notebook track. All the spending you do in,
let's say, 2 weeks, you don't dothis for the tracking is
(34:55):
amazingly powerful. A podcast with Mark Manson, who
does a fairly popular podcast. He was talking about weight
loss. And there's a lot of parallels
between getting in shape and financially.
And these humans are amazing at lying to themselves.
Yeah. From a fitness perspective, I
can speak to it because you workout all the time and you're
(35:17):
like, I ate really well. And then you kind of forget or
gloss over the fact that after the kids have gone to bed at
9:30, you have half a bag of chips and maybe an IP, which
kind of destroys everything fromthat.
When he was doing his weight loss journey, tracking calories
and macros, even as annoying as that is, it kept him on track.
(35:38):
Same thing goes with getting in shape financially, knowing where
your money is going and what you've got coming in and
shooting for that positive cash flow.
Having more money come in that have coming out on a monthly
basis. I think that's really step.
It's super basic, but I think it'll give you an idea of you
much more aware and mindful whatyou're actually spending your
(36:00):
money on. And that's a great way to start.
And then you could say, you knowwhat?
Don't need to do the every week.If I cut that down twice a
month, that saves me $140. The therapist advice I would.
Give to be adjacent to that is as an adult with ADHD, tracking
is also the most difficult thingto do because it requires
(36:23):
executive function. And so if it's in something that
you have an organic interest in,or if you've got this organic
interest in money and finance, it won't be hard for you in that
part of your life, but it might be hard for you in other parts
of your life, right? We have a size tracking your
ADHD symptoms. And it's the most basic
fundamental thing we have to do and the most difficult thing for
people to do consistently. That I think my point is don't
(36:45):
do it by yourself. You need people in your life
that you live with that are in your regular routine to be on
board with your goals and to help you.
My husband and I were watching Untamed on Netflix and every
episode is like, you know, the hour long episode is just at
11:00. I was like, OK, start the next
one. And he's like, I had to cut you
off. You got to go to bed.
(37:06):
I've been complaining about terrible sleep.
I asked him to do that. You got to cut me off.
Like I am completely unsupervised from an executive
function point of view after 9:30.
And honey, here's what I need your help with.
And there's no shame in that because he's unsupervised in
other areas of his life too. And so we help each other out.
It's like a partnership, but youknow, I've asked for that.
(37:27):
He's not doing it without my consent.
And so I think it's really important whether you're living
with someone, whether it's your family members, your close
friend group, someone you trust at work, someone in your
everyday life, to join forces with you to form new habits and
to think about things a different way.
And that will be far more successful in terms of tracking
(37:49):
and actually implementing a change than trying to do
anything by yourself. So that's what I would add on to
that. Yeah, the accountability is
really. Powerful and I and especially
for EDT, at least that's one of the things that I accountability
friendship. Partnership, it's body doubling,
it's all of those things. Jeff, thank you so much for
coming in for this. We covered a lot of stuff here.
(38:10):
I think this is going to be really interesting and I will
probably come back at some point.
I'd like to hear what everyone wants to hear a little bit more
about. It's nice to have the expertise
as someone such as yourself. So I really appreciate you
giving up your time and the effort that you put into
preparing for this. Thank you for the resources.
We really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having
me on if we want. To do this again, I'm more than
happy to do that. Awesome.
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to season 5.
We are introducing a couple of new things and one of them will
be a series on money and the waymoney intersects with mental
health. Welcome to the Christina Crow
podcast where we connect the dots in search for more balanced
mental health. Today, your host,
psychotherapist Christina Crowe,that's me, is talking to Jeff
(00:33):
Chapman, certified financial planner, about simple ways to
manage your finances and maybe start to think about changing
your relationship with money. Jeff is the president and head
financial planner for GE ChapmanFinancial Services.
Jeff has been providing his clients with trusted and sound
advice for their insurance and wealth management goals for over
15 years. As a former high school teacher,
(00:54):
he takes great pride in sharing his knowledge and helping people
understand financial planning related topics.
Away from the office, Jeff enjoys spending time with his
wife Jamie and two kids, Henry and Jane.
He's an amid sports fan who had his best selling book, Ultimate
Hockey, published in 1999. He is a proud supporter of
(01:15):
Liverpool FC, the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Blue
Jays. Welcome, Jeff.
And good to be back. Yeah, Full disclosure, Jeff is
also a good friend of mine and Iwas in his wedding party, so
disclosing all conflicting relationships.
But I trust him and his financial advice.
He seems to know what he's doing.
He has never led me astray, so I'm happy to bring him in.
(01:38):
And he was. I think it was season 1 or
Season 2. We had that overall financial
discussion very, very well. Yeah, the economy was better
back then and people, it's not that.
There was times when maybe if you're always stressed about
money or you don't like thinkingabout it, it was easier to not
think about it in those days than it is today in 2025.
(01:58):
Yeah, a little bit's changed in the last couple.
We've got the fellow who's in charge South of the border, and
that's given some people's pause.
We've seen interest rates up anddown and then inflation.
At any time anyone goes to the grocery store, especially if
you've got kids, you know that prices have been going one way
and it's not been down. I haven't bought an avocado in a
year. I refuse to buy an avocado that
(02:20):
cost me $3.50. Is avocado toast still a thing
with the millennials? I would rather buy the mushed up
guac in a container and spread that on my toes if I'm really
getting desperate. Even that though, that's almost
8 or 9 bucks for a container these.
Days my strategy is no brand loyalty, so I buy what's on
sale. I have brand loyalty for like
(02:43):
ketchup. There's very few things I don't
know about you guys. No, it is a lot of times going
to be dictated by as you said, the the price of whatever is on
sale. So I think that's a good way to
look at it and a good way to lean into our topic today.
Yeah, money really stresses people out.
Not a lot of us get an educationand money.
(03:04):
I know our government of Ontariois trying to change that, and I
suppose the effects of that changing curriculum probably
won't show up for a while. What do you hear in your neck?
Of the woods, well, it's kind ofthe age-old issue, right,
Financial stress and money stress is always kind of weighed
on a lot of people. And I think when we talk about
(03:25):
that, I think we have to prefaceit by saying that what financial
stress you might be facing, it Imight be facing are not always
going to be the same. So financial stress for some
people is, am I going to have enough to money just to have in
retirement? Am I going to be able to live OK
or am I eating cat food? Some people are saying, you know
(03:45):
what? I'm not sure I'm ever going to
be able to put enough money together to put a down payment
on a house. Don't know how I'm going to pay
rent this month and put food on it.
So I think the financial stress is going to be different for
everybody and I think it's important to kind of acknowledge
that right from the top. There's an organization in
Canada, FP Canada, and they run surveys every year.
(04:07):
And this year they came out and their findings were that 42% of
Canadians had indicated that money or financial issues are
their biggest stressor in life. That's a big thing.
Most 1/2 of them are saying money or finances are the
biggest stressor. That's an issue.
Yeah, I I think it's really huge.
And I also think when I think about our young people as a Gen.
(04:31):
Xer observing younger generations distressor they have
that I didn't have growing up, was seeing varying degrees of
wealth or access to totally different lifestyle every day on
my phone, right? As far as I knew.
Like most people are limited to the view of the folks around you
(04:52):
in your classroom, in your neighborhood, within your
immediate family. And that's just normal.
I can't imagine what it would belike growing up, turning on
whatever device you have and seeing like there's kids and the
vacations and the jetting here and there.
I feel for a single people dating in the city competing
(05:12):
with this idea that it's normal to have someone fly you to
Florida for a weekend or fly youaway.
That's how people are dating Quam doing air quotes that is so
naughty that there's conversations that that's what
folks should be looking for in apartner.
Someone who's got the capacity to do that blows my mind.
(05:34):
Yeah, I think you nailed it there.
I mean, we're in the age of era of social comparison, right?
It's it's everywhere. It doesn't matter where you
look, people will be wanting to show off.
This is not always 100% factual or truthful, right?
As somebody who's taking a picture and you see the final
product that you don't see the 48 takes it took to get there,
(05:56):
that's going on behind the scenes.
The same with finances. I think when somebody posts
something to Instagram or Facebook, you see these amazing
vacations, Europe, Hawaii, wherever, new cars, houses, and
what you don't see is what the price tag is.
Full price tag. What did you would have to do to
(06:17):
refinance your mortgage, or whatlevel of credit card debt did
you have to go into? So it's all easy to see what
people show from a material perspective, but you don't ever
get the inside scoop of what theactual financial cost is for
these things. Yeah.
I think I talked about this the first time we talked.
(06:39):
I said I feel like the most important concept I learned and
I didn't learn it until I ridiculously took first year
economics in university. I did learn the really important
concept of opportunity cost, which is exactly what you just
said. If I buy this, what am I not
using those resources for? I think you were talking about
the total cost being the cost plus the interest on whatever
(07:00):
credit product you're using to purchase the thing, right?
And there's that cost, there's psychological cost.
There's so many things that go into things that are invisible
and we don't really think about it.
Back in my early 20s and late teens, trying to learn about
money, 'cause I don't feel I learned anything about it
growing up, really. It was a very mysterious.
The resource was books, like youwent to chapters and if you
(07:23):
couldn't buy the book, you just sat there 'cause they had
couches back then and read the book.
But today it's like the resources.
While the books are still there.That doesn't seem to be where
people go to get information. They go to social media, they go
to websites, they watch YouTube clinics, I suppose.
And if they're provided by credible people such as yourself
that are regulated and certifiedand have rules about what you
(07:45):
can and can't convey to the public, then that's OK 'cause I
think it's OK to learn in lots of different ways.
But unfortunately, those environments are inundated by
bad actors. And the thing that people don't
necessarily fully understand is you'll see these, and I don't
love the term, but you call theminfluencers, right?
(08:07):
What's? The financial influencer, right?
And in a lot of cases, you don'twant to think the entire group
of people with a brush, but you kind of see some of these
individuals and what their goal is.
And I think the issue is that they're not regulated, so they
can go and say stuff and there'sno regulatory board who's going
(08:27):
to come and say you can't do that.
Like you can't promote individual securities.
Let's say you can't, like I couldn't go on to YouTube or
TikTok and say, hey, everybody, let's buy Apple today.
It's a great thing to do. I, I think some of these
influencers will kind of go towards that.
And maybe it's because they're being compensated by these
(08:48):
companies to. They're supposed to disclose,
but right, you're supposed. To.
I think that's kind of where you're looking at or what are
they trying to sell courses, right?
It looks all good, but now you're buying my course.
So it's. Which is just an ad, right?
Right. You're, you're using it to drive
people to whatever the income producing vehicle is from their
(09:10):
perspective. Just got to keep an eye out for
that. I would say that the intent of
that regulation in your industryis the same as the intent of the
regulation in my industry is a group of self regulating
professionals. We have a set of rules and
guidelines we have to follow andit's up to us to follow them.
So the government's not necessarily policing us unless
someone turns us in, right? We have to police each other.
(09:31):
We have to be adherent to our ethical code of conduct and the
way that we do things. And the reason we can't ask for
Google reviews, make guarantees,say this treatment for sure is
going to work, is because you don't know whether well, every
person has a different circumstance they come from.
You have to be careful when giving up broad spectrum advice.
(09:53):
Take it for a grain of salt whenever it's generally provided
as advice, but we have to get really specific when we're
making recommendations to a one-on-one client.
Yeah. And it's the same in this
industry, at least it's supposedto be the same in this industry,
right? They've introduced the financial
services Regulatory Board, all that.
They've introduced a lot of client focused initiatives in
(10:16):
the last number of years. I still don't think it's
necessarily enough, but it it's stuff like we'll use insurance
as an example. You come to me and you say, you
know what, I need life insuranceand I think typically, but life
insurance ought to go too far off topic, but people will say,
you know, I pick a rush around the 500,000.
A million sounds like a lot of money and it is.
If you find you're still earningan income 1,000,000 bucks is it
(10:39):
would be a lot of money. However, if you lose a spouse
and you still got a mortgage andyou have to try and replace the
income with young kids, suddenly$1,000,000 doesn't seem like as
much money so. They're learning a lifetime like
is much younger than further away from retirement than you
would have thought. Absolutely.
It's incumbent upon the advisor or the planner to find out what
(11:01):
the situation is, develop recommendations based on that
situation and then present that to the client.
So for insurance, if I propose something you decide to go ahead
with it, what I have to give youwhat is known as a reason why
letter and it'll outline all of these steps that I took as the
advisor to get you to that particular point and say you
(11:25):
know what I suggested based on income replacement, based on
debt, mortgage education for thekids, this amount.
That was what it was decided. I went to these different
companies source those presentedthese quotes.
This was the decision that was made and then you have a copy of
it that is signed by me. Good advice and planners were
(11:45):
doing that sort of stuff anyway.You can't make suggestions or
give therapeutic advice until you know the situation eventual
and it's same in our industry. I can't give you a
recommendation of what you need from saving to retirement or
whatever until I go through and have done a full fact Finder and
(12:07):
figured out your goals and objectives and really kind of
deep into your situation, then Ican make those recommendations
for. You.
Yeah. And I wonder, as I'm listening
to you, lay that out. I mean, of course it's similar
in therapy. We take in all the factors.
We do a full, some initial assessment.
We say, here's how I think it can help.
Here's what I propose we do. Here's how long I think it will
take. And folks, if you're not getting
(12:28):
that from a therapist, ask for it because you, you have every
right to be in on that treatmentplan and collaborate with them.
I wonder how many people are really surprised to hear that.
I would say there's probably a few, especially if you haven't
had a lot of experience working with a good advisor and a good
planner. And that kind of goes back to
(12:50):
how people traditionally get helped in the financial planning
industry. And I think for a lot of people,
what their first step is, is to go to the big 5 banks.
They've got their savings account at TD or RBC or
whichever one it is and they'll say, you know what, I need some
help with saving for a mortgage,with figuring out my finances.
(13:10):
I don't know what's up, what's down, somebody's going to help
me. So they go into the and the
issue with the bank is it's beena not so secret even for the
last number of years that peoplekind of get it that the people
who work at the bank are really under pressure to sell.
They're working for the bank. You go into the bank trying to
(13:32):
get. Selling the bank's products.
Right. The teller will look at the
computer and say, oh, you don't have an RSPRTFSA with us.
And I said, because I'm a financial advisor, so I don't
necessarily need that. But that's really the 1st Ave.
right? They'll say, oh, you need this
or you need that, or if you do this and this and you'll get a
discount, right? So that's usually people's first
(13:53):
course of action. The problem is, especially if
you don't have a whole lot of money saved up right, just
started getting through clearingout your student debt or or
whatever the situation is, you, you don't have $400,000 of
investable asset. So when you go into the bank,
you're probably not getting top advisor or planner there.
(14:16):
You're probably going to get shuffled off to a junior advisor
and you know, again, you don't want to pay them all with the
same brush, but these advisors are under pressure to sell.
So I'll especially if you're in your first couple of years
trying to move up the corporate ladder and how do you do it is
really kind of emblematic of theway that the industry used to
(14:39):
be. It's not about helping the
clients and delivering the advice that they need.
It's about sales and production and trying to get as many assets
as you care. So what ends up happening is
you're going in looking for somehelp on this.
You end up getting something that you may not need or is not
(15:00):
necessarily in your best interest.
And I think that kind of scenario, we've heard it from a
number of people that turns people off of going and actually
getting the proper help because their first experience didn't
go. I know we'll have lots to say
about people that are in their mid to late 30s and onward.
Where should Gen. Z go?
(15:21):
Like, where should people in their 20s and maybe just
creeping into early 30s go for financial advice?
We talked. About social media before and if
you can parse out the those influencers and go to people who
have got actual designations behind their names.
(15:41):
And I'm going to speak from people in the Canadian market.
If you go on whether they're active on Twitter or X or Elon's
distraction machine or whatever you want to call it these days
and also on Instagram and, and that sort of thing.
There's a lot of really good Canadian planners and a lot of
them are younger, so in their late 20s, early 30s, who've kind
(16:03):
of embraced providing good educational content or I learned
stuff from these guys. I've been in the industry for
almost 20 years, so I know a fewthings and I'm reading some of
their stuff and I'm like, I didn't know that.
There's always something new, whether it's a legislation or a
unique tip that you can use for your clients that I'm picking up
(16:27):
on. I'll give you a couple of names.
I mean, maybe we put them in theshow notes and we can put their
Twitter handles like Sam Rook. Jason Pereira is great.
Aaron Hector I think is out of Alberta.
He's fantastic. I hope I got that right.
He's fantastic. He actually did the CFP this
year and was #1 in Canada and hedoes a lot of short form videos.
Cool. He's a great resource.
(16:47):
And then Julia Chung as well. Julia is great because she's
also, I think her title is the board chair for an association
called the Financial Planning Association of Canada.
Relatively new and I'm going to be I'm not even a member of this
organization yet. ADHD is and yet fantastic
(17:08):
resource. And one of the things that is
fantastic if you go on their website, God kind of a find an
advisor tool. Not only who these folks are in
what region they are, but what their specialties are.
And I think importantly for the younger generation, it will what
their method of compensation is going to be.
(17:32):
Because for the longest time, the industry was assets under
management, a percentage of whatever your assets, which kind
of goes back to before. If you didn't have 400,000 when
you walk into a firm, most senior experienced advisors,
that's not worth my time, right.That puts the people who are
just starting out a little bit behind the 8 ball, but there's a
(17:54):
fee based or advice only whetherit's hourly retainer project
that may be a great resource forsomebody who is just starting
out. So the FPAC website and I think
all those people I mentioned areall members of that organization
that I really should we'll make sure we.
Link those handles in the show notes for sure.
(18:15):
I appreciate all of that becauseI think until you get to the
place where you can actually afford to hire somebody that's
got a lot of experience in a professional, like that's a
normal part of the trajectory ofyoung adulthood into middle
adulthood and onward. There's there's other things to
do. And so getting quality free
education available in abundance.
(18:36):
It sounds like online is the 1stplace to start.
There's this cohort of the Gen. Z generation that is very much
into this anti capitalist. Not so we were like down with
the man. Like in our day, it's less down
with the man For them, it's morelike anti capitalism.
We're not going to play your game.
Instead of them having to watch lifestyle creep, they don't buy
(18:58):
anything new. They thrift everything they have
so cool to never actually buy anything new.
And then there's another cohort in that lifestyle creep, keeping
up with the Joneses kind of thing, the MO money, MO
problems. I like that as you start to gain
a little bit of career and wealth, you get yourself into a
situation where it's nice to have a little bit of extra
(19:21):
money. It's nice to have that cash flow
right. And if you haven't set up a lot
of automations to save for the future, especially if you're a
steer like we are, something that's 25 years from now is hard
to think about today. Like 2 weeks from now is hard to
think about, never mind that farin advance, whether it's your
treatment and going to therapy or your financial decisions and
(19:45):
the impact that's going to have later and what you're going to
wish 25 year old you did when you're 45 or 55, Right.
So automating as much as you canis probably one of my biggest
pieces of advice. What do you think about that?
Yeah. I I try and do it as much as I
can because it's basically set it and forget it.
And if you're going to put this amount into my tax free savings
(20:09):
account every month or my RRSP every month, I think the old
school method was 1520 years agowhen they really didn't have
those monthly pre authorized deposits.
So what people would do is they would get to the end of February
when had to get your RRSP contribution for the year so
that you could use it to reduce your taxable income for the
(20:31):
previous year. And they try and put together
$5000 or $10,000 or whatever. And that's a big ask for a lot
of people. So you look at it and say, OK,
if I look at my overall financial situation, I can
afford 200 bucks a month to put in just starting out.
I want to put that into whatevertax reset is.
(20:53):
Are you more likely to be able to stick to $200 every month for
12 months or are you going to beable to rustle up 20, four, 2500
bucks at one point in the year to put a contribution in?
So I think for the vast majorityof people, it's going to be the
former. You can just put it in.
(21:16):
And I'm not, I always, I'm goingto be careful with this because
I, I never want to suggest that people should just leave, live a
Spartan lifestyle and, and don'tspend on anything.
You know, you've got to enjoy your life to to a point, but I
think you look at your finances holistically and say I, I need
to start saving money for and I can, based on my income and
(21:37):
expenses, realistically afford to put 200 bucks a month into
that. I can't, yeah, just set it up on
the 1st of the month or the 15thof the month and it goes and
it's amazing. If you think, OK, I'm not gonna
be able to afford that. And what's gonna happen is it's
you're going to see that you'll you'll cut out your daily
(21:57):
coffee. Maybe you go three times a week
as opposed to five. Yeah.
Or maybe you don't order a private taxi for your burrito
once a week. Maybe you do that twice a month
as opposed. I mean, you're not supposed to.
Uber in bubble tea. Whatever you'd like, as long as
you have one, it means for it. But that's one of those things
that it's so convenient and you don't feel the pain of those
(22:19):
purchases because it's automatically tied to the credit
cards. If you have to hand somebody $15
in cash, I guarantee you that the number of times that you
would Uber Eats or Skip the Dishes, a bubble tea would go
down significantly. It's.
Unbelievable. And all of those spends you do
in all these different apps. So it doesn't connect like the
(22:41):
total number doesn't connect unless you make a habit of
staring at your bank balance at the end of the week, I think.
That's for us as adults, but I think it's at this stage that
this is where the tricky part isfor teaching kids about money.
Because you mentioned from the top that the Ontario curriculum
(23:01):
has changed and they're startingto put these financial education
pieces into play. So the kids are going to learn
about this, which is great. It's very much long overdue.
It doesn't do a lot for us because we have to learn that
ourselves. I think there's still going to
be an element of this. It's incumbent upon the parents
to teach the kids about it. Digital spending versus physical
(23:26):
spending is very difficult personally on finding to kind of
get the kids to learn about because they want to spend their
money on digital gift cards likewhatever game they're playing.
It's not. Real, right?
Whatever the latest soccer or basketball game is, yeah, that's
what they want to spend it on. Press a button, have mom and dad
(23:48):
come over and put their thumb down or enter a passcode and the
money's magically gone. But they don't steal.
It's not like we did. Like if I'm glad the Roblox.
Wasn't around when our kids werethat age.
No, I. Mean I got to date myself here,
but if I wanted to play a video game in the these, I would have
to save up my money and go down to Toys-R-Us.
(24:10):
And the Nintendo section had a wall of all the cover.
You could see the cover of Donkey Kong or Baseball Stars or
Super Mario 2. And you go and you pick what
game you want give you the card for.
Did you go home and play it? And then you are kind of stuck
with that decision and you have to.
My kids are like, I spent 15 bucks on this game.
(24:33):
I don't like it. I want another now.
Trying to get the kids to understand the value of money is
really difficult these days whenthe majority of their purchases
are going to be done digitally. I don't know if we.
Talked about this last time. The one thing that really worked
for us was when our kids are allunder the age of 10, every
(24:54):
family goes through this. There's that age where no matter
where you go, they're like, mommy, I want this, daddy, I
want that. Everything in the grocery store
is strategically placed at theirheight, like chocolates,
candies, whatever. It was driving us kind of crazy
because times 3 it's a lot. So we drove to the bank, opened
them all up individual bank accounts, gave them each a debit
card, paid them rewards chart wise for chores and things they
(25:18):
did. If they didn't do them, they
just didn't get paid that week. If they did them, they got their
allowance like a dollar a week per age or some equivalent.
It hit a cap at some point. It allowed us as parents to see
their spending. Any time we went out, they'd be
like, I want that. I'd be like, cool, buy it.
Did you bring your debit card? Oh, I forgot.
So then they'd remember to bringtheir debit card.
So then that got them starting to plan in advance and to think
(25:40):
about things like, OK, so we're going to go to the grocery
store. If you think you're going to
want to buy something, you best bring your debit card, 'cause I,
my, mine is for our food, right?And that it'd bring their debit
card. It was interesting to see which
kid would just spend it all every week, Which kid would
never spend anything. I swear probably still has money
in that account at 20. Then the other kid that would
(26:01):
spend in bits and starts and really think carefully about
what they wanted to do with thatmoney because it gave them power
and freedom, but it gave them choice and responsibility and
had them think ahead, right? So I feel like that's probably
one of the best things we did for them.
I think buying things online wasn't as much of a thing.
They were getting there, but it wasn't quite as pervasive as it
(26:23):
is today. Yeah, I think that's.
The biggest thing we've found, both my kids have been bugging
to buy certain things and they want to save for certain things.
So we have interest. Much like you did the allowance
and you got, you got to constantly remind them they want
the latest digital code. You went to Walmart and you
wanted that bigger Lego set and that's going to cost you like 4
(26:44):
weeks of allowance to get there.So you have to kind of hold off
on were they buying it? On credit, the credit in
advance. Jeff, come on.
They are not. There there are no loans in this
thing. One of the things we did and I'm
sure, just sure a very quick story is it very recent daughter
Jane had bugged us for a while to set up a lemonade stand.
So we did that this past weekendand I love ones.
(27:06):
When I see them in the overhead.This could be a great way.
My wife said. I had to teach the kids about
the value of money. Yeah.
So we went and bought stuff. We looked at comparing prices of
bigger jug of lemonade versus the smaller frozen ones that you
had to make. Put up the initial money for the
lemonade, the freezies, the cups, and they went and they
(27:29):
wolfed their butt off and they were out on Sunday in the heat
for three hours. They did really well.
Neighbors came by, but also we got a bunch of kids, teenagers,
but one was all done. I sat them down.
I said let's look at what we have here.
And they tallied up whatever, 40bucks, 50 bucks, whatever they
ended up with at the end of the day, they both said we want to
(27:50):
try and do this again. I said that's great.
I funded the first one. I put up the seed capitals.
But from here, you're going to utilize this money to either buy
yourself something cool or if you want to do this again,
you're going to be on the hook to buy the materials needed for
it. And so they've been really good
(28:10):
this week, but I picked them up from camp yesterday and we're
driving home. We passed Tim horton's and they
said, you know what, let's stop in for a donut.
That would be a good idea. And I said, it's not really a
donut day today. And I said, you know what we
could do, though, is we could come back tomorrow, make sure
that you pack enough money to buy not only the two of you a
(28:34):
donut, but also mom and Dad, a donut willing to do that out of
your physical money that you've earned from the lemonade stand.
Then we can go and do that. And they both kind of talked
about it and said, I think we wanna do that, so that's fine.
Yeah, you could do it. But when I said no, you can use
your own money. Well, that's no error like that.
(28:54):
How does that work? I'm like, watch, who else is
gonna pick for it? Uncle St.
Well, yeah. He's a little far away at that
point. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there are ways that you can find it.
You hesitate to turn every single thing into kind of a
learning opportunity. You don't want to be that
parent. But especially when it comes to
money, you can teach them about the value of that and the
(29:17):
decisions that are made. Yeah, It's this.
You can't do this. It's not a lecture.
It's an ongoing conversation, just like you talk about the
Blue Jays and the weather and what you're going to wear today.
It's so weird how money is such a taboo topic and families don't
talk about it, but if kids see you talking about it and they
just have to see you figure it out as well.
(29:38):
It's just when they don't see anything and it's confusing and
they feel the stress and the tension and nobody knows what's
happening and then people start snapping about what they can or
can't afford. We don't.
As a society we share a lot of stuff.
We don't talk about money. There is an emotional aspect.
It's associated with it. It's a show not so again when
(30:03):
you're showing all people see are the nice thing.
They don't see the negative aspect, the credit card debt or
the mounting mortgage and that sort of thing.
You can hide that sort of stuff.You can show the material
possessions, but you know you'reright.
This. Outward symbol to the world that
I'm OK we're OK we're doing OK right no one needs to worry
(30:25):
about us I don't want anything like pity either shame don't
look too close all that kind of stuff right you go back to.
Psychology one O 1, intrinsic versus intrinsic, right?
Like that's what this you're showing externally, that's what
you think it is, but you're not going to worry about what's
going on internally. And I think you're absolutely
right in terms of communication with your spouse, your partner,
(30:48):
but also involving the kids in that.
I think because of the value of money, because of everything
being so easy and all digital these days, it's more difficult
to communicate that to it. If you're fortunate enough to
get the roof over your head, thehouse that you're paying for,
you're able to put food on the table.
I think a lot of kids are going to say, well, we're doing OK
(31:09):
here. And actually, I had a
conversation a couple of months ago at the dinner table from our
generation. If we had asked this question, I
don't think we would have got quite the the.
E-mail. And said how much money do you
make? I am.
Happy to share what I made last year, but there are there are
two rules. One, this information does not
(31:32):
leave this table. You don't need to tell anyone
else what I made or what your mother made last year.
And there's that's a number. But then we should go through
all of the things that we have to pay right in the year.
So if you're we'll use a hypothetical $100,000, the
government's going to take 4045%of that right off the top in
(31:56):
terms of tax. So now that 100,000 becomes
55,000, and then you have to pay$1200 every two weeks for
mortgage pay. Boom.
And if you want to maybe go on avacation, even if there's just a
week at a cottage, that cost money, gas cost money.
And you see pretty quickly how that kind of dwindles down,
(32:19):
right? So I think it's not taboo.
I'm happy to share that. But I think it's just one piece
of the puzzle. That's a lovely, clear way to
explain it to the kids. I'm laughing because what's
coming to mind for me is when the kids were little and we
would get a doughnut from the Tim Horton's drive through, my
husband would always take a biteof everyone's doughnut first and
say that's the tax man, and the kids would always be like dad.
(32:42):
And then they just got used to it.
We use a lot of metaphor, I suppose, but clarity's probably
more important. We do that on Halloween.
Daddy comes in and and tackles afew things right off the top.
That's right. All right, we're feeling.
Somewhere somebody's going to betaken from you.
So if I. Could sum up some of the stuff
that we've covered. It's that there's different,
(33:04):
different things to think about for different generations.
There's different things to think about for different walks
of life and situations that you're in financially.
The bottom line in all cases though is that there's more
clear regulation, There's more clear information.
There's free educators that are out there that you've
recommended that we can all go check out to get great
(33:25):
information. And then when people are ready
to, if anyone wants to find you,I'll put your contact
information in the show notes aswell.
You guys are from Burlington now, Ontario, Yeah.
Is there any kind of advice to wrap up in terms of what you
think is the most important thing for people to know in the
(33:47):
context of the economy right nowand what's going on for people
in terms of the financial stress?
We're all That's a difficult question.
To answer and the only reason for that is no one really knows
what's going on. And I think if we've got the
biggest thing is the wild card of Mr. Trump in the states
because he can do something crazy and then it all bets are
all. The biggest thing I would say to
people is the biggest barrier isfiguring out where your money is
(34:12):
going. If you're on a decent income and
you're like, I don't have enoughmoney to put aside.
My biggest thing is first step is do a spending on it.
Look at what you're spending money on because there's so many
things that these tech companiesmake it really easy for you to
spend money. So Amazon, Uber Eats, bubble tea
delivery, whatever. But also like all these
(34:34):
subscripts. Subscriptions.
Yeah, streaming subscriptions spend.
A couple hours on a weekend and just do that.
I always recommend to people whether you do it using an app,
whether you do it digitally, whether you just do old school
notebook track. All the spending you do in,
let's say, 2 weeks, you don't dothis for the tracking is
(34:55):
amazingly powerful. A podcast with Mark Manson, who
does a fairly popular podcast. He was talking about weight
loss. And there's a lot of parallels
between getting in shape and financially.
And these humans are amazing at lying to themselves.
Yeah. From a fitness perspective, I
can speak to it because you workout all the time and you're
(35:17):
like, I ate really well. And then you kind of forget or
gloss over the fact that after the kids have gone to bed at
9:30, you have half a bag of chips and maybe an IP, which
kind of destroys everything fromthat.
When he was doing his weight loss journey, tracking calories
and macros, even as annoying as that is, it kept him on track.
(35:38):
Same thing goes with getting in shape financially, knowing where
your money is going and what you've got coming in and
shooting for that positive cash flow.
Having more money come in that have coming out on a monthly
basis. I think that's really step.
It's super basic, but I think it'll give you an idea of you
much more aware and mindful whatyou're actually spending your
(36:00):
money on. And that's a great way to start.
And then you could say, you knowwhat?
Don't need to do the every week.If I cut that down twice a
month, that saves me $140. The therapist advice I would.
Give to be adjacent to that is as an adult with ADHD, tracking
is also the most difficult thingto do because it requires
(36:23):
executive function. And so if it's in something that
you have an organic interest in,or if you've got this organic
interest in money and finance, it won't be hard for you in that
part of your life, but it might be hard for you in other parts
of your life, right? We have a size tracking your
ADHD symptoms. And it's the most basic
fundamental thing we have to do and the most difficult thing for
people to do consistently. That I think my point is don't
(36:45):
do it by yourself. You need people in your life
that you live with that are in your regular routine to be on
board with your goals and to help you.
My husband and I were watching Untamed on Netflix and every
episode is like, you know, the hour long episode is just at
11:00. I was like, OK, start the next
one. And he's like, I had to cut you
off. You got to go to bed.
(37:06):
I've been complaining about terrible sleep.
I asked him to do that. You got to cut me off.
Like I am completely unsupervised from an executive
function point of view after 9:30.
And honey, here's what I need your help with.
And there's no shame in that because he's unsupervised in
other areas of his life too. And so we help each other out.
It's like a partnership, but youknow, I've asked for that.
(37:27):
He's not doing it without my consent.
And so I think it's really important whether you're living
with someone, whether it's your family members, your close
friend group, someone you trust at work, someone in your
everyday life, to join forces with you to form new habits and
to think about things a different way.
And that will be far more successful in terms of tracking
(37:49):
and actually implementing a change than trying to do
anything by yourself. So that's what I would add on to
that. Yeah, the accountability is
really. Powerful and I and especially
for EDT, at least that's one of the things that I accountability
friendship. Partnership, it's body doubling,
it's all of those things. Jeff, thank you so much for
coming in for this. We covered a lot of stuff here.
(38:10):
I think this is going to be really interesting and I will
probably come back at some point.
I'd like to hear what everyone wants to hear a little bit more
about. It's nice to have the expertise
as someone such as yourself. So I really appreciate you
giving up your time and the effort that you put into
preparing for this. Thank you for the resources.
We really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having
me on if we want. To do this again, I'm more than
happy to do that. Awesome.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.