The Biggest Financial Mistake I Ever Made

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_00]: This is The Canadian Investor, where you take control of your own portfolio and gain the confidence you need to succeed in the markets. Hosted by Braden Dennis and Simon Belanger

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, so I'll be doing a bit of a different format today because as you may notice I'm going to be solo for this episode.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just because Braden and I couldn't find time this week to record between his busy travel schedule and the chaos of putting my home for sale, which I just did a couple of days ago.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's been a lot of traction so it's not been easy to find some time and allow the showings and obviously for those who may have put a home up for sale and with toddlers and young children, it's not always easy to keep that clean and finding the time to do all of that.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll be going over today my biggest financial mistake and what I learned from it.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So even if hearing this helps only one person that might be in a similar situation than what I went through roughly 10-15 years ago or serves as an encouragement to keep going when things are difficult, I think it'll be worth the time.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was inspired for this episode by Ray Dalioch's book of Principles, Life and Work.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: The book has some components of investing and there is a second part of it, so a second book that is more focused on the investing part.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't gotten to that book just yet but I'll keep everyone posted but I do encourage people to listen or read the book.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_01]: What is really amazing for the audiobook is that Ray Dalio actually reads a good portion of it himself.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is just personal for me but listening to Ray Dalio I find is very, I just love listening to him talk and explain things.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why it's not everyone but for him it just resonates with me.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things I admire the most about Dalio is how humble he is and how openly he admits mistakes that he made throughout his personal and professional life.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean during this book even goes through early on in his career when he started Bridgewater that it almost went belly under, almost went bankrupt but he was able to recover.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course now it's arguably one of the most or if not the most successful hedge fund ever.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But despite all of that, if you listen to Ray Dalio talk, he remains very humble and that's something I value a whole lot.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've talked about this on the podcast before but for me, seeing people that are showing off their wealth, I mean it's all nice, good for them.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Whether they have it or not or just in debt which will be a big theme of the biggest mistake I've ever made.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But for me, it resonates way more if I meet someone and they're extremely successful and say a year or two down the line, I just realized that.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: They never told me themselves, they never alluded to it.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that I just have a lot of respect for people like that.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, I've talked time and time again about my mistakes.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not a podcast where we just talk about our good moves.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Clearly we do as well but I've made some pretty major mistakes and this is, I think in my view, the biggest financial mistake I've ever made.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But again, I try to see these mistakes as just learning opportunities because the way I see it, the mistakes I make in my life help me not make bigger mistakes down the line.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Help me be the person that I am today.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's go how it all started.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure how long this episode will be.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm assuming it will probably be around 25, 30 minutes, maybe a bit less.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to go and ramble on and on so I did try to detail because this happened.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of it happened around 10, 15 years ago.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a bit more from the early time.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, obviously I had to think about things a little bit.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Some numbers might be slightly off but I think they're pretty accurate based on what I can remember.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So I took the time to put down everything so I wouldn't just try and think about all the amounts and so on.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So it all started back in my early 20s.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I was, I think, 21 at the time, 22, almost 20 years ago.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't recall if I mentioned this on the podcast before but I ended up buying a triplex with the money I made playing online poker because online poker back then was extremely profitable.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was a poker boom for those familiar with poker.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_01]: You might remember Chris Moneymaker.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that was his last name, although we all thought it was his real name but he apparently changed it.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But it was this person who qualified for a very low amount for the World Series of Poker main event, ended up winning it.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And then a lot of people poured in to start playing poker, whether it was in person, also known as live poker, if you're not familiar with that term, or playing online.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So you saw these sites like PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Party Poker back then, Ultimate Bet.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: All these sites were extremely popular.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And with this large pool of people, if you were willing to actually take the time and not play and actually read some books, learn, use some softwares to put in some different type of situations while not playing because you're not allowed to use those softwares while you're playing.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But just doing these, you know, this homework, basically, it was extremely profitable.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up making a decent amount of money and buying a triplex with the down payment that I got from playing poker, which may sound a bit odd.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_01]: But yes, that's exactly what happened for me.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up selling the triplex that I bought about five years after owning it and made actually a quite nice profit, especially at the time because I was, I think, around 25 when I sold it.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a little couple of years older, 26, 27 around there.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was definitely a big chunk of money.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It was, I think, around 75, 80,000 in terms of the profit when the mortgage was paid off.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So at that time, it was quite a bit of money for me.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, it was a big chunk of money for someone in their like mid, late 20s.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up investing some of that money and used the rest to buy a house, which was an estate sale.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I've mentioned before, I started investing when I was 18 and it wasn't a straight line for me.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, I started first investing.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I stopped for a few years.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when I sold the triplex, I used the fund, used part of that money to invest again and used the rest of the money to buy the house and that estate sale.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: My idea was to renovate the house, live on the main level and create a basement suite to get additional income.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So really renovate the house how I wanted it to be kind of my dream house.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a bungalow and then have the basement give me additional income.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So sounds like a pretty good plan when you think about it.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Where I got in trouble is that I ended up not planning the renovation well and I ended up blowing through my budget.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I even had to sell the investments that I had made that I just talked about, which had done pretty well, granted, but I didn't keep them for that long.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: A big chunk of it was invest in Apple and a few other ETFs.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Back then, there wasn't as many ETFs, but there were still some that were available.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had to sell those investments to pay for the renovations.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: However, selling those investments, some of which were in an RRSP, also created some tax issues.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That's because I didn't save enough on top of the withholding taxes for when essentially the tax bill would come up in April when I would file my taxes.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So what ended up happening is I ended up owing an additional $5,000 in taxes when I filed my taxes, which I did not expect at the time.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: All in all, because of the renovations, they didn't go well.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I ended up racking up about $20,000 in debt.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of which was high interest because it was a credit card.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: There was also a line of credit, but relatively high interest debt at that point.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So at the time, I was also single.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So having to, you know, just rely on my own income, having to service my mortgage, car payment, my debt payments, barely left me with any money for anything else.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Like even food was kind of tied at that point.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So add the taxes I owe to the government, which I was able to kind of negotiate an installment plan of 12 months, which Revenue Quebec, the home was located in Quebec, you know, offers.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They offer longer installments, but it's a bit of a longer process.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you have to sign more things and stuff like that.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up opting for that after giving them a call and telling them I just couldn't pay the $5,000 right away before the deadline.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was also not easy in that situation because I was in my late 20s at that point, single.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I had some friends that were also single that wanted to go out clubbing, partying.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I would often have to say no because I just didn't have the money.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: A few months after a few months of stress, I went and got my debt consolidated.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I came to the realization that I just couldn't continue like this.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And if I did, I'd probably have to file for bankruptcy.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So the loan ended up being around $33,000 if my memory serves me well, since they required me to use the consolidation loan, essentially to get rid of my car loan and add it to the consolidation loan.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I was in the 20K.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I talked about it ended up being $33,000.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So the loan period, payment period was over six years.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So what did I end up doing?

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a couple of things that I took in terms of steps.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So first, I decided to sell my car.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: It was actually quite a nice car that I bought used, a couple years used when I bought it.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I bought it for around, I think it was like $20,000, $23,000.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, this is like going back pretty far out.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So you can forgive my memory if I'm, you know, giving a bit more rougher number.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And for those familiar with Volkswagens, it was a Golf R32.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So the 2008 model, if you're not super familiar, it was basically kind of a special edition of a GTI, a Golf GTI, which is, which was also all wheel drive.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was a very nice car for 2008 had a lot, like pretty much all the options you could think of.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So I sold the car for $11,000 and used $4,000 of that amount to pay off what was left owed in income taxes because I had been making those installments for a few months at that point.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I used the rest to get the loan down, the consolidation loan down from $33,000 to $26,000.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_01]: From that point onwards, I used public transportation, which was buses, you know, for where I lived.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't ideal, but I learned actually quickly to enjoy it.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So instead of being like kind of stressed driving in traffic because Ottawa traffic, if you're familiar with it, especially if you're coming from the Quebec side, can be quite intense, especially rush hour with the bridges here.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So I just enjoyed to like, you know, sit down, relax, listen to podcasts, read some books, etc.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I was determined to pay off the consolidation loan as quickly as I could.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I had a good job at the time, but I needed more income if I wanted to do that.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: If with my current income, I could, you know, realistically pay in the sixth year, but I wanted to get rid of it as soon as I could.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So what I ended up doing is I would work during the day, get home, and then I would start up poker tournaments.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: These very small stakes, these games that were ranging between $2 and $8 in buy-in.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So very small stakes.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd play tons of them at the same time.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So what that's known as multi-tabling when you're playing poker.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And on average, I would make about $20, $25 an hour doing so.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: May not sound like a lot now, but 10 years ago, that's not a decent amount of money.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's a decent amount of money per hour doing that.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's something I actually enjoyed doing as well instead of trying to get another part-time job that I would have hated.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So I decided to do that.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I was very consistent with that.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And then my day after I was done with these games, I would go to the gym around 8.30, 9 p.m.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I would work out for an hour, an hour and a half, get back home, go to bed, and repeat.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So I did that for close to a year.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I was also fortunate that I did well in some larger tournaments where the buy-ins were still small, like $10 or so.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: But there were a lot of people.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01]: You're talking about like thousands of people playing these tournaments.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And you end up having some pretty big prize pools if you make it to the final table.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So typically the last six or nine, depending on the type of tournaments that it is.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up making a couple of big wins.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_01]: One was like $5,000, the other one $8,000.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So that also took a big chunk out of the consolidation loan that I have on top of every day playing these small stakes games.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I would play these larger tournaments typically on the weekend because they can take like 10 plus hours when you have big fields like that.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Which is fun, but it's also very, it's a grind.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Definitely when you hear poker players say that it's a grind, it is.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you have to stay focused for a long period of time.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's what I did.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And if someone is in a similar situation, of course, and you want to pay off quickly, I'm not saying go play poker.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think what you could use as motivation here is getting another source of income to really put some extra money in those debt and try to get rid of them as soon as possible.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So after a bit more than a year, I had the loan and my taxes paid off.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So before I go through what I learned from this, I wanted to just kind of talk about the investing part a little bit because, of course, this is the Canadian Investor Podcast.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So if I didn't talk about the investing part, you know, what's the point of this podcast?

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So although I started investing when I was 18, like I said, it wasn't a straight line for me.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to reinforce that.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned it already, but I think it's just a reminder.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, ideally, everyone would start investing when they're 18, be consistent their whole life, never miss a contribution.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, let's say they they're doing 100, 200 a month.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: They increase that over time, but they never dip below that.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They're they're consistent.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sometimes life happens.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you make, you know, not great decisions.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not necessarily going to be in a straight line for everyone.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you could be going through a marriage breakdown.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You could be going through a rough patch in your life, whatever it is.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_01]: You could have lost your job.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, for me, what that was in the case, I would say, of course, you know, this was mostly self-inflected by some of the decisions I've taken.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to say that, you know, it's OK if it doesn't go in a straight line.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_01]: At the end of the day, you can't change the past.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: You can only go forward.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's good to remember.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's now been close to 10 years since I got rid of that.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've been investing very consistently ever since.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: A few times I've had to, like, hold off on making my plan contributions just because I had some, you know, events come up recently.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I had to pause for a few months because I had to pay sooner than I thought installments to the CRA for my taxes.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I mentioned it on the podcast where normally for the income that we get for the podcast, I'll just put that into GICs that will mature around tax time.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you have to pay, I think it's $3,000 in additional taxes for more than two years in a row, the CRA will actually force you to make a two yearly kind of deposit based on what you paid in the previous year.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So that came a bit out of left field.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't aware of that.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'll still have the GICs when they mature and I'll have to I'll have basically paid most of my taxes in advance.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Not the end of the world, but I just had to move a little bit of things around and just put a pause on my my contribution.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Not a big deal.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, it's just a short term thing.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But all that to say that I've been very consistent since then.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I'm in a great spot financially right now.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I I'm very happy with where we are at.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We own our home.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_01]: My wife and I, we have tons of equity in it.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But most of our net wards is actually in other assets.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not in real estate.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's probably a third real estate.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And the rest are other investments.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So what did I learn from this?

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Because like I mentioned early on, you know, this was my largest mistake.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think, you know, mistakes happen.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: People will tell you they never make mistakes are just lying to you.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone makes mistakes.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Not everyone may make as large a mistake for as I did here.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, if I didn't take action and take that consolidation loan, bankruptcy was a real possibility for me.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, someone, if you listen to people and you feel like, you know, they only whether it's investment managers or whatever it is, they only talk to you about your their winners.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're not being truthful to you because they make mistakes.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Warren Buffett makes mistakes.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone makes mistakes.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just being able to, you know, take a step back, understand what you did wrong, learn from them and not repeat those same mistakes.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's where that's the important thing is not repeating them.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So what I learned from this, well, number one, having a budget is extremely important and make sure you have a contingency as well.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So whether it's a renovation, a new home, you're building maybe a new home or just everyday expenses.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very important to know what money is coming in, what money is coming out and also have a backup plan.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And so for everyday expenses would be a an emergency fund.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't stress enough the importance of having an emergency fund, which is your contingency.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_01]: If I had a better contingency in the situation I just talked about, I probably would not have been in that situation.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not saying I wouldn't have been or at least it would not have been as bad if I had a bigger contingency than I had at the time.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Second, I don't put all my eggs in one basket.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_01]: That was one of the biggest mistake I did in all of that.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to kind of summarize the smaller mistakes that I did within this large mistake,

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: though, that was the big mistake is I went all in on on real estate on that home.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And like I just mentioned, now I have a much better balance asset mix between the home I own with my wife and our other assets.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's really important.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And we want to keep that.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_01]: We are not we're looking like I mentioned, we're putting our house on the market while it's already on the market now.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And we have certain you know, we have a budget for our next house, which will be a bit bigger than the price we're selling now because we need more space.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Although we will be moving outwards a little bit and not as close to downtown as we are right now.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But the one thing that we are adamant about is we are not dipping into our other investments because we want to give a good balance there where we're not solely dependent on the value of our real estate or we we have a backup plan.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, you know, if we go through our emergency fund, which is we have three to I would say three to four months right now of emergency fund.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So if we go through that, we still have other assets to fall back on.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_01]: If that's the case, of course, we don't want that to happen.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But we still have as a last resort.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Number three is struggling with mental health can have a big impact on your finances.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't mention this in the recap, but I was definitely not in the best headspace when I got into all that debt, which I think definitely clouded my judgment to some extent.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're struggling with mental health, like definitely reach out for help, whether it's friends, family or a professional mental health professional.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It's worth it.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Trust me, the cost of even seeing a psychologist or mental health professional therapist, whatever it is, even though sometimes it can be expensive.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The cost is much smaller than making a bad financial decision.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You can you can trust me for that.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Number four, if you have a lot of debt, reach out to see what options you have.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I really I have to emphasize that.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So the earlier I you reached out, the more options you'll have.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So the longer you wait, typically the worse it's likely to get, not only from a debt management basis, but also mental health.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Trust me when I say that having a large amount of debt and barely being able to make the payments is very stressful.

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_01]: You can easily lose sleep overnight for this kind of stuff.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So I can definitely understand people who are struggling with debt right now.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I know we talk about lenders, prime lenders that subprime lenders.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, during the podcast quite a bit.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, people are accessing that kind of debt.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, they're probably in similar situation than I just described and really not in a good spot.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can understand how it can be stressful for them.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Number five, your inner circle or people that you know, people that you love, your friends, people are very understanding.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes it feels like you might be alone if you are struggling with the crushing amount of debt.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mentioned that I had friends who wanted to go out and I couldn't because I was broke.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, at first I made a lot of excuses.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to talk about, you know, what terrible situation I was in.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But eventually I started opening up about it.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And I found that my friends were very understanding.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes they even proposed like kind of low cost alternatives so I could join and go.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Whether it was going out or, you know, doing something that didn't cost a lot of money.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01]: You'll find that people that really cherish you will try to help you out.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's, you know, it doesn't mean like giving you money or anything like that.

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But at least, you know, provide alternatives like that.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And if they don't, then, you know, maybe you need to find some new friends and ditch them after friends.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Number six here.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So leverage or debt, like most things in life, is fine when used reasonably.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So we still have a mortgage and we're looking for a new home, like I mentioned.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm very conscious about having reasonable levels of debt and making sure that, you know, we have a very good margin of safety.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And trust me when I say this, the house that you want to buy, for example, at the very top of the mortgage approval that you've been approved for, the mortgage amount, won't look nearly as good if you start struggling to make your mortgage payments and pay your other bills each month.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So as nice as the house can be, maybe it's a brand new bill, fully renovated, whatever it is, like it looks like a magazine.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're struggling to make the payments or struggling to meet your day-to-day expenses, that house will not look good at all.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: You'll probably regret it.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So think about that when you see the allure of a new home or renovated home that's really at the top of your budget and your little, you know, your conscience is telling you like, oh, it's probably not a good idea.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But your FOMO or your desire to have something nice and shiny is trying to override it.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Just remember that because the shine wears off pretty quickly if you're struggling to make those payments.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the gist of it.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to finish this by just saying, look, if I knew what I know today, clearly things would have been very different.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I would not have made those mistakes.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I've learned about a lot about investing and money management stints.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm still motivated to every single day to learn more and more.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I see something I don't understand, I look it up.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I do some research.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, you know, sometimes you wonder, oh, if only I knew back then what I know today.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And you'll you'll notice if you listen with people that are sharing their wisdom that are older than myself, maybe, you know, they're in their 60s, 70s, 80s.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Oftentimes they say, oh, if I knew what I know now when I was in my 20s or 30s, things would be a lot different.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But again, you know, it's those experiences that you go through that help you learn these things.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And the rough time in my life drives me to keep learning about investing and sharing what I learned every single day.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's easy to look back and say, if I had not done this, then I would be here and so on and kind of look at the past.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the end of the day, the reality is, is just you can't change the past.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So you have to look forward and, you know, you can learn from the past that you can do and, you know, come at ease with it and make sure that, you know, those big mistakes, you don't repeat them again.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Because then they're not really mistakes.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: They're just learning opportunities.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's how I like to frame them.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And who knows if I had not done that major mistake, you have to keep in mind.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, maybe you have a big financial mistake that you did in your life that you look back and you regret or something like that.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, another way of viewing it as well, on top of learning from it is thinking, well, maybe if I hadn't made that mistake, then I may have made a similar or bigger mistake.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, later on.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that's another way to view it.

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll wrap it up on that so I don't go on and on.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, it's a shorter episode.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So it looks like I was right around the 30 minute mark, which I thought would be around the time.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably should stop talking soon because my voice I can started feeling the coughing coming along because I've been talking to for so long.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: This was definitely very personal for me.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It's something that I think I may alluded to early on in the maybe in the first year of the podcast.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I might have, but I thought it was good just to show because we get a lot of questions from people.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we'll try to point them in the right direction.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, it's never, you know, financial investment advice.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_01]: We talk a lot, you know, Braden, Dan and I about, you know, our own investments, our own experiences.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just trying to hopefully this will help some people that may not, you know, may or may have been through some tough times or maybe you're going through some tough times.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And this will serve as inspiration.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So that was the goal of this podcast.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Feel free to share your feedback with it.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_01]: That came from, you know, came directly from me.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is this is what happened to me in the last 20 years, roughly.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, it was more like the 10 to 20 years ago.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, let me know what you think.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_01]: If you like these kind of solo episodes once in a while.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I know people are used to the back and forth between Dan and I and Braden and I.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_01]: But because of our recording schedule, sometimes we may have to resort to these solo episodes.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So let us know what you think.

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: As always, I really appreciate all the support that everyone gives us, you know, whether it's reaching on Twitter by email.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I've said it time and time again.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_01]: We do get a lot of emails.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We try our best to respond to to all of them.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_01]: We do sometimes just missed a few and do apologize if we don't get back to you.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: But we we do try our best.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see you.

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll I'll talk to you next week.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01]: The Canadian Investor Podcast should not be construed as investment or financial advice.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01]: The host and guest featured may own securities or assets discussed on this podcast.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Always do your own due diligence or consult with a financial professional before making any financial or investment decisions.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you next week.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.