Behind the Brand®

[00:00:00] Jeff Adamson: Welcome to Behind the Brand presented by Neo. We take an inside look at the leaders behind today's most influential brands. I'm your host, Jeff Adamson. As co-founder of Neo Financial and SkipTheDishes, I'm fascinated by what it takes to build great companies. On this podcast, we'll learn from leaders that are reimagining, transforming, and innovating in the financial and retail industries across Canada. Let's get going!

Joining us on the show today is Lesley-Anne Scorgie, Founder and Wealth Coach at MeVest, a financial education company that leverages technology to assist Canadians in saving more, spending smarter, and preparing for their future.

Lesley-Anne’s passion for personal finance ignited at age ten when she invested a hundred-dollar birthday gift from her grandparents in a Canada Savings bond. At fourteen, she was buying mutual funds, and by seventeen, she was on track to be a millionaire by twenty-five.

Today, Lesley-Anne is a bestselling author, newspaper columnist, and professional speaker who is determined to simplify the path to financial security and help others achieve their financial goals.

Lesley-Anne, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:25] Lesley-Anne Scorgie: Thanks for having me, Jeff.

[00:01:26] Jeff: I am personally really excited about this chat because I feel like personal finance is one of these things that people don't talk about enough. I don't know if it's just me, but the Google algorithms, my newsfeed is just full of “Get rich by 25” and like “Do these three things”. It seems like a very influencer-focused, and there's like YouTube ads where we've got a, a guy or a girl in a garage and they've got Ferraris, and they're like…

[00:01:53] Lesley-Anne: Yes!

[00:01:54] Jeff: They're like, “I don't, I don't believe in things. I believe in knowledge.” It can be kinda overwhelming for people. So I'm really excited and I'm really grateful to have you on the show.

[00:02:01] Lesley-Anne: Thank you so much for having me. And I have to say like there are a lot of loud voices in the personal finance space. They happened to get a lot louder during the pandemic. I found that my feed just, it was like blowing up and I know which YouTube videos you're talking about, the Ferrari, the guy in the sunglasses. I know exactly what you're talking about. [Laughing]

A really good place for us to maybe even talk is on the loud voices. And I think of where today we get our information about money and those places are from social media, they are from non-traditional sources because the interest is so much higher. And that is a very good thing I think. The fact that our generation wants to know more. They are listening to these, these voices. Some of them, let's just be honest, are not very qualified and like you won't want to listen too hard to what they're saying, but like I love the energy behind it. I think it's become so relevant. I think it's hyper-relevant when we talk about the cost of living and these are good things, but it's like many, we channel it to be overr-qualified energy so that people aren't making some common mistakes.

[00:03:13] Jeff: Because when I see these videos, to me, I feel like it's a scam. Like that's my default. It's like you're advertising on YouTube, you're showing off all your wealth, and I feel like most of the wealthy people who I've met, it's quiet money. They're not in investing in things like expensive cars. And so like my default assumption is that, okay, well this is a kind of clickbait. I click on it, I pay like a couple hundred bucks for for something. But at the end of the day, I don't feel like those are the people who I should be taking my personal finance cues from. Is that an accurate assumption?

[00:03:44] Lesley-Anne: Yeah, it is. So what we know is that the flash, the sizzle, and all the fun that you see online they, they used to call this like ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ and now we call it clickbait, but what we know about the Joneses is that they're broke. When you actually peel back the payments and the layers of, and there's so many layers of payments. Wealth is built through net worth. Net worth being a combination of assets you own, offset by liabilities, and wealthy people have this equation like really nailed down. They know that the way you grow real wealth is you use liabilities to actually add to your assets. That's how wealthy people continue to grow their wealth.

And I'm gonna give you an example of what I find so hilarious and like, I'm not gonna name the name of like the person that I follow, but there's somebody that I follow and she drives a Bentley, I'm like, there's, there's no chance that you actually own that Bentley and there's no chance that the house that you're recording your videos on is owned by you. The people who actually own that house and that she's leasing the Bentley from, those are the folks that are actually making the real money.

Another way to think about this is like I, so I made my first million when I was 28 and I just a year and a half ago, like my husband dragged me to the dealership to replace my 14-year-old car because I couldn't get another car seat in the backseat and it, I was like kicking and screaming on my way to the dealership because I'm like, “I don't need another car”. And, you know, I’m like, “This is gonna be fine. My kids are gonna be fine”. And, and I finally like, I was like, fine, like I'll get the car.

I did get a very nice car, but it was, you know, it's used by a couple of years and still had some warranty on it. Half the, half the amount of money. You know this drill. You know, there are things that wealthy people spend money on, and they typically are not cars, but they typically are things like assets that grow. Could be real estate, could be investment portfolios. And you know this, like businesses, you know? Profitable businesses are another avenue for the self-made millionaire crowd.

[00:05:57] Jeff: Let's, let's go back to the beginning. I'm gonna have a lot of questions that are knuckle dragger questions that it's like, “Jeff, like, do you not know this?” Truthfully, like my understanding of personal finance is probably really different than many other people's, and I'm really interested to hear what you have to say about those.

But before we get into those, take us to the very beginning. I've read that when you received a hundred dollars from your grandparents, instead of going out and buying candy or a bike, you chose to invest it. Most 10-year-olds, even, especially myself, I would not have been doing that. Why was 10-year-old Lesley-Anne investing her money at 10 and not doing what everyone else does?

[00:06:32] Lesley-Anne: I think part of it was because there was so much pressure in my own home, like we didn't really have any money and so getting a hundred dollars for my birthday from my grandparents was like unforeseen. Like it was more than I'd ever seen before. And it was actually my mom who, despite her not being very good with money, she told me this one thing at 10. She's like, “There are savings bonds that are on sale at the bank right now, and if you put a hundred dollars in, in seven years you get $135 back.” And I, that was the very first introduction I had to compound interest.

And she further went on to say, “I know you want that bike”, because I did. I like, wanted I wanted a brand new bike. And isn't it funny how like, when I was 10, you could buy a bike for a hundred dollars [laughing]. Just, I digress for a second, but legit, that was what like, I think I was gonna get it from Walmart or something.

And she's like, Lesley, “And I don't know much about money, but I know that you're resourceful and if you did buy this bond, probably like I'll, I'll take you to finish your babysitting course and you can probably start working and make another a hundred dollars and maybe you still get your bike, but it might be six or seven weeks down the road.”

Also, don't you find crazy that like I was babysitting at 10-years-old? I cannot imagine having a 10-year-old babysit my own children! [Laughing]

[00:07:54] Jeff: I don't know if we should even say that on the podcast. I think that might be illegal nowadays. [Laughing]

[00:07:59] Lesley-Anne: I know! I know. I like, I don't even think you're allowed to do this. Anyways, I was allowed, like I started babysitting. But I also started like a little babysitting club and I hired my sister and I hired the neighbor and, and my mom was right six weeks later, I had enough money to buy my bike, but I also bought that Canada Savings Bond at that time. And we were living in Edmonton at that time and it was like, “Wow, that's pretty interesting!”

Again, growing up in a home where we didn't have much, like there were times in my young young years like where my family actually had to use the food bank. And so when money came into my hands, I was quite moved by that early experience. And I took it very like, very seriously. Like, I have to do something, I have to protect this money.

And before I knew it, like I, every time my little businesses, like my flyer routes, my babysitting club, and I also got like, I somehow got my younger brother to start cutting grass and give me a cut of it. I like took this money and I started to invest. Before I knew it, I was like fairly flush with cash and investments and started buying mutual funds when I was 14. Started buying stocks when I was 18. That went mediocre.

And I think what I had that maybe a lot of like young people have to grow into, but I seemed to have, I seemed to have it like earlier is, I was really curious about money and I was a big reader. Like my very first Jeffrey Archer book, which those are like the rags to riches tales. Like, if you've never read Jeffrey Archer, like they're classically rags to riches tales. Like I read my first one when I was 10. And I was like, “That's me, I am doing that. I would like to start business, start my own business and like get into the business world because that's something that I can control.”

So when my whole family was like feeling out of control, there was no money, it was a really, really high tension situation, money was the method for me to wrap my arms around having some sense of control for the way my future was gonna go. So, I hope that answers your question.
[00:10:09] Jeff: Yeah it does and it's, you know, it's not too dissimilar. Like when I was growing up in Saskatchewan, you know, we didn't have a ton of money. My parents were incredibly frugal. I remember after like a wrestling tournament, you know, if I won the kind of present my parents would give me for winning was a 5 cent candy. And, you know, other kids were getting like a new bike or, you know, big gifts, expensive things. And so to me it was like that upbringing of frugality. And no, I wasn't as savage as you are in terms of like buying mutual funds and, and bonds when I was 10. But I do feel like your upbringing has such a huge impact on how you view money.

And I'm curious to hear Lesley-Anne, like now you're, you're a mother, now you've got two kids at home. I imagine that your life situation is a lot different than your parents were.

[00:10:56] Lesley-Anne: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:57] Jeff: And so then when you think about raising your own kids, how do you even think about the environment they're growing up in relative to the one that you did? Because I feel like your environment has such a big impact on how you viewed money.

[00:11:08] Lesley-Anne: What a loaded question. I love it! [Laughs]

[00:11:12] Jeff: No, no. I truly don't know the, I don't know the answer though.

[00:11:15] Lesley-Anne: Yeah. Oh, and like to further add another layer to this, I also married a financial planner. Who is, who is in finance now. So like…

[00:11:24] Jeff: Yeah. It's a heavy finance house.

[00:11:25] Lesley-Anne: It's like a heavy finance house. I mean, my kids are so young. One and three. I don't have that roadmap exactly pinned down for like what, you know, what their learning path is gonna look like. You know, you'll get to know me, Jeff, and you'll get to know that like I am like about research, data. I like black and white. I don't like gray areas.

[00:11:46] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:11:47] Lesley-Anne: And I can tell you that research shows that three-year-olds start to pick up the concept of the value of a dollar. At three!

[00:11:57] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:11:58] Lesley-Anne: Like wowsers. And I am going to like further that with the fact that just last week, my son asked me where money came from. And I, I was like…

[00:12:08] Jeff: [Laughing] Just shocked.

[00:12:09] Lesley-Anne: Like are we talking about the cash register, the, like the plastic cash register that your, your grandmother gave you? [Laughing] Like…

[00:12:14] Jeff: Yeah, you have all the, all the personal finance knowledge and you're like, stumped by the most simple question.

[00:12:18] Lesley-Anne: “Where does the money come from?”

It's so funny though, like I, I find whatever he's leaning into and eventually my daughter will probably ask similar questions, like, I wanna go with the flow. So I'll tell, I'll tell you a couple of things that I do with them now is, I do take my three-year-old to the grocery store.

[00:12:38] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:39] Lesley-Anne: So we stopped doing online orders I'd say like six months ago. And we started like going back to the grocery store and I talk to him about what's happening in the store and like why we would choose one thing over another and I let him hold my wallet. Which is just super dangerous, right? Cause like they take everything out. But I let him like hold the, I let him hold money and hold the cards and, and ask questions, and I think that's a good path forward for right now.

And I think one of the things that my husband and I are super aligned on because we had to carry the burden of going to school, like going to post-secondary and paying for all that. I'd say, one thing I want for my kids is I wanna be able to not have them have that burden while they're focused on their studies. Because I remember in university I had three jobs. I was, I was paying for school, I was serving drinks at the bar at night. I was working at the library in the day. And then on the weekends I worked at the Royal Bank as like a teller and I patched together, like literally by the skin of my teeth every single semester enough for tuition.

And I think of the, kind of the goals around my own kids. It's like, yeah, I don't, I want them to, I want them to work. I want them to have the hard work ethic, but there's some things where maybe I'd like to lighten the load a little bit, you know? That would be one of those areas.

[00:14:11] Jeff: There is something to be said about going through the hardships and making some of the mistakes you mentioned earlier about investing in stocks, you know, making those mistakes, the painful lessons are so much more valuable than just being told them. Like, you can tell someone, “Hey, like, don't put all your money into one, into one stock.” But ultimately, like if they, if they do it and they lose money, then they'll actually know, okay, hey, maybe I should diversify things a little bit.

[00:14:34] Lesley-Anne: Totally. I gotta tell you, the investing journey I went on was a ride. Like it was so much like what you're talking about. I could take some advice, but I was very much like a hands-on, had to learn myself and that was part of my learning journey. And I would say that what I see with my client base and with my students today is many of them are still that hands-on learning.

And if you think about like money psychology, how we grew up and how we are as adults with money, what we know is that most of our money experiences were formed by those firsthand experiences. Sadly, for many people, like 70% of the population, those experiences happen to have a negative backstory to them, like too much debt or making mistakes with their investments, making mistakes with real estate. Which is why I think we have a bit of like a chronic anxiety problem. And like, and I, I do speak to that, like from a mental health perspective, they, they have data on this to say we do have like a chronic anxiety issue around money as a society right now.

And they're now labeling this as part of like a spectrum of wellness where we view, you know, how well are people in North America, in Canada, US and they're saying like, while finance, financial wellness is now, we pulse check people, we see how are you feeling in that area? And a lot of people are, are saying like, I don't check out very well in that category. And then they peel back the layers of the onion, which is what, like my specialty is. You know, unpack this stuff and you find out that it, to what you were just saying, those firsthand experiences, whether you were really, really young, some of those first memories all the way to, you know, your university days, we touched on that, and you signed up for that credit card that somebody sold you on campus and maybe it wasn't the right thing, like you didn't know how…

[00:16:30] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:16:32] Lesley-Anne: To use it and ended up like missing payments and, you know. And then on the flip side is, some people have good experiences where they did get the credit card, it did allow them to build their score and look where they are today.

[00:16:42] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:43] Lesley-Anne: So I think what I'm trying to get at is like all of those experiences form to make you who you are and almost like it's why you're scoring where you are on your financial wellness right now.

[00:16:51] Jeff: Well, what do you see as some of the fundamentals and, and I think like, you know, our audience, you know, I don't think there's many teenagers listening to this, it's a lot of people either in university, starting their careers, maybe midway through their career. What are some of the building blocks? Like when you do an assessment even and you're really kind of analyzing more of like the knowledge that people have.

[00:17:16] Lesley-Anne: Yeah.

[00:17:17] Jeff: Are there fundamentals that you kind of look at and say, “Okay, hey, you understand how compounding interest works. You understand, you know, inflation” and like… but what do you kind of look at and say, “Oh, you're missing these two fundamentals”? What are, what's kind of that, that foundation that you look for?

[00:17:31] Lesley-Anne: Couple of things. We always take a pulse check on how familiar someone is with their credit history and ultimately their credit score. Do they have a good history? A bad history? Because that kind of fuels their capacity to use leverage in wealth building activities or even to just pay off debt. So credit score is one of them.

Concept of habits around savings and investing. This is super unique and I specifically point to the word I use their habits. Saving and investing the fundamentals of how those things work, right. You've got the, the accounts and you put money into them, those are actually the easy part. The habits, so whether or not someone has the ability to form a healthy and consistent habit around saving for the short term things they want like emergency funds, vacations, and whether they have the ability to be consistent with investing, those are critical paths to long-term financial security and success.

So we always look at habits like, how are your habits? When we look at spending habits, I would say we tend to try and assess like, are these healthy? Could they be adjusted? Does the person understand the concept of cashflow? You know this cuz of your background in business, but cashflow is what's used to manage your business, grow your household, and just kinda like in the personal finance realm, live your life, pay your mortgage, have the life that you desire.

So where I look at fundamentals and my team included is we kind of look to see does this person understand what are the, how to increase or improve their cash flow? Which happens to allow them to pay off debt faster, save more effectively, invest better. And of course when they're doing all those things including servicing debt, their credit score starts to increase.

[00:19:34] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:35] Lesley-Anne: So, I don't like to use the word budgeting a lot. Like we have tools. Anybody can, if you want, you can go on my website, you can download our budget. There's a template there, but a lot of people do better with the concept of like mindful spending. Or making a spending plan that includes things like saving, investing, spending on things that they want, and the key is cash flow.

So the more that you keep, this is the, the trick that wealthy people know, right? The more of your own money that you keep, the more wealth you build. So the game is, can I keep what I've worked so hard to earn? And that is basic budgeting.

[00:20:14] Jeff: It actually like, it reminds me so much of personal health. You know, I was having a conversation with a teammate here at Neo and I was like, “Man, you look like you're in incredible shape. Like, what have you changed?” And he's like, “You know what? I just started eating healthier and exercising.” [Laughs] And it's so like, it's such a…

[00:20:31] Lesley-Anne: [Laughing] Thank you!

[00:20:32] Jeff: I know and it's like, but we all know that, hey, if I stop eating junk food, I start eating more fruits and vegetables. If I go for a jog, even just one more time than I am right now, those things are gonna help me. But like, maybe we're wired to, you know, always seek comfort and we're wired to not put ourselves in positions where we have to struggle. And so we often know deep down what the right things are to do… save more than you spend. But what is preventing us from doing the obvious thing?

Like there's very few people who out there who disagree with me that if I said, “Hey, listen, if you spend more than you save, you eventually will have no money.” Everyone knows that. And yet, we don't do it. And like the debt levels now in Canada, I think have never been higher.

[00:21:17] Lesley-Anne: Correct.

[00:21:18] Jeff: Despite the government giving out more money than we ever have over Covid. What is preventing us from just making these obvious daily decisions? Like I know that personal finance is very individual, but do you see like, are there some things that aren't obvious that you think are preventing, or is it just discipline?

[00:21:34] Lesley-Anne: You know, I think there's like an element of discipline. We definitely know based on research, like financially secure people are, they just are more consistent. Like they tend to treat their money like a health routine and they apply the same methods of like discipline and commitment and showing up to their finances that they would at the gym.

But I am gonna tell you, it is my opinion because I've been doing this for 17 years, the piece that does not get the airtime that it needs is the mindset around your finances. When I look at maybe a new student or a new client that comes to us, and I look at their situation, my business will throw the same tools at the situation that any other financial planning business would do. Like we all have budget templates, we all have financial planners, we all have retirement trackers. Like you name the tool, we have an iteration of the exact same thing.

The reason why some people succeed with money though, is they shift the way that they're thinking about their finances. If they've had money trauma in the past, like even financial abuse, like maybe they saw it in their own home or they themselves maybe went through bankruptcy or something, and if they're stuck in the mindset of “ I'm never going to be able to do this”, or I hear this so often, “I don't think I deserve this. Like I've been doing bad spending for so long. Like why would anything shift for me”. If the mindset shift does not happen, it doesn't matter what tool you throw at this, it will never work.

And I'm gonna give you like a really good example. So the way that I work and the way that my business works is when someone comes to us and let's say they have some debt, there's a really high chance that they've been told that they should go all in on paying off their debt, right? Like no matter what you do, put everything at it, like throw every excess piece of money at it. What we know is that that doesn't work. In fact, those folks, typically because they've done a consolidation and another consolidation, they're going to repeat the pattern because they've never shifted into the permanent solution, which is if you learn to save, you end up not ever needing debt again.

And until someone tells them that going all in on debt is actually really, really bad for your finances, they're going to keep doing that. So the way that we approach it is, of course make your debt reduction a priority, but over here you also need to start learning to love yourself enough to put money aside for your future. And that is an act of self-love. Hair and self-esteem has nothing to do with the tools, has everything to do with you saying, “You know what my future is important. I do need to have some savings because I now see that I don't wanna get into another cycle or perpetual cycle of debt.” So this is a mindset shift.
So what we know about the mind is that when people begin the act of habit formation around saving, they begin to shift their motivation to more self-love, self-care. You often see, back to the workouts, people who start saving start to drop weight that they've been carrying around for too long. They start to eat better. They start to feel better. They score more well on depression and anxiety inventories. And they start to feel better. The other piece is that the debt does go away, but it goes away for good. So the act of saving is like a very healing, a mechanism, that changes a person's ability to forever be better with money.

[00:25:37] Jeff: Easier said than done though. Is there any approaches that you've used to really get people to make that shift? Cuz like often, like my, my mentor has always said “No change without shock”. And he and then like, obviously it's, he's being a little, he's exaggerating a little bit, but often people won't make the change until something happens. You have a heart attack, the cheating spouse gets caught, you know, the alcoholic has a drunk driving accident. And that's the shock that forces them to change their life in a dramatic way. So like, how do you get people to make this radical change without them having to hit rock bottom?

[00:26:14] Lesley-Anne: It's so tough. But I think what you're getting at is why we encourage, we're like big fans of doing like, financial challenges and we run them multiple times a year for a reason. It's the shock before the shocking happens. It's usually during those challenges where we say, okay, everybody, this past January, I think we had 900 people do our detox for five days. And they had to go five whole days without spending money on anything non-essential.

I'm not kidding you, Jeff, it was wild. It was like an actual detox. And you had people having a shock that actually prevented them from hitting the moment where they did run out of credit. From being scared, you know, like if I, and I keep going, I've gone back to this twice, but like… Even in that, in that spending challenge, that no spending challenge, like we had someone leave their spouse because they had been basically like abusing the finances for so long.

And I think what I can say is like, it can be really helpful to not do this alone, so we do it in community. We encourage people to never go on their money journey alone. Like I went on it alone, and I'm gonna tell you it was very lonely to be the only… Like, I was like the only young woman thinking about money for decades, it seemed. It seemed. Now I know I wasn't the only one, but it felt like that.

And so when you ask the question like, are there easier ways? Do you need to shock your system? Like some people do respond really well to shocking the system. So I assign you, I prescribe you, if that's you listening, prescribe you a spending detox or go and purge your house. Or go volunteer and see what it looks like on the other side. There are some people who do just respond better to programs and schedules. I call those folks, like the more programmatic people and like, you know, I can tell them, grab your phone and put a diary entry in each morning to transfer money into your savings account. And the daily, I call it the daily save.

[00:28:30] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:28:31] Lesley-Anne: It's like very effective for some personalities who go, “Okay, I'm gonna move $5 or $25 over today into my savings account.” And then, I'd say like there are some people who are fine, you just give them the big goal and say, you know what your goal is to save X amount of money this month and they do it.

[00:28:52] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:28:53] Lesley-Anne: Like they figure it out and it's almost like a game for them.

[00:28:54] Jeff: Yeah. I really like that Lesley-Anne, because it's so similar to just building other habits. Those habits and that mindset, you know, starting from the mindset, I love that because the way you think will drive a lot of your actions and behaviors and ultimately your habits.

And I kind of relate it back to, like during Covid I couldn't go to the gym at all, plus I had newborns at home, so I was not, I didn't have a lot of time and my only option to kind of keep my own sanity was to start running. And I hate running. I really don't like it at all. But I was like, I know that I feel way worse about life in general if I'm not exercising.

And so then I was like trying to build the running habit and failing miserably at it. So I started basically saying, okay, well the first habit I'm gonna try to build is I'm just gonna put my running shoes next to my bed. And you know, okay that helped a little bit, but then I ultimately hit the snooze button, wouldn't get up at six, wouldn't go for the run.

So then I said, okay, the next thing that I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna put my feet on the floor as soon as my alarm clock goes off. And then it was like, it wasn't like I was trying, I didn't need to get up and go for a run. All I had to do was wake up, put my feet on the floor, and then I was like, oh, my shoes are already there. Oh, my shorts, my shirt are there. And it's like, okay, now I actually don't have that many more excuses why I can't do it. I'm already kind of like, it's already laid out there for me. So the goal became so much easier for me to achieve because it wasn't like I was signing up to go for a 10 kilometer run. All I was doing was signing up to put my feet on the floor, put my shoes on, and then it was like, okay, now I'll just go and do it.

And I feel like people, it's so intimidating to say like, I need to save up for retirement. I need to save up this much money. But, If you said to someone, don't spend any money for two days, do you think you can do that? And they’re probably like, “Yeah, I think I could probably…”

[00:30:38] Lesley-Anne: Probably.

[00:30:40] Jeff: I can probably do that. Okay, so then let's, let's start there. And you kind of make it way more achievable, bite-sized chunks. And then it's like, hey, now that you've done this, let's try stretching it out a little bit. And in the very much the same way that you build your own personal health. To me, I just see so many similarities in just whatever you're trying to do, just try to make the goal a little bit smaller maybe, if you're struggling on like the big one and then you get those, like that dopamine hit of like, like, Hey, I actually went like three days without spending on frivolous things. It feels good. You know, it builds, it builds pride.

[00:31:17] Lesley-Anne: You should be teaching my classes! I was just about to talk about dopamine. I was about to connect the dots. I will connect the dots about the detox, the spending detox, and the saving that's associated with it and the dopamine shift. So quickly, what we, why we do and encourage a spending detox is you usually have an “Aha!” moment during the few days that you do it, of just how much was going toward the latte, the, you know, the donut, whatever it was. And we ask our students to say, well, maybe you put the latte into your savings account, that's your daily save. So they start to understand that every day is a choice. And maybe you do lattes on Thursdays. Maybe that's the thing that you keep. But the other days, you're now moving that it's not even $6, it's like $7 now for a latte. You know, so you're moving that in.

So what happens when the detox, the spending detox is going on and we get people to pair that detox with the act of saving on a daily basis, there is that, that dopamine release that begins on a savings front. As you build momentum and you repeat the habit every day, the latte’s going in there today, or the equivalent of the latte’s going into the savings today, the release becomes stronger and it becomes almost like a more addictive, in a healthy way, experience with the emotions of happiness and, and what makes you feel satisfied.

The other part that I always share with my students is that on the overspending front, we know that same dopamine gets released, but it, so let's say somebody's like literally walking through the Winners and, and you know the checkout, it's like loaded. There's like a million things you can put in your cart…

[00:33:14] Jeff: Yeah the impulse aisle.

[00:33:15] Lesley-Anne: Yeah, the impulse aisle. And they do such a good job of it. Like, I go through and I'm like, do I need another pack of gum? Does does my one year old made this or that? And she's just starting to get such cute, curly hair, and I wanna get all the hair things for her. And I don't, because what we know is that as you're going through that checkout and you're overspending, there is a very, there's like a flash of dopamine that releases into the body when the overspending transaction happens.

[00:33:46] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:33:47] Lesley-Anne: And it wears off really fast because it's associated with a negative activity, that's unhealthy for you. You get a craving to go and do it again cuz that felt so good for that temporary period of time. 20 minutes. Two days. And you find yourself back at Winners because the dopamine wore off.

This is the overspending cycle from the brain chemical standpoint. So the more you continue to overspend, the more it actually perpetuates the cycle. So what we, you know, do in this kind of situation is we try and get people to step out of the situation and apply a different method of dopamine release on the savings front which does not wear off. It is a more sustained approach. And when you do the act of saving, again, it releases again and then you do it again. Cuz that felt really good. And then you do it again because it felt really good. And it actually has the ability very quickly, within like three or four weeks to basically trump the addictive sensations you may have been feeling to do the overspending.

[00:34:54] Jeff: Yeah, you kind of rewire the brain a little bit and…

[00:34:56] Lesley-Anne: Correct!

[00:34:57] Jeff: And I think it, and I think people underestimate how quickly it can happen both ways. And you can be a good saver your whole life and then get into bad habits in under a year.

I want to get more tactical though, and, and talk about some different questions that I hear a lot. And so I grew up in a household where it was like, you should, everyone should own a house. Honestly, like when I would sit down with employees and talk about some of their goals, owning a house, because we have a lot of young staff, owning a house was probably the most common goal that people had. Even growing up in my household, my parents owned their house when they were like 22, maybe even younger. They were mortgage free by the time they were 28, I think. Like they were just, were obsessed with home ownership.

And I feel like, and you live in Toronto now, so there's a lot of people and, and I am, I'm generally curious like how, how in hell does anyone own a house anymore if you live in the GTA, if you live in the greater Vancouver area, you know, even some of the Maritimes are, they're just totally priced out. So the question I really have is, renting or buying?

[00:35:57] Lesley-Anne: [Laughs] Yeah.

[00:35:58] Jeff: Do you have a, I know there's like a 5% rule out there for that, but how do you go about coaching your clients on that decision of like, hey, is renting actually better for you? And a lot of people would say like, no. Like my parents, like they thought I was just throwing money away by renting for so long. And I was like, well, I'm kind of like, the money I would be putting down to a house I have doing something else and they're like, “Ah, that's doesn't make sense at all”. So like how do you think about that?

[00:36:21] Lesley-Anne: I love that. And honestly, I like, there is such a good book that came out a couple years ago that does a much better job than I'm about to do and it's called The Wealthy Renter. The author's name is, he’s a Canadian author, his name's Alex Avery and he does a very good job of like, kind of debunking the home ownership lobby, which is so strong. What a group of loud voices, including all of our parents' generation, who by the way, did not have to pay the same price tags that we have had to pay for homes. Like, it's ridiculous.

And so I'd say if anyone's like on the fence. read that book. It will really make you think a little different about can you still build wealth while being a renter? A hundred percent you can! And in fact, you might be able to do it ease more easily than someone who is a homeowner.

So it used to be about three decades ago, they had data around home ownership, which indicated that homeowners in retirement ended up being six times wealthier than renters. And all of that has been upended. Now you've got renters and homeowners basically crossing the finish line in retirement at almost the same pace. Same size of nest eggs. And they're chalking it up to extreme high cost of living and the price tags, especially in GTA, GVA.

[00:37:49] Jeff: And also, you know, historically in Canada home prices have kind of steadily gone up. If that changes, then I think people are gonna look at houses and say “ Ah maybe, maybe home ownership isn't this way that you build wealth anymore.”

[00:38:02] Lesley-Anne: Right!

[00:38:03] Jeff: Like, I think it's a different era now.

[00:38:05] Lesley-Anne: It is and I love the open-mindedness of our generation coming to the table, asking this question, maybe for the first time ever in the past, like 80, 90 years we're saying “This is wild”. So in some of those major centers to service a mortgage right now with 20% down, not just like 10%, not just 5%, 20% down, the average household income requirements are close to $260 to $300,000 for a household to service a mortgage in one of those like GTA, GVA. That is wild! Imagine you're a young family, right? And like you, maybe you've got parental leave going on, or maybe someone's in between jobs. It's an impossible feat. And even in maybe less expensive cities, you are still finding that the household income requirements are, they're still like $175 to $250, right? We're still in that super high zone for homes.

So here's what I like to suggest. Given the high costs of owning, given the extreme like change in interest rates, which has really put pressure on the serviceability of these mortgages, I think there is no harm in saving up even more. So if you were thinking of doing the 10%, honestly, do the 20. Because it's going to put you in the habit of saving. It's gonna put you in the habit of what your costs might actually look like. I find the other piece that's super shocking is I find that the leap from renting to owning is so significant. Like you go from paying $2,000 a month and rent to like literally five or $6,000 of household costs. That's not, that is like the difference.

[00:39:56] Jeff: I think, and I think you're hitting on this, but there's nothing shameful about not owning. I think…

[00:40:00] Lesley-Anne: Correct!

[00:40:01] Jeff: That's, that's the first thing I think we need to get people to stop feeling this shame…

[00:40:05] Lesley-Anne: Guilt.

[00:40:06] Jeff: That, hey, well my parents, yeah, they owned when they were 25 and you know, I'm 30 or 35 and I don't own a home yet.I don't think… it's a different time and it's a different world that we live in.

[00:40:15] Lesley-Anne: It is a different time.

[00:40:16] Jeff: I think that's number one. And then number two, it's really underestimated for a lot of renters, but a lot of renters are focused on their career. Like they're, they're working a lot. And by renting, you don't need to spend the time on the maintenance of a home. And not only does the maintenance cost money, but it takes time. And then you're like, that's time that you're not spending on building up knowledge that you can then transfer into wealth accumulation.

[00:40:39] Lesley-Anne: Totally.

[00:40:40] Jeff: And I think that those things are, cuz people are just so driven by like, I need to check the box on owning a home.

[00:40:44] Lesley-Anne: Yeah.

[00:40:45] Jeff: And then they start owning a home and they realize, A) this is really expensive. B) the feeling I get of owning it, that pride of home ownership comes with a cost, a time cost. And…

[00:40:56] Lesley-Anne: Yeah.

[00:40:57] Jeff: Unless you really enjoy home maintenance, and some people do! I think, I personally, I actually like tinkering around the house and doing stuff with my hands. I'm not very good at it, but I still enjoy it. You should value that. If you're gonna spend all this money on an asset, you should probably value those things. And I just feel like it's, we're still stuck, there's so, so many of us stuck and just like, “Oh my goodness, I need to own a home” and without fully understanding what are we really signing up for?

[00:41:21] Lesley-Anne: I love that. I also think we're stuck in taking advice from people who shouldn't be giving it. Like, isn't it so weird how when you start talking about money, like all sorts of people give you their opinion about what direction you should go in? I see this all the time with like couples getting married and they're like, we have to buy a house and we have to have a wedding and we have to get this car. And like you, you hit the nail on the head, there's like all these pieces don't have to happen. Step back and ask what's right for you. And there are benefits to renting, especially if you plan to, maybe you plan to go and travel for your career. Like go forth, my friend! Go and travel with the good knowledge that you don't have to replace an eavestrough! [Laughing]

[00:42:07] Jeff: What are your thoughts on, cuz not everyone out there is a Lesley-Anne who's really passionate about this stuff. A lot of people they'll know a guy who knows a guy, they're a wealth manager or a financial advisor. How do you think about wealth management? Like wealth managers in general and specifically there's two philosophies, active management and more passive versus just self-directed. How do you think about that decision process of selecting one?

[00:42:31] Lesley-Anne: Let me go to the data first and then I'll explain who's who in the zoo [laughing] and like how to approach this. So, unfortunately, the data shows that DIY investors of our generation don't actually do all that well. We tend to underperform the market and that is a very expensive mistake. Now, of course there's gonna be exceptions and those folks typically have some kind of finance background and/or trading background. So I'm gonna start with that to just say generally, 97% of the time it is going to make sense for you to work with some kind of professional service for your money.

And the professional services have become really, like, much more accessible, really cool, leveraging technology. So there's everything from robo-advisors, which you see lots of advertisements for on your social media feed now. And those leverage really inexpensive products like ETFs, exchange traded funds. So you see the kind of that whole industry being disrupted. They're disrupting the mutual fund industry, by the way. Then you see the banks offering mutual funds and they're getting awfully competitive now, lowering their fees, really cranking up performance, and it's in response to the disruption with Roboadvisors taking all their business. And now you're actually starting to see a lot of that business trickle back into the banks because it's a bit more balanced.

Then you have, you know, you've got your brokers and I always think of like, I don't know if you remember that movie Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith was in that movie, he was a stockbroker, but he was at one point homeless, became the stockbroker. So there's those folks who actually sell raw stocks and bonds and they craft custom portfolios. Usually in the wealth building journey that will make sense when you have a fairly significant pool to begin your custom build of your portfolio.
That pool tends to be over $250,000 and that's when you're bringing in an expert.

And then we've got financial planners who do everything from your life insurance to your funds, and they build you a plan. Now let me head on over to one other part of the zoo. I call it a zoo because it's very complicated, like there's a lot of people involved. But there is the money coaching and wealth coaching arena, which is like that's what I worked in and that's what my business is. But it is a highly unregulated business and this is where you have almost like strategists who work on your money strategy, they have the same tools that they also are working with you on habit formation, your financial plan, how to make sure that you've got the habits to support that. But they shouldn't be selling you anything. They should be an independent offer of their voice to your financial plan.

What I'm trying to get at is like, there's a really strong chance you're gonna need help in this money journey, so go and get it.

[00:45:40] Jeff: Yeah. There's a lot of people out there that'll know someone who did really, really well you know, whether it's buying Bitcoin or if it's they bought a stock and they made a ton of money and it's just like, to me seems a lot like gambling. Like it seems like, yeah, everyone knows someone who hit it in the casino one night, but like, generally the house wins over the long run.

We're just about out of time here, Lesley-Anne. So first, I wanna thank you again for coming on. This has been really, really awesome and I actually had a ton of other areas I want to get into, but where can people learn more about you? Where can they follow you and who should be coming to you?

[00:46:13] Lesley-Anne: Thank you, I appreciate that. So MeVest at m-e-v-e-s-t-dot-c-a is my website. And you'll see on that website we've got a really active blog. So we've got weekly posts, highly relevant content. We've got tools that can be downloaded that are free. We also have paid services on there if you need more support for coaching, for financial assessments, for courses and just basic learning. We've got all of that there.

On social media at Lesley Scorge is my handle. And you know, when it comes to who should reach out? If you're not sure, just reach out because I would much rather you reach out and myself or my team tell you this is the right place to be or why don't you try in going over here. We have like, you know, kind of clarity calls that we can offer for free that I think are really helpful. You know, reach out if you've got questions! And hopefully as you're listening, you do have more questions. That's the goal. And if it's peaked your interest there are only, only good things that can come out of, you know, learning more, go to my blog, read a couple of things like. Just learn more. That's the goal here. And, and try and have some fun in the process.

[00:47:28] Jeff: Yeah and just my own personal endorsement. It's the best money that you could probably spend is going and having an expert walk you through how you can live a better life, have less anxiety. It'll have huge, positive impacts on your day-to-day, on your relationships. You know, we need to remove the stigma around money and have people feel comfortable to go and have those kind of privileged conversations with people who can really give them solid advice and kind of help filter out a lot of that noise out there. Kind of what we started talking about of all these people and all this content. And just like have conversations that are specifically relevant to those individuals. So big fan of what you guys are doing and…

[00:48:13] Lesley-Anne: Thank you.

[00:48:14] Jeff: And really grateful for you coming on and sharing some of your message Lesley-Anne.

[00:48:16] Lesley-Anne: Thank you so much, Jeff. I really appreciate being on.

Jeff [00:44:55] Thank you for tuning into Behind the Brand. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you’re interested in learning more about Neo Financial, visit us at neofinancial.com.

Behind the Brand is a production of Neo Financial and MediaLab YYC. Hosted by Jeff Adamson. Strategy, research, and production by Keegan Sharp, Alana Tefledzuk, and Kyle Marshall.